The Sun.
London, England, 1825-03-26 00:00:00

R. opiCA L FREE-LABOUR CO M-
PANY.—Capital 4,000,000/.
PRESIDENT, His Royal Highness the Duk,: of GLO1:-
:
CESTER,
•
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
William Wilberforce, Esq. Stephen Lushington, Esq.
Right Hon. Lord Calthorpe - D.C. L. M.P.
Thomas Babington, Esq. William Smith, Esq. M.P.
Henry Brougham, Esq. M.P. James Stephen, Esq.
Thomas F. Buxton, Esq. M.P. Daniel Sykes, Esq. M.P.
William Evans, Esq. M.P. W. W. Whitmore, Esq. M.P.
PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE.
William Allen, Esq. G. G. Larpent, Esq.
T. G. Babington, Esq. Z. Macaulay, Esq.
G. G. Babington, Esq. Henry Pownall, Esq.
Edward Carroll, Esq. W. F. Reynolds, Esq.
James Cropper, Esq. Anthony Robinson, Esq.
Henry Drummond, Esq. I Thomas Sturge, Jun. Esq.
William Fry, Esq, Joseph Trueman, Esq.
Luke Howard, Esq. Henry Weymouth, Esq.
BANKERS—Sir P. Pole, Bt. Thornton, Free, Down, and
Scott, Bartholomew-lane; and Messrs. Drummond and Co.
Charing-cross.
Sor.tcrrons—Messrs. Tilson and Preston, 29, Coleman_
street.
SECRETARY—John Doughan, Esq., 13, King's Arms-yard,
Coleman-street ; to whom all communications, and applications
for Shares, may be addressed.
The object of this Company is to promote, within the British
Dominions, the growth of the several articles of Tropical Pro-
duction, by means of Free Labour.
With respect to Indigo, this object has been already accom-
plished. It was once produced solely by the labour of slaves in
the West Indies and America. In consequence of the appli-
cation ofi British skill and capital to its production, nearly the
whole of that article which is now consumed in Europe, amount-
ing in value to about four millions sterling, is raised by free
labour, and almost entirely in British India.
A similar effect might have been expected with respect to
Cotton, had the same means been employed in the same quarter
to extend its culture and to improve its quality. This, how-
ever, has not been done ; anti therefore the Cotton Trade of our
>siatic Dominions continues to labour under many disadvan-
tages. Such, nevertheless, was the impulse given to the im-
portation of East India Cotton, on the opening of the trade with
that country, that in a few years its price throughout the world
was reduced to nearly half its former amount.
On this extraordinary fall of price, the Cotton of India,
which is of the lowest quality, was neglected, and no further
attention was paid, by Europeans, either to its culture, or to
the improvement of its staple. Had a contrary course been
pursued, it cannot be doubted that the present alarming in-
crease in the price of that article might have been prevented.
It is now the more important to protide an effectual remedy
for such an inconvenience ; and for this, India seems to hold
out the only certain and permanent resource.
The official value of the cotton goods exported from Great
Britain in 1824, amounts to sum exceeding thirty millions
sterling. The continued and progressive prosperity, therefore,
of the vast interests which are connected with our cotton manu-
factures, and which obviously involve most deeply the interests
of the nation at large, requires that a vigorous effort should be
made to enlarge the importation, from British India, of cotton
wool of superior quality, if possible, to any which is now grown
there. Without such an effort, our manufacturers are likely to
be reduced to very serious difficulties from that enhanced price
of this indispensable article, which must be the effect of an in.
creasing consumption without a corresponding increase in the
supply : while a new impulse will be given to the extension
of the Slave Trade and Slavery in the possessions of Foreign
Nations.
It will not be denied that much may be done by an Associa-
tion like the present to counteract these evils, by stimulating
the increased growth of cotton in India, and by facilitating and
encouraging the substitution of superior descriptions of that
article, for the low, and compkatively worthlesa.kinds, which
are now grown there. To this truly national object the atten-
tion of the Tropical Free-labour Company will -be particularly
directed.
for which this Company has
.Another main purpose is
been formed, is to promote the production of Sugar by free
labour.

