134 OKGANISATION 



tract is of the same staple, though it may be well 

 known that such is not the case. So much for the 

 inefficient methods of valuation upon which the 

 cotton passes from the hands of the cultivator to those 

 of the small dealer. The dealer, of course, protects 

 himself from loss by the price that he offers. After 

 the cotton has passed into the hands of the dealer 

 anything may happen to it. Long and short-stapled 

 cottons are freely mixed by the dealers, short-stapled 

 seed cotton from Khandesh is taken to Hubli to be 

 mixed at the ginneries with the long-stapled Kumpta 

 cotton, and bales of Khandesh cotton go down to 

 Surat to get the Surat mark and be passed off as 

 long-stapled cotton. Short-stapled cotton from 

 Kathiawar pours into Gujarat by rail and boat for 

 mixture with Broach cotton, and even cotton waste 

 from the Bombay mills is sent up country for pur- 

 poses of adulterating cotton. Not only this, but the 

 cotton is often deliberately damped before pressing, 

 to increase its weight, though it is well known that 

 this rots the fibre. That such practices take place 

 is a matter of common knowledge, and was freely 

 commented on by the Cotton Committee which sat in 

 1918. Some people agree that such practices are 

 short-sighted, others call them dishonest ; but, as a 

 whole, the trade has accepted them as inevitable. 

 How do they affect the cultivator ? Most disastrously. 

 It is the cultivator who pays for all this inefficiency 

 and fraud. The millowner and the exporter know 

 that most of the cotton is mixed and adulterated, and 



