170 



that this can be done, then will there be hope, that 

 the cotton crisis of England may be turned to the 

 advantage of India. It has not done so yet ; and 

 I cannot, therefore, see, that auy bright prospect 

 lies before India in this direction.* 



The circumstances of TEA are in many respects 

 precisely similar with those of Cotton. England the 

 whole World has always been dependent on one 

 country for its supplies of this staple. The unsatis- 

 factory state of our relations with China moreover, 

 has often caused considerable alarm in Englaad for 

 these supplies; and from one of these panics resulted 

 the experimental operations in tea cultivation in India 

 which have just now been crowned with such signal 

 success. But how has this success been obtained? 

 Not surely by showing that tea of sorts, could be 

 grown in quantity in India ? Nor yet by doing 

 nothing at all? No, but rather by doing the one 

 thing needful showing that India can compete 

 with China in the London Markets that she can 

 send to England, not any quantity of the worst tea 

 grown on the face of the Earth, but tea equal, 

 nay superior in quality to that exported from 



* I am convinced that without the introduction of exotic seed, 

 improved systems of cultivation, and the elevation of the quality of the 

 article we shall be compelled to abandon India as our great reliance 

 for the growth of cotton Speech of Mr. John Cheetham at the 

 Annual Meeting of the Cotton Supply Association. Manchester 

 23rd September 1862. 



