The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-02 00:00:00

COTTON TRADE
IA IN WESTERN
IND.
At this critical period, when cotton divides with
. railways and banking the cares of the Government
and the thoughts of the population, we shall be doing
some service to our readers in giving them the latest
and most authentic information respecting the future
prospects of this produce within our own dominions.
We are just experiencing, to our very serious
cost, the consequences of depending for our supplies
of this indispensable material on the improbable con-
tingency that a single market will always be stocked
with a profusion adequate to the consumption of the
world. What chance there is that for the future at
least this one element of peril will be neutralized by
the sagacicious energies of our expatriated country-
men may readily be collected from the observations
which follow.
A committee of Europeans and natives was ap-
pointed at Bombay in September last year to in-
quire into and report upon the decline of the cotton
trade of Western India, and suggest such remedial
measures of a reasonable and practical nature as
might to them seem fit. They were empowered to
collect information from all Government officers, and
were favoured with the best possible opportunities
for coming to a sound conclusion. Their investiga-
tions were continued through a period of six months,
and it is from their report and their vouchers,
delivered in March last, together with the opinions
of the Governor in Council upon the same, that
we elicit this important intelligence. Record-
ing the steady decline both in amount and
value of cotton produce, and explaining the transi-
tory briskness of the few latest months by the tem-
porary deficiency of American supplies, the com-
mittee then proceed to report that the said decline
has happened because the price realised by the
article has gradually become unremunerating to the
shippers ; and, having returned this formal verdict
of death from the want of breath, they discuss very
practically the remedies to be adopted in future.
They state that the cotton growers of India have
been undersold by the Americans in the only two
markets, Great Britain and China, which they for-
merly possessed, and that this result has occurred
from the fact that the price which the Indian planter,
under his present circumstances, has been compelled
to demand, is higher than that at which the American
can bring a similar produce to sale. Observing that
no influence exercised in India can affect the prices
offered in Lancashire, they conclude that their efforts
must be directed to the only end in their power—
the diminishing the first cost of the produce in the
country of its growth. With this aim they re-
view the agricultural,' fiscal, and general con-
..iderations presumptively affecting the price, and offer
their suggestions as occasion serves. On the first head
the report is satisfactory. The opinions of most ex-
perienced judges concur in stating that the system of
tillage pursued in Western India is as well fitted to
the circumstances of the country as any that could be
devised; the particular plant of New Orleans has
just been introduced with great advantage, and the
American process of cleaning the cotton promises,
with some necessary adaptations, to supersede the
tedious methods of the natives. The next head in-
volves some consideration of those interminable
questions of laud tenures aid perpetual settlement
which have caused such famous discussions. It
will suffice for the ordinary reader to say, that
Government in India is virtually the universal land-
lord, and that therefore the point at issue is resolved
into the simple inquiry whether or not a dis-
proportionate and destructive rent (for rent it is,
and not, as is commonly supposed, a land-tax) is
exacted by Government from the cultivator. Upon
this the committee pronounce, that though, in their
belief, the present relation of cultivator and owner
could not be changed with advantage to either party,
and though there is abundant evidence that no fiscal
regulations impede the ready investment of capital
in agricultural pursuits, yet that such a revision
of assessments as has recently been so success-
fully adopted in the Deccan and South Mahratta
country might he beneficially extended to t.3andeish
and Baroach. In this suggestion the Governor and
Council concur,• recommending that wherever the
rent may be found to be calculated on prices of pro-
duce no longer realisable, the land may be relieved
from such undue pressure, and adding, with an
intelligence doing them infinite credit, that all such
encouragement should be given to cotton produce as
could be given " without affording it an advantage
over other descriptions of produce, or maintaining it
under an artificial stimulus, when, in the natural state
of things, it can no longer be cultivated with profit."
