TOBACCO AND COTTON CULTIVATION. 67 
Trinidad could be brought into the neighbourhood of 
Manchester—I should probably have no occasion to point 
out to his Lordship the necessity of legislative proteétion ; 
but we, unhappily further removed from the home market 
than the rival we wish to supplant, which, added to ac- 
quired skill and previous possession of channels of supply 
makes the odds so great against us, that success, I fear, is 
hopeless, unless the legislative aid I pray for is granted. 
So far from such a measure being at variance with 
the soundest principles of national economy, it appears 
scarcely possible not to see and admit the immense advan- 
tages to be derived by a mercantile and manufa€turing 
nation like Great Britain granting a sufficient protection 
in infancy to any colonial raw produétion, manifestly 
capable, when at maturity, of successfully competing 
with similar articles from foreign countries. That the 
cultivation of cotton and tobacco in our West Indian 
colonies is subjeét to this description, no one ac- 
quainted with the latter can doubt. In the article 
of cotton the West Indian staple is decidedly supe- 
rior to that of the United States, under all the dis- 
advantages of rude cultivation, and still ruder machinery, 
with the single exception of the quality termed “Sea 
Island,” which is entirely confined to the limited dis- 
triét in which it is produced: it is certainly there- 
fore no unreasonable expeCtation to look forward to 
the produétion of something equal if not superior to 
“Sea Island,” when British capital and enterprize are 
fully employed on the varied soils and situations which 
our wide extended range of colonies present. Of their 
perfect adaption to the growth of tobacco, although at 
present exporting none, I have not the slightest doubt, 
la 
