319 
because India had been proved incapable of producing a staple of the 
kind required. But this is -not all. The reputation of India for its 
nce famous a cottons had at the same time b ompletely 
destroyed, and its American crop having fallen into disfavour, rapidl 
egenerated in pie until at the present day it mi a 
escribed as inferior to many of the aigon cottons. Unskilled and 
impecunious cultivators were in India left to compete against the 
enlightened agriculture of America—unskilled because ignorant of the 
principles by which they might have developed the produce to meet 
the best market, instead of being content to allow it to drift into an 
inferior position. As matters stand, they may now be said to glory in 
that they are able to dispose of a worthless staple at remunerative 
rates. 
That Pray aapea towards a higher and better-paid standard is 
possible may b Me as = demonstrated by past experience and 
es 
cultivation of a any articular form or the same soil. Selection of 
seed and the cultivation of specially selected plants for the production of 
seed might easily improve the Indian erop of any district by 50 per 
t. 
any years past the Indian cotton trade has been drifting into a 
Kalie groove. Our produce goes to mills that de not wish for a 
o 
superior or long staple, but only a pure o that is, nota mixture of 
several lengths of staple), so that it may fairly be said many of our 
largest buyers discourage improvement. e dangers of a one-sided 
trade of this nature need scarcely be mentioned. India is thus destroyed 
as a possible ecuntry of supply for the English mills, The Indian mills 
are at the same time compelled to look to foreign countries for their 
present or future supplies of superior staples, ed are thus more or less 
confined in their operations to one class of goods. It might ptione 2» 
said that pregression is deliberately stultified, the labours of centu 
ruthlessly thrown away, and alarge and important industry practically 
cornered or restricted in its possible development by interested parties, 
tion of cotton should be looked in since the existing traffic is aimed a 
the destruction of all the good features of the indigenous fibre, if not of 
the morality of both grower Ag trader. It is essentially a retrograde 
traffic, as at present constituted, and one in which the aims and objects 
of most of those concerned are directed towards the attainment of a high 
yield of a xe thless staple. 
What is true of cotton is, however, equally 4 apu. to sugar, wheat,. 
wool—in fact, to almost all the articles of Indian trade. Little or no 
effort has been put forth towards developing, on dier principles, the- 
quality of the articles of Indian commerce. Past endeavours have for 
aeuxerr with the result, as already shown, that vem has obtained 
my 
many of her most widely grown crops from foreign soure 
The cottons of India may be referred approximately to two great 
sections, the early and the late crops. The former comes into market 
