prejudice in the North-West Provinces. Indeed,
he quotes the opinions of judges, magistrates,
collectors, and other officials, all highly in favour of
the extension of private enterprise, and confirming
his views as to its application towards the
extension of cotton cultivation. He moreover
quotes the evidence of several planters who
have never experienced any hostility or obstruction
from the authorities, and who deny that
any feeling of opposition exists on their part.
At the same time, Mr. Saunders strongly urges
the necessity for certain reforms, in order that
cotton may not share the fate of indigo—
a probability we have discussed in a previous
article.* There is no other way of proceeding
but by making advances to the cultivators, and
agreeing to buy at a certain price. The
arrangement works well if prices fall or remain
as they were by the time the crop comes up;
but, if they rise, the speculator is very apt to be
defrauded of his bargain. If he be so served he
has the privilege of suing his man in court;
but he might as well sue a stone on the road for
tripping up and damaging his valuable horse.
The result in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
must be that, although he gets his verdict, he
never recovers his money, and that he adds the
law expenses to the original loss—the debtor
going cheerfully to jail for the debt, and the
creditor having to keep him there at a cost of
eight rupees a month. Of the want of a new
law which will make fraudulent breach of
contract a criminal offence Mr. Saunders is well
assured, as are all men who have experienced
the evils of the present state of things; but up
to the present time the government has been
opposed to such a measure. The late Mr. Wilson
passed a temporary act of the kind for the
indigo districts, and it worked remarkably well;
but its renewal was disallowed by the home
government. A new Contract Law, the Permanent
Settlement of the Land Revenue, and some
changes in the management of the canals, are
among the improvements which Mr. Saunders
recommends. Let these but once be effected, and
the supply of cotton, he considers, would be
limited only by the demand, while all agricultural
operations would be facilitated in proportion.
* See volume vi., page 520.

Mr. Haywood thinks as highly of the capabilities
of Western India, as Mr. Saunders does of
the North-West Provinces, and he mentioned the
other day at a meeting held on the subject, the
curious fact that while it had been proved by
recent experience that the soil was admirably
adapted for American cotton, not one of the
experiments hitherto made with the seed by
American planters had resulted in success. In
the report already referred to, published by the
Madras government, the same statement is made.
From the very first, says the writer, one of the
American planters, so engaged, had no heart in
the efforts that were being made to introduce
the cultivation of American cotton, and the use
of machinery, into that Presidency; but whether
he acted from a sincere conviction of their
inutility, or whether as an American planter he
endeavoured to throw cold water on the objects
in view, the writer does not pretend to
determine. He contents himself with the remark
that, as regarded both the New Orleans plant
and the raw gin, the planter in question did as
little as he possibly could, and that if he exerted
himself at all, it was simply to vaunt the native
cotton and the Madras churka. It was currently
reported, indeed, that the planter's last words (on
his dismissal) were to the effect that he owed it as
a duty to his country to prove that cotton would
not grow in Southern India. Of the American
planters originally employed in Madras, one was
transferred to Bellary, where he died, the other
two (of whom the place of one was supplied by
the gentleman referred to above) were transferred
to the Bombay Presidency. The result
of this transfer, as stated in the words of one of
these planters, was that his experiment with New
Orleans cotton had proved a " total failure,"
while, of the other, the collector of the district
reported that " his efforts had resulted in nothing."
Of another American planter in the Bombay
Presidency, the government states that his reports
are " most meagre and unsatisfactory," and
"were so systematically long in arrear, that
finally it became necessary to suspend his salary
until they should be furnished, and it was only
after this had been done for twelve months that
they were prepared. When ultimately furnished
they were so erroneous that they had to be
cancelled, and others substituted." Again, we find
it recorded that " the repeated censures of the
government upon the meagreness, inaccuracy,
and irregularity of his reports, did not render
those documents a whit more satisfactory;
failure has been left in convenient obscurity."

These facts, it must be said, are plainly
suggestive as to the causes which have led to
the failure of the experiments in American
cotton; but one writer (a correspondent of the
Cotton Supply Association, writing from the
United States) does something more than
suggest. He makes a charge against the American
planters in direct terms. " As well might the
company," he says, " have engaged a party of
Esquimaux, and forwarded them to India, as to
have sent the persons who went from this
country. It would appear that the fate of the
enterprise was fixed before they left. It is a
matter of notoriety and boast with many at the
present day that a failure was brought about.
Several were very young lawyers, who scarcely
ever walked across a cotton-field in their lives."
Of course it would be unparliamentary to
impugn the motives of the free and independent
citizens of the United States here referred to;
and we would not be unparliamentary on any
account. Nevertheless, human nature will be
human nature, and we cannot help agreeing
with Mr. Haywood—to whom we are indebted
for the above little historical anecdotes—that it
is, to say the least, not a little remarkable that
the efforts on the part of these gentlemen were
signalised by failure, while efforts made by other
servants of government have been singularly