urgent necessity, in this country, of finding a
supply of cotton which shall render us
independent of the blights and frosts of America.

India is the only country in a position, from
soil, climate, and population, to supply the
quantity and quality we need, within any
reasonable period. It is shown, very clearly,
in a work laboriously and intelligently
compiled by Mr. John Chapman, late Manager of
the Great Indian Peninsular Railroad,* that
we have it in our power to increase, almost
indefinitely, the sale of our manufactures in
India, by the simple process of affording a
market for the produce of the soil. This
market can only be provided by increasing
the road accommodation between the interior
and the coast.
* "The Commerce and Cotton of India," by John
Chapman.

At present, the consumption of British
manufactures in the whole of India amounts
to about elevenpence farthing per head. The
inhabitants of the valley of the Ganges, who
have advantage of water communication,
consume about one shilling and three half-pence
per head, while, in the Bombay and Madras
Presidencies, it varies from sevenpence, in the
one case, to sixpence per head in the other.
The double consumption in the district in
which the inhabitants have cheaper means of
sending their produce to market, and obtaining
return cargoes, speaks volumes.

On the present occasion, we shall confine
our attention to the Bombay district, because
that is, as Mr. Chapman very clearly shows,
the port from which we ought to derive an
ample supply of the cotton we so urgently
need; that we do not receive it, is owing to the
utter absence of roads throughout the district.

It appears that at a distance of about one
hundred and forty miles from Bombay,
separated by a lofty range of mountains or Ghauts,
there lies a country about four hundred and
fifty miles from north to south, with an
average breadth of three hundred miles from
west to east, the gross surface being, therefore,
one hundred and thirty-five thousand
square miles; deducting half as occupied by
mountains, rivers, barren soil, &c., the other
half will contain forty-three millions two
hundred thousand acres applicable to the
growth of cotton fit for English use; for it is
very clearly made out that while scarcely any
cotton fit for our manufacturers can be grown
in Bengal, (from the unsuitability of the
climate) and but a limited quantity in the
Madras Presidency and other districts—in the
area above described, the cotton grown is fit
for seventy-five per cent, of our consumption.

"That consumption amounts to four
hundred and eighty million pounds per annum;
seventy-five per cent. would be three hundred
and sixty million pounds; now, if one fourth
of forty-three million two hundred thousand
acres were cropped every year, and produced
the average weight of a hundred pounds per
acre, the whole crop would be one thousand
and eighty million pounds' weight per annum,
or three times as much as we could take at
the existing rate of consumption by our
manufacturers."

We have not space to enter into the details
necessary for showing (as Mr. Chapman does
most satisfactorily) the existence of this large
cotton-growing area, and its capability of
growing cotton suited for the British market;
because it is necessary to explain how it is
that, in the face of a constant demand in the
British market for the staple, which so far as
soil, climate, and ample supply of skilled
husbandmen at moderate wages are concerned,
can be raised in unlimited quantities, the
export of cotton from Bombay to Liverpool has
actually fallen off within the last ten years.

The cotton in question is all brought down
to Bombay on the backs of bullocks: for want
of roads no other mode of conveyance is
practicable. The expense, the loss of time, the
damage by accidents of weather, and loss in
bad packing, are enormous under the most
favourable circumstances; but in some
seasons, no sufficient number of bullocks are to
be had; those employed are decimated by
disease and drought. The merchants
frequently find themselves compelled either to
break their contracts, or to see their profits
consumed in the cost of carriage. If the
discouraged merchant discontinues for a year
his purchases, the natives in the interior find
themselves saddled with crops of cotton
which they cannot sell at any price: they
cannot even consume it themselves, or feed
cattle on it, as if it were grain. Hence,
they abandon the growth of a crop which is
not sure of a market; and, when a failure of
our usual supply from America compels our
manufacturers to turn to India, they find
that, even for money, the staple is not to be
had. Thus, in 1836—twelve years after the
pacification of the intervening country had
established the trade in cotton between the
interior district of Berar and Bombay—the
import reached thirty-one millions of pounds.
Nine years later, in 1845, it had fallen to
twenty-three millions of pounds.

This diminution in supply has not been
caused by diminution in the price paid to the
cultivator; which has been, for the last sixty
years, between one penny farthing and
twopence halfpenny per pound, according to the
quality, but simply from the want of certain
steady means of conveyance which prevented
the purchaser—even if a large quantity of
cotton were grown and stacked—from
conveying it to the coast. It has been proved
that, in 1843, a gentleman, who had contracted
to deliver five thousand bullock loads of
cotton at Bombay, was prevented from
performing his contract by want of cattle; and
again, that, in 1846, vessels lay in the harbour
waiting in vain, on heavy expenses, for cotton
purchased in the interior, which the drought
prevented from being sent forward, because
it was necessary to limit the number of