326 



INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. 



of her soil, — her manufactures also have enjoyed a high 

 reputation from the earliest antiquity. This branch of 

 national industry, as Lord Lauderdale has ingeniously 

 shown, is materially influenced by the wants of the several 

 classes into which society is divided. India contains a 

 great number of inhabitants that are extremely poor, and a 

 few who are immensely rich. To meet the demands thus 

 created, she produces on the one hand a great mass of 

 coarse fabrics, and on the other a small quantity that is 

 exquisitely fine. To exhibit themselves in splendid robes 

 is a favourite object of oriental luxury : accordingly, the 

 labours of the loom had reached a perfection to which 

 those of no other country except Britain, and that very 

 recently, made even an approach. The delicate and flex- 

 ible form of the Hindoo, the pliancy of his fingers, and the 

 exquisite sense with which they are endowed, even his 

 quiet indefatigable perseverance, all render him peculiarly 

 fitted for this°description of employment. The muslins of 

 Dacca in fineness, the calicoes and other piece-goods of 

 Coromandel in brilliant and durable colours, have never 

 been surpassed. Yet they are produced without capital, 

 machinery, division of labour, or any of those means which 

 give such facilities to the manufacturing interest of Europe. 

 The weaver is merely a detached individual, working a 



