COTTON-WOOL. 



169 



the Government be authorised to ^rant permission Mr. Tucker's 



^ Paper. 



to such European British subjects to purchase 

 from the Zemindars and others, or to rent for a 

 term of years any quantity of land not exceeding 

 five thousand begahs, which the parties will 

 undertake and engage to employ in the growth 

 of cotton. 



Ninth. Tliat the Governments of India be au- 

 thorised to offer annual prizes for the production 

 of the best cotton in the best merchantable con- 

 dition, in quantity not less than one hundred 

 maunds. 



Tenth. That the Governments of India be in- 

 structed, generally, to afford every possible encou- 

 ragement to promote the trade in cotton, by 

 freeing it from all duties of customs* on transit 

 and exportation, by facilitating the means of in- 

 ternal communication, and otherwise obviating, 

 as far as possible, those causes of delay, which 



tend 



* Cotton appears to have been charged with a duty of 3^ per 

 cent, at Surat. A transit of 12 annas per maund is levied in 

 our Bengal provinces, but the whole is drawn back on the 

 cotton being exported to sea on British bottoms. This system 

 may have some slight tendency to encourage our shipping, but 

 it leaves the Indian manufacture subject to a high tax on the 

 raw material ; and it is^ moreover, a great disadvantage to the 

 exporter, to be compelled to advance the duty, and to be sub- 

 jected to detention at successive custom-houses for the payment 

 of the duty^ for the examination of the passes, and subse- 

 quently for the purpose of establishing his right to the draw- 

 back. 