The British Dominions in Asia are well adapted to the
growth of this article, and are capable of supplying it to an
indefinite extent; but from the unskilfulness of the natives in
the process of manufacturing it, combined with their want of
capital, and the fiscal restrictions to which it is subject, little
progress has hitherto been made in introducing the sugar of
that part of the world into general consumption. If effectual
means, however, were adopted of obviating these disadvan_
taps, the Sugar Trade of British India could not fail rapidly
to increase.

The requisite means to this end have been fully pointed out,
' in a small pamphlet published by Hatchard, and entitled—
" East India Sugar; or, an Inquiry respecting the Means of
Improving the Quality and Reducing the Cost of Sugar raised
by Free Labour in the East Indies." The statements con-
tained in it are taken from authentic documents, officially
furnished to the East India Company, and by them laid
before the public. That East India Sugar may be made a
profitable article of culture, even under all the disadvantages
with which it has to contend, no one, who candidly examines
the evidence there produced, will doubt. What is chiefly
required is, that British intelligence and British capital should
be employed to give an impulse and a right direction to the
industry of the natives ' • by encouraging the more extensive
cultivation of Sugar ; by improving the mode and lessening
the expence of its manufacture; and by thus generally rais-
ing its quality, and diminishing its cost, so as to render it
an article of more enlarged and more beneficial commercial in-
tercourse with our Asiatic possessions than it is at present.

The Tropical Free-Labour Company proposes, therefore, to
direct a large share of its attention to the objects of promoting
the cultivation and manufacture of Sugar by free labour in
British India, and of facilitating its admission into general
use, not only in the United Kingdom, but in all other parts of
the world. This will be chiefly effected by introducing into
India improved modes of manufacture ; and by making such
safe and judicious advances to the manufacturers, and, through
them, to the cultivators of the soil, as may be necessary to
promote the increase of production. Such advances as may
be made from year to year, with the view of promoting the
growth or manufacture of Sugar, or of any other article of
tropical growth, will be annually liquidated by the consign-
ment of the produce thus raised to the Company ; whose pro-
fits will arise from the usual commissions on the sale of such
produce, and the interest chargeable on its advances.
The course which it is intended to pursue in this respect,
has had the sanction of lengthened experience. It is precisely
that course which has been uniformly pursued in similar cases
by the East India Company, and by the Capitalists of British
India ; and which has already proved so signally successful in
promoting the cultivation of Indigo, and in otherwise develop-
ing the faculties of that vast and fertile region.
Proceeding on the data already referred to, and which stand
fully confirmed by other satisfactory testimony, it appears that
the whole advance which can be required for the production, for
example, of a ton of Sugar, would be from twelve to about fif-
ten or sixteen pounds, even on the supposition, which is a very
improbable one, that the Manufacturer possessed no funds of
his own. To ensure, therefore, the production of 10,000 tons of
Sugar annually, the utmest advance that could be required
would not exceed 160,000/. And it is obvious, that, if the suc-
cess of the Company should be such as may fairly be expected,
it would be possible greatly to enlarge its efforts.—An addi-
tional supply of 10,000 tons of Sugar might be raised by every
fresh advance of 160,0001. ; until a sufficient amount of capital
should be employed fully to meet that growing demand for Sugar
which may be anticipated from the combined effect of the di-
minished cost of its production and the increasing prosperity of
the Empire.

'the advantage which would accrue to the Commercial Inte-
rests of Great Britain, and still more of Ireland, by the exten-
sive creation of fresh means of making returns, to meet the ra-
pidly increasing demand of our manufactures on the part of the
immense population of British India—to say nothing of the
benefits which would thus be conferred on that population—
is too obvious to need be insisted on. But it will nut be the
least powerful recommendation of the scheme to multitudes,
that if it should succeed, it must eventually tend to extinguish
in Foreign as well as in British Colonies, and to put a
period to the Foreign Slave Trade, which still prevails on
final Slavery
the coast of Africa.—Although the preceding statements have
an especial reference to British India, yet the Tropical Free.
Labour Company does not intend to confine its views to that
quarter' hut to extend them, as fair openings may
occur, to the
in
BrAfrica anditish Dominions
the West Indi in otheres parts of the world, and particularly

Tlxe,capital•of the Tropical Free-Labour Company is fixed,