commanding the highest price in the market;
and land being plentiful and labour cheap, all
Lancashire could, under Anglo-Saxon
superintendence, be supplied, over and over again,
from India alone. The European grower would
not be merely gratifying his own selfish interests,
but would be effecting incalculable good
to the people among whom he lived. Of
course he would employ natives, and these
natives, in the districts where cotton is now
cultivated, would be the same natives who now
employ themselves. The difference to them
would be, that, instead of living in a state of
independent semi-starvation with nobody to
take the smallest interest in their woes except
the native usurer, they would be in the
employment of a man of capital, who would
most probably make them advances without
interest, give them their seed (good seed, new to
the land) at cost price, and pay them good
wages, upon the sole condition that he got good
work in return.

We all know that honesty is the best
policy, even though we may not have "tried
both," like the practical Scottish gentleman,
and that where work is to be done it is an especially
admirable arrangement; it being easier, in
the long run, to do one's duty than to neglect
it. This fact, after a little experience, becomes
as apparent to the ryot as to ourselves. But
the experience must be forced upon him—he
will never seek it for himself; and, in order to
force it upon him, European supervision is a
matter of absolute necessity. It is continually
seen, even in England, that a man who
thoroughly understands the work to be performed,
and who is determined that it shall be performed
in the best manner, exercises an influence upon
his subordinates which the most idle and wilful
among them find it difficult to withstand. How
much more potent, then, must be the influence
of an energetic European upon men belonging
to the lowest class of Asiatics, who, be their
prejudices what they rnay, look up to him as
a superior being, and in whom they cannot
choose but place their trust! Europeans are
too commonly accused of being actuated by
"selfish interests" in pushing their fortunes in
India—as if the majority of men had any other
object in view in their way through the world;
but it is impossible for them, be they as selfish
as they will, to benefit themselves without
benefiting those around them. This is not a
mere matter of opinion. It is a simple fact,
which can be proved, that wherever Euro-
peans are settled in India—engaged in
merchandise, or manufacture, or what not—the
natives in that neighbourhood are better fed,
better clothed, and better instructed than in
those parts where they are left to themselves, or,
rather, to the tender mercies of money-lenders,
rapacious landlords, and extortioners of all
descriptions. It is true that these tyrants are
"still, at least, their countrymen," but even
that recommendation, however admirable in
sentiment, may be found insufficient when
unaccompanied by any other.

It is plain, therefore, that to make India
an efficient field for cotton cultivation, we
must have European agency. To secure this,
nothing would seem to be more easy.
Lancashire has only to send out her money, and
competent persons to employ it, and in a comparatively
short time she may have at command any
amount of the raw material by which they feed
millions and make millionnaires of so many, in
that great hive of industry. But this is exactly
what Lancashire will not do. Her capitalists
say, We will not trust our money in India,
where we have no security for our property. We
cannot forget the fate of the indigo interest; and
what has happened to indigo may happen to
cotton at any time. The question then arises,
what has happened to the indigo interest? An
intelligent public, which reads the newspapers,
has probably a general idea that the interest has
been ruined; but the accounts of the process
which have appeared in the local papers, not
having been extensively reproduced in this
country, and such accounts as have been copied
being very little read, and blue-books and official
documents generally being voted bores (especially
when they relate to India), it may not be unprofitable
to give an outline of the circumstances
of the case. It is a long story, but it may be
made a short one, and I promise that the
nutshell in which I will place it shall not be that of
a cocoa-nut.

The facts, then, are briefly these: The indigo
season of 1859, in Bengal, was an unprosperous
one. Prices had been rising for the previous
three or four years, and at that time seemed
permanently settled upon a higher scale, rice in
particular being at a greater price than had been
known for a long period. The indigo crop, moreover,
was partially destroyed by a gale at the end
of July, just when it was ripe. There was some
distress felt among the ryots (cultivators), which
the planters were naturally desirous to relieve;
but as very few of them had made any profits
during the year, this could be only partially
effected. Some planters paid higher rates for
coolies (unskilled labourers), carts, &c., and one
of them even doubled the usual remuneration
of this class, and granted to the ryots a partial
remission of their engagements. (It may be here
mentioned that there are two ways of raising
indigo: one by neez, or private cultivation; the
other by the ryotwaree system, that is to say, by
contracts made with the ryots to grow the plant,
they receiving advances of money from the
planters, from whom they purchase their seed at
cost price, and selling the produce back to the
planters at a certain fixed rate per bundle. This
latter is the system most prevalent in Bengal.)
The distress would have passed away, as distress
had passed away before, but for the appointment
of a gentleman to the government of Bengal,
who, almost as soon as his accession to office,
manifested a hostile feeling towards the planters
—a class never very popular with the local
government, but who had met with toleration in
consideration of the good that they effected—
the importance of which may be estimated from