694 



NATURE 



[February 26, 1920 



COTTON GROWING IN THE BRITISH 

 EMPIRE. 



THE report to the Board of Trade of the Empire 

 Cotton Growing Committee has just been 

 issued (Cmd. 523, price is. 6d. net). Briefly, the 

 story there told may be summed up as follows : 

 The British cotton mills have been directly adapted 

 to utilise the American long-staple cottons, and 

 they produce, in consequence, the high-class goods 

 for which they are famed. The mills may, in fact, 

 be described as unable to use up the abundant, 

 though much shorter, staples of India and certain 

 other countries of the British Empire. For some 

 years past the mills of the States have begun to 

 work up more and still more of their home supply 

 (of superior cottons), so that the position has thus 

 come about that Britain must be prepared, in the 

 near future, to dispense with a large amount of 

 the American raw cottons hitherto regarded as 

 essential. In what way and how soon can thi^ 

 feat be accomplished? Delay may mean famine 

 tp the immense community (something like 

 5,000,000 people) more or less dependent on 

 the cotton mills of Lancashire. 



The answer is presumed to have been given by 

 the report before us. But the perusal of the 

 volume leaves a somewhat confused impression, 

 in which we seem to have been studying some- 

 thing closely resembling the meanderings of a 

 great river which flows through the tropical and 

 sub-tropical regions of the world. It engulfs 

 many great tributaries, and is finally discharged 

 into the ocean of British cotton manufacturing 

 interests by six mouths or sub-committees. All 

 this may be fine, and certainly is ingeniously 

 elaborated, but when we read that it is intended 

 to flow on for ever, we begin to wonder if a com- 

 plex organisation of impersonal and mutable com- 

 mittees is likely to prove the most satisfactory 

 course for obtaining the very-much-to-be-desired 

 results. 



The raising of funds (Imperial and Colonial, 

 etc.); the organisation of existing resources; the 

 institution of greater specialisation in the working 

 up of available supplies ; the establishment of im- 

 provements in handling, transporting, and market- 

 ing the raw staple ; the prevention of the practices 

 of adulteration and damping ; and many other such 

 subjects, are all dealt with in the report, but they 

 do not . seem to resolve themselves into the pro- 

 mulgation of a concrete scheme of increased and 

 improved production.' Nevertheless, we are 

 assured that the British Empire can be made self- 

 supporting in this matter, though we are not told 

 where or flow this is to be accomplished. It must 

 be confessed that the whole history of cotton 

 improvement is most disheartening. We read, 

 for example, of a great scheme having been 

 floated, some seventy years ago, to raise in Man- 

 chester a sum of 20,ooo,oooJ. to be expended in 

 India, during five years, in rneasures calculated 

 to forward India as a cotton-producing country. 

 Nothing came of that great conception, though 

 spasmodically, after intervals of neglect (due to 



NO. 2626, VOLi IO4I ■ 



increased American supply). Associations, Com- 

 mittees, and Commissions were formed, and each 

 in its day aroused considerable interest, but all 

 proved more or less futile. Meanwhile, two great 

 new manufacturing centres gradually progressed 

 into importance — namely, the United States of 

 .■\merica and India — and now these have to be 

 reckoned with in the future. 



There are, however, in the present report two 

 important schemes — the training of men, and the 

 establishment of research. In both we think the 

 contemplated methods of accomplishment are 

 likely to prove unsatisfactory. 



But let the Central Research Institution, pro- 

 posed in the Committee's report, become a per- 

 manent department of expert officials (not a com- 

 mittee of voluntary workers), and have handed 

 over to it a desired programme of work, then 

 we think a definite step would be taken in the 

 right direction. The members of that institute 

 could be held responsible and judged by results. 

 Their programme should be : Research, Education, 

 and Cotton Production. House them, therefore, 

 in a building large enough to have fully equipped 

 laboratories for research, give them as complete 

 a library as possible, and build them a museum 

 and herbarium. But let there be no hair-splitting 

 separations into research as distinct from informa- 

 tion — no divided responsibilities. Who can be 

 better qualified to make public the results or 

 materials obtained than the experts concerned? 

 Information cannot, and should not, be separated 

 from research in the way proposed by the report. 



One-half at least of all the subjects of research 

 that have to be investigated can be undertaken 

 better in Manchester than in E:gypt — the report 

 suggests Egypt. Establish in Manchester a 

 College of Cotton — a Central Research Institution, 

 as it has been called — where both experts and 

 planters can be trained, in close and personal rela- 

 tionship with the great manufacturing interests. 

 One such centre is quite sulHcient, and far better 

 than the proposed lectureships and readerships in 

 half-a-dozen colleges or universities, where plant 

 phvsiology, plant genetics, mycology, entomo- 

 logy, and the like might be taught. In the one, 

 expert and practical men would be directly and 

 immediately trained for cotton planting; in the 

 other, general instructions would be given that 

 might never mature into cotton planting at all. 

 No risks of this kind should be run ; general prin- 

 ciples of education must never be allowed to take 

 the place of specific training and definite results. 



The Indian Committee insist on the need for rnorc 

 detailed botanical investigation of the existing kinds 

 of cotton in most of the cotton-growing tracts. ... 

 They consider selection ns the first step in evolving 

 lx;tter types, to be followed by plant-breeding, which, 

 however, should be entrusted to selected officers \yho 

 can devote personal attention and considerable time 

 to it. 



These passages we single out of the report 

 because they denote acceptance of a most import- 

 ant issue. It has far too long been the habit of 

 cottpn experts, to hold systematic studies up to 



