170 COTTON 



The chief cotton centres are Cawnpore, Nagpur, and Mirza- 

 pur, and the chief ports for export Bombay and Surat. 



One great advantage which India possesses in connexion 

 with cotton growing is her abundant supply of cheap labour. 

 The long hours of work in the fields and the tediousness of 

 picking cotton under a hot sun are not to an Indian the 

 intolerable burden which they are to men bred in cooler 

 climates and accustomed to a more complicated mode of 

 existence. 



The length of staple of the native Indian cotton is shorter 

 than American or West Indian cotton, and in the past the 

 bulk of the Indian export has gone to the Continent of Europe, 

 chiefly to France and Germany, Austria, and Italy, there to be 

 used in the manufacture of the coarser kinds of material, 

 which these countries produce in great abundance for their 

 own populations. 



One result of this has been that more long- stapled cotton 

 from America has been available for the mills of Lancashire, 

 which, in addition to vast quantities of coarse cottons, produce 

 an even greater abundance of materials remarkable for the 

 extraordinary fineness of their texture. So skilful are the 

 workpeople in the factories, and so perfect the complicated 

 machinery which they use, that, aided by the dampness of the 

 atmosphere, they are able to spin cotton threads as fine and 

 supple as the most delicate silk. 



Conditions in India, however, are changing ; long stapled 

 cottons are now grown, and the methods of cultivation are 

 being improved, so that in the future there will in all prob- 

 ability be a great increase in the export of Indian cotton to 

 Liverpool. 



In connexion with this question of Indian produce, it must 

 be remembered that in Bombay, and to a certain extent in 

 other places, there are now a great many factories, which 

 manufacture quantities of the coarser kinds of machine-made 

 materials, which in former days were imported from England. 



Egypt. In Egypt the soil of the Delta is very suitable for 



