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Prvceedivgs of Societies / 



ana of the coast on the other, could be carried to a market, it would 

 increase the demand for it to a proportionate extent. This again would 

 stimulate cultivation and production, and, as the population of the 

 country in question is enormous, it is ditlicult to assign limits to the 

 increase of trade that would arise from conferring upon it merely the 

 ordinary means of intercourse in all civilized states, of which hitherto 

 it has unfortunately been in a great measure deprived. 



It may be as well, however, to shew the product! ve powers of the 

 country more clearly, to instance the increase which has hitely taken j 

 place in the amount of cotton exported from Bombay. From 1828 to I 

 1835 the exports averaged 178,000 bales a year, and remained nearly 

 stationary. But the high prices of the latter year led to more exten- 

 sive cultivation, and, notwithstanding numerous obstacles to produc- j 

 tion, the Presidency of Bombay last year produced and exported no 

 less than 290,000 bales of cotton, being an increase of 112,000 bales 

 ■within the year. Some portion of this increase no doubt is attributable 

 to an unusually good season, but by far the largest share arose, as the 

 reports of the revenue collectors shew, from extension of cultivation 

 alone. Here, then, is a specimen of what India is capable of doing un- 

 der favourable circumstances, and there can be no question whatever 

 that the production of cotton would, with good roads to the interior, go 

 on increasing as rapidly as it increased during the last twelvemonth; 

 for the stimulus to cultivation would be as great from decreased ex- 

 penses as it has lately been from increased prices. 



Thus with proper management we might reasonably expect to see 

 the exports of the country in this staple alone, swelling at the rate of i 

 100,000 bales per annum, and amounting probably at no distant period 

 to a million of bales. And what would be the consequence in other 

 respects ? Besides benefitting the revenue, and improving the condi- 

 tion of the people of India, such a trade would give employment to a i 

 vast amount of British shipping (400,000 tons), at the same time that j 

 it created a greater demand for the manufactures of the mother country i 

 Upon the trade in salt, the effect of improved means of communica- } ; 

 lion probably would be equally great. The first cost of this article is j ; 

 but trifling, amounting in general, to less than an eighth of the sum j ii 

 paid for its transportation to the market of Oumrawutty, Any thing, | i 

 therefore, which reduced the latter, would, to almost an equal extent, j 

 afl'ect the price of this great necessary of life, to the consumer in cen^- 

 tral India, who at present, from being forced to supply himself with it, j l> 

 by meRus of a slow and laborious land carriage of 600 miles, finds it ji 

 one oi the most expensive articles of food. There can be little doubt 



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