INFORMATION. REQUIRED BY MANUFACTURERS. 15 
practical working of their factories, have in a few instances, 
which I myself have brought to their notice, given remunerative 
orders directly to the planter for his produce. 
A manufacturer may justly object to employ a new thing, 
with the properties of which he is but partially acquainted; and 
which, having investigated, he has no information of the quan- 
tities or price at which it can be supplied, supposing that he 
found it suitable for his purposes. Because, unless obtainable in 
quantity, regularly and at reasonable prices, he is unable, he says, 
to do any good with it. Therefore, in sending a new product 
to market, it is essential that it should be accompanied with 
the necessary statistical information. It is not of this, how- 
ever, but of the total neglect of their endeavours, which planters 
complain. These, if stimulated by enquiry, would be induced 
to collect or to cultivate, to prepare, and to send to the markets 
of Europe, a new or little-known article, and to take measures 
for keeping up a regular supply for such manufacturers as might 
be the first induced toemploy it. Information, therefore, both 
of a practical and of a scientific nature, is essential for bringing 
new or comparatively little-known articles into use. 
But the attempt to diffuse information, and to take advan- 
tage of the public attention being directed to this subject, seems 
to be objected to by some political economists. For it is said— 
“Some persons, amongst the rest Mr. Sharp, seem anxious to 
profit by present circumstances, to bring forward the fibrous 
productions of India, to the exclusion of those of other countries. 
“Their object i is not trade, but to give employment to our fellow- 
subjects in our colonies and dependencies, &c.” This at the 
same time that others are enquiring — Why are not the resources 
of India more largely developed? If the object were only to 
give occupation to our fellow-subjects of the East, it would 
still be a laudable one, as many have been deprived of their 
hereditary occupations as weavers, by the gigantic progress 
made by the cotton trade of this country. But who the parties 
are who have attempted to give this occupation, without at- 
tending to the legitimate demands of trade, does not appear. 
Certainly not those who have been adopting very effective 
measures for securing, as an article of trade, ample supplies of 
fibrous material now produced in enormous quantities in diffe- 
rent parts of the world, and allowed everywhere to go to waste, 