The last resolutions of the committee are directed
to that all-important subject which we have so often
placed before the reader that a recapitulation of its
bearings will be the less necessary on the present
occasion. So paramount is the question of land car-
riage and traffic, that even supposing all the above-
mentione 1 conditions to remain unaltered, the single
operation of railway conveyance would enable the
Guzerat planter to undersell the American at Liver-
pool without further ado. A reduction of 15 per
cent. in the cost price of the produce is mentioned
by the committee as a result which would be tanta-
mount to that advance of quotations at Liverpool
which has been just now caused by the short-comings
of Georgia, which would give a healthy permanence
to that present reaction now too well understood to
be depended upon, and which would at once place
the whole cotton trade of Western India in a state
of thriving activity. Now, it is demonstrated be-
yond all question or doubt that a reduction of '2O per
cent. at the least in the cost at which cotton could be
shipped at Bombay would be instantaneously secured
by the operation of a railway from central India
to the coast. The first price of cotton in the market
of I..hamgaum (the greatest mart of the centre) is
about Lid. per lb. ; its present cost of transit is full
ld. more, whereas by the agency of steam it could be
safely brought down to port for somewhat less than
id. Nor is this all, though sufficient to set the entire
question at rest. We beg the reader to peruse care-
fully the following paragraph of the committee's re-
port, and to mark well the facts employed to support
each successive antithesis :
" The mere pecuniary saving, however, on the
transit is not the only consideration to be taken into
account. The transfer of animal labour from off the
road to Bombay to the supply of the grand entrepots
on the line from the local marts, the substitution of
perfect certainty for the utmost uncertainty, of speed
and regularity for constant disappointment and
vexatious delay, of confidence in the execution of
an order where no confidence can now be placed, of
facility of remittance and independence of the capri-
cious vicissitudes of a native bazaar, would soon at-
tract to Bombay the produce of extensive districts
now inaccessible, and enable the Bombay merchant to
supply the Liverpool market at a rate of cost allowing
him to compete fairly with the planter of the United
States."
Referring now to the general institution and con-
duct of these inquiries, we beg to ask whether our
old system of protection would ever have pro-
duced such a result as here follows upon freedom
of trade. By the former rule our Indian planters
would have been indulged in all the ease of supine
security. They would have troubled themselves little
about the worth of their own produce or the strides
of their rivals, content in the conviction that the
mother country would give whatever they found it
convenient to ask, and must necessarily take what-
ever they condescended to send. Thrown now upon
their own resources, and finding, not favour, but
fairness in the field of trade, they are set to bestir
themselves for their own interests and credit. They
have put their shoulders to the wheel, and are
resolutely releasing themselves from difficulty. They
decide boldly and well that their climate, capital,
soil, and enterprise are as good as those of America;
and knowing and feeling this, they diligently inves-
tigate the causes which induce a temporary infe-
riority. These causes they declare to be all remov-
able, and they undertake, in conscious strength, to
Compete honestly with their rivals as soon as liberty
of action is given them. This is the way to get
sound commerce and successful colonies. In this way
English markets may be supplied with the best pro-
duce from i best nursery at its natural price ; and if
the Indian planters are able, as they confidently pro-
phesy, to render the markets at home independent of
supplies from all
satisfactory result will be parts of the "world," such a
mate causes that the- . owing only to such legiti-
mate will be no fear of any suspen-
sion in its beneficial operations.—Times.

HER MAJESTY.S BUCKHOI3 ------
Dtls.—The first public
meet this season with the royalr uckhounds took place
yesterday at Salt Hill. An immense
consisted of upwards
number of persons,
independently of the field,
of 500 well-mounted horsemen, woerke present to witness
at Two-raile
It was ex-
the turn out of the deer, which to
Brook, between Slough' and Maidental
petted by many that the Prince Consort would have
honoured the first meet with his
Highness, however, shot yesterday over et:healtriteilaißleopre-
serves in the vicinity of the Great Park, attended
the Honourable Ceicnel Phipps, her Majesty,
by the Countess of Desert, accorapanyine the Prince id
a pony carriage anti four. Lord Granville. the Master
of the Buckhounds, accompanied by Lord Rivers, ar-
rived at Slit-hill just after the uneartivg of the stag,
which had been for some time delayed in consequence of
the absence of his Lordship. The celebrated stag, Rory
O'More, which had been selected for the opening day's
sport, took away in be tutiful style to Burnliana Beeches,
doubling round to Maidenhead Thicket, and thence
right away across the country, through Bisham and
Little Marlow, crossing the Thames to GreatlMarlow,
and was taken, after a lour run of upwards of three
}ours, in a piece of water on the estate of Sir George
Nugent, within a short distance of the town. There
were several checks during the run in consequence of
he extrema dryness of the ground causing the scent to
lie badly. Not more than a dozen, including Captain
Seymour and a party of Polish gentlemen, Mr. Oliver,
with the royal huntsman and whippers-in, were up at
the finish. The meet,
_ to morrow, will take place at the
Twyford station, and on Friday at Woking.