The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-09 00:00:00

INDIAN COTTON.

The following- relates to the question of Indian
cotton supplies, and points to the probability of
India again becoming, from the fitness of her popu-
lation, a great manufacturing country :
" The flow of capital from this country to India,
which is now attracting special attention, has ex-
cited some speculative opinion as to the employ-
ment it may find after it gets there.
" There are two openings in India for its em-
ployment, both of great extent and of promising
appearance—the one in the manufacturing of cot-
ton and other textile fabrics by machinery, and the
other in the improvement of land. Which of these
is likely to prova the most attractive is an
important question. With extensive coal fields,
easily worked, an abundance of cheap, docile, and
teachable labour—with raw cotton procurable at a
fourth part of the English cost—with an unlimited
demand for manufactures at prices greatly in ex-
cess of those obtainable in this country, and with
a Government which would certainly do nothing
to discourage a manufacturing trade, its facilities
for manufacturing are unequalled. Few of these
advantages are to be found in the same degree in
any other country, all of them combined in none.
The four or five manufacturing establishments
which have recently sprung up in Western India
appear to be realising large profits, notwithstand-
ing the extra expenses incidental to the first in-
troduction of a manufacturing trade, the difficulty
of working joint-stock companies in India, and the
evident want of sagacity in their moth's operandi.
" Profitable as manufacturing would be in the
hands of practical men, the improvement of land
promises a yet larger return of investments ; and
this latter operation has the advantage of being
more in accordance with the habits, feelings, and
interests of the people generally.
" It is an established fact that drought is the
only obstruction to the production of crops of cotton
in India equal or superior in value to those of other
countries, which vary from £6 to £lO from the
annual plant of America, and from 50s. to a maxi-
mum of £2O from the perennial of the irrigated
lands of Egypt; the value of the latter depending
entirely on the efficiency of the irrigation and the
attention bestowed on the cultivation. With a more
efficient system than the present of irrigating, the
maximum would probably become the average pro-
duce ; and the cost of production, the principal
portion of which is now wasted in water-lifting,
would be reduced from 2.64 d. per lb. (the price paid
by the Government when cotton was a Government
monopoly) to something below Id. per lb.
" The antidote to this drought in India is an ex-
tensive system of canalisation, which, to be efficient,
must necessarily be extensive, combining, with irri-
gation, cheap transport from the interior to the sea-
board. The expenditure of a large amount of capi-
tal on these extraordinary works is the primary
condition of any investments in the ordinary re-
quirements of agriculture, so far as the cultivation
of cotton and sugar is concerned. • The cost, allow-
ing 10 per cent. on the capital expended, and an
ample allowance for management and maintenance,
would be 2s. 6d. per acre per annum. By such
means, and at this cost, the value of an acre of cot-
ton would be raised from the present average of
13s. 10d. to £lO and upwards. The growth of
cotton for export is in India much more a
question of production than of transport. Cheap
carriage, per se, unaccompanied by irrigation,
is more favourable to the production of grain and
seeds than cotton. The low sea freights and thehigh
price of seeds (which is tantamount to cheap car-
riage in India), in the official years '57-8 and '5B-9
reduced the expenditure of cotton in '5B-9 by
224,000 bales, as compared with that of '56-7, and
increased the export of seed in proportion. It is
the cheap river communication between Calcutta
and the interior which gives a higher acreage value
to other and balkier articles than to cotton.
" These extensive works can bo provided by the
enterprise and intelligence of the capitalists of this
country only : but :whether the Government will
give any bona fide encouragement to tiv it construc-
tion remains to be seen. The patronage of the
public works department, and, in a less degree, the
existing land tenures have always been great ob-
structions to investments in land improvements,
and remain so to this day. It depends, then, on the
action of Government into which of these two large
channels capital shall hereafter flow, the one is open
and safe, the other is dammed at the mouth and
choked with weeds.
Tit° yea3' entL on tile 30th
April. At that date ail the old crop is shipped,
and the new comes on. The accounts appear here
in the Statistical Tables relating to our colonial