16 UTILITY OF INFORMATION TO BE SUPPLIED. 
though capable of the most important applications, both here and 
elsewhere. It is also said, that the object in the main seems 
to be, “ enriching some few hundreds or thousands of our coun- 
trymen, who have estates, or a pecuniary interest in the East 
and West Indies.” The objections to enriching one party at 
the expense of another, was never thought of when thousands 
of the weavers of Dacca were ruined, at the same time that 
the manufacturers of cotton goods here were enriched. But 
this effect was inevitable, as the high state of mechanical inven- 
tion in England produced machinery of which the products 
could undersell those of the Indian loom, even in the distant 
fields where the cotton was grown. 
In the present, as in all other instances, the Indian ryot 
is quiescent and indifferent. It is the manufacturers and 
Chambers of Commerce of this country who enquire, that as 
war diminishes the ordinary supplies, why cannot their wants 
be supplied from India, as that country grows what they want? 
Opportunity has therefore been taken, and we trust wisely 
taken, to direct attention to the neglected riches of our Indian 
empire, and thus to remove some of the difficulties which impede 
the introduction of new things into market. Feeling con- 
fident, that as the country possesses many fibres which are of 
good quality, and the climate, where both land and labour are 
cheap, is favorable to their growth, that some of the success 
which eventually attended the efforts made during the last 
war, will attend the present attempts. Indeed, we trust to a still 
greater extent, as some of the fibres now available are pos- 
sessed of the strength of the best of those then tried, but 
which, from their rarity, were not procurable in sufficient 
quantities for the purposes of commerce. All that is attempted 
is to inform the consumer here of what India is capable of sup- 
plying, and of enabling the producer there to send it in such a 
state to market as to attract the attention of the intelligent 
manufacturer. That is, to put information before him in its 
most complete form, and accompanied by specimens which can 
be handled, either in their raw state, or as converted into 
cordage; with accounts of the growth and culture of the 
plants, their productiveness, and prices. Thus it may be 
hoped, that the distant cultivator of India, himself in so 
different a state of society, may be placed on a footing to meet 
