The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-05 00:00:00

COTTON FROM INDIA.

The first ordinary meeting of the shareholders of
the East India Cotton Agency (Limited) was held
yesterday in the Manchester Town-hall. The re-
port of the directors stated that the objects of the
company were to provide presses and efficient cot-
ton-cleaning machinery for the interior of India
instead of hand labour, quick and economical means
of transport where railways are not opened, and an
acclimated European staff among the growers.
Presses of great power and well- attested merit have
been purchased by the company under the instruc-
tions and inspection of an engineer from India, who
will have charge of them there, and has the utmost
confidence in their success. They will be placed
contiguous to a railway station—a position con-
sidered essential to efficiency and advantage. Owing
to the great difficulty of procuring carts in India,
the directors have felt that the company must make
its own arrangements for the quick and economical
delivery of produce at the railway stations, and
initiatory steps have consequently been taken to
organise in the Berar districts a system of relay
transit between their large stations and the railway,
in completing which they will have the advantage
of the experience of their managing director (Mr.
A. C. Brice), who applied such a system in the
Dharwar districts. In regard to the European staff,
the directors aro happy
to announce that there are
now four gentlemen in Borer establishing commer-
cial relations with the natives, erecting their own
residences, gin
'houses, and storehouses, on the lands
lately granted by Government. The managing
director, who has had great experience in this kind
of work, will proceed to Bombay by the first mail
after the meeting to perfect the organisation of the
business of the company.
till The CHAIRMAN (Mr. R. N. Fowler) said it was not
last July that the first of the gentlemen deputed
by this company to India arrived there, conse-
quently the meeting had not now to review
the operations of a whole twelvemonth, but those
only of three or four months. Tho directors ex-
pected that shortly
a railway would be completed
to Berar, where they were going to commence ope-
rations. It was so difficult to obtain men with every
one of the necessary qualifications that the directors
had felt the best they could do was to send out men
of Indian experience, and supplement them by men
of practical business habits. The directors had pro-
ceeded so far with great caution. Perhaps they
woald be accused of alowness, but they would not
have been right in risking the shareholders' money
in what might prove to have been mistakes. Their
loobjectaa
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terior.(ila
Mr. BAZLEY, M.P., moved the adoption of the re-
caenler.t)o the meeting with strong
pi no
re-
port, t,
sympathies in favour of
the object of the company.
He believed that
what was needed to induce the
natives of India to produce the kind of cotton
wanted in England eras n more immediate communi-
cation than any we had hitherto
had with them.
We required the aid of 50 companies or efforts such
as this to induce that supply of raw material with-
out which our industry could net recover. The trade
at large did not sufficiently consider the imminence
of the danger. Looking at the history of political
events affecting the industry of nations, we should
find that years elapsed before order was restored and
industry again established after political convul-
sions. It took the people of America seven years to
obtain their independence, and we knew not what
time might elapse before harmony was now re-
stored on that continent. It required a period of
more than 10 years, from the execution of Charles
I. to the restoration of Charles IL, to obtain a re-
gular establishment of order in this country. Even
if there should be a speedy restoration of harmony
in the American States, he doubted very much
whether the cotton industry would ever there re-
cover to the extent to which it had previously
existed, or keep pace with the increasing necessities
of this important industry. (Hear.) Whatever
charity and philanthropy might do, neither could
relieve the distress of the times. We needed cot-
ton to supply our industry and employ our people
and our capital. He looked upon the supply of cotton
as the necessary, and almost the only, remedy for
the deplorable state of things now existing in the
manufacturing districts of England. His friends
in the trade did not sufficiently recollect that while
the law of supply and demand would in time, no
doubt, restore the balance by giving us cotton
according to our wants, there was under that law
an important process going on now that was greatly
increasing the embarrassment. He learned that
emigration was now proceeding to a very great ex-
tent, and if some time hence we should get an
American or Indian supply of cotton the probability
might be that we should not have hands to enable
us to conduct our large establishments. He hoped,
therefore, that the cotton capabilities not only of
India, but of every other cotton-field in the world,
might be developed as speedily as- practicable.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. A. C. BRICE (the managing director) ob-
served that the cotton hitherto received from India
was the refuse of her growth, having been grown
mostly for the common purposes of hemp and other