12 DIFFICULTY OF INTRODUCING 
inquiries, when there happens to be, from whatever cause, a 
dearth of the usual supplies. We may therefore infer, that as 
they are possessed of useful properties, and are purchaseable at 
reasonable prices, they ought to participate in the commerce 
of Europe in ordinary times. But there are great difficulties 
in their doing so at any time, for new articles are not 
enquired for, or even looked at, except in the above exceptional 
cases. And even in these, great indifference is displayed, 
unless you can say that large quantities are at once procurable, 
The colonists being seemingly expected to keep warehouses 
stored with raw products for the paroxysmal demands of Euro- 
pean commerce; as if it were not enough to have within their 
reach the inexhaustible storehouse of nature, ready at all times 
to answer all legitimate demands. The Ryots of India are 
mostly too remote from the centres of commerce, or too 
apathetic to do anything different from what they have been 
accustomed to, while Europeans do not receive much encourage- 
ment in travelling out of the beaten track. For if we enquire into 
the history of many of the most important articles of commerce, 
we shall find that they were at first either neglected or abused. 
Large sums were expended, and much money was lost, before 
they came to be established as regular articles of commerce. 
The difficulty in making new things known and appreciated 
as articles of commerce, arises chiefly from the habitual neglect 
of such things when sent for inquiry from abroad, in order to have 
their value ascertained at home. For if sent as specimens, I 
have seen many reports, in which they are pronounced to be of 
“no value,” because they are “unknown in the market.” 
The importer is sometimes advised to send the article in larger 
quantities to market for a few years, as it will then have a 
chance of being looked at and its true value ascertained. The 
planter is not often inclined to follow this advice. For if one 
more adventurous than his neighbours does send a quantity 
sufficient even for manufacturing purposes, it is not usually 
brought to the notice of the more inquiring manufacturer. The 
article being necessarily consigned by the planter to his agents, is 
by them transferred to a broker, by whom it is sold with 
other colonial produce, with little or no information respecting 
its properties, or the quantities in which, and the prices at 
which it could be supplied, if it should be approved of. Indeed, 
