INDIAN COTTON TRADE 213 



(^1)011 400,000 square miles of cotton-growing land — a much 

 larger area than is now devoted to cotton in the United States. 

 The aggregate expenditure of Great Britain on railways, canals, 

 and other works of irrigation in India now exceeds 5,000,000^. 

 annually ; and we may safely predict, that when all these great 

 and beneficial undertakings shall have been accomplished, the 

 produce of India will astonish the world. Even as it is, the 

 quantity of cotton grown in that country for home consumption 

 is enormous. Competent judges* inform us that each individual 

 requires on an average twenty pounds a year, and this will not 

 seem too much when we reflect that almost all the inhabitants 

 of India exclusively dress in cotton. This gives us an annual 

 internal consumption of about 3,000,000,000 lbs., or a five times 

 larger quantity than that which is spun and woven by all the 

 looms and jennies of Great Britain. Thus India needs only to 

 increase her production by one-fifiU to supply us with all the 

 cotton we actually want. 



The civil war in the United States, with all its gloomy pro- 

 spects of servile insurrection and agricultural ruin, cannot fail to 

 hasten the work of progress so happily begun on the banks 

 of the Ganges and Nerbuddah, for however it may end, it will 

 have shown the folly and the danger of depending upon one 

 coimtry alone for the supply of an article almost as essential to 

 Great Britain as corn itaelf. 



But India is not the only country which bids fair to destroy 

 the monopoly of the United States, and we may fairly hope that 

 Africa will also ere long weigh more heavily in the balance. In 

 1857 a Cotton Supply Association was formed in Liverpool for 

 the purpose of stimulating African production. Mr. J. Clegg of 

 Manchester, who acts in concert with this society, reported under 

 date of March 18, 1858, that 407 cotton-gins had been sent out 

 by himself and others to the western coast of Africa, destined 

 principally for the interior, and that he had corresponded with 

 76 native traders, including 22 chiefs, who were embarking in 

 the culture of cotton. In the Yarriba country between the 

 Niger and the sea. Dr. Barkie found large plantations of cotton. 

 He saw from 1,000 to 2,000 bags of 80 pounds each exposed 

 together in the markets, and realising large profits at a very low 



* Capper : History of British India. 



