COTTON 
31 
bear witness to disappointment and failure. Amer- 
ica had re-entered the field of competition, and was 
rapidly gaining ground so as to be able to bid de- 
fiance to the world." 
AFRICAN AND INDIAN EXPERIMENTS NOT A SUCCESS 
An even more vivid picture of the inducements 
to foreign competition which England held out 
during the Civil War period is furnished by the 
1869 report of the Cotton Commissioner of India. 
So immense were the profits that the Indian cotton 
farmers received, he says, that they committed all 
sorts of absurdities: "Silver plowshares and tires 
of solid silver for cartwheels made their appear- 
ance here and there; fancy prices were paid for 
bullocks of a favorite color or possessing some 
peculiarities of tail, and enormous sums were 
squandered on marriage ceremonies." And yet in 
spite of the enormous subsidies (virtually) which 
were paid, and the energy with which the experi- 
ment was prosecuted, it was found impossible even 
with artificial inflation to carry the Indian crop 
beyond 3,000,000 bales. 
As to Africa, the experiments there have never 
been at any time anything but inglorious failures; 
and it is said that the cotton made in the Niger 
territory has cost 50 cents a pound. A West Afri- 
can correspondent of the London Times says that 
the much vaunted "colonies of Lagos, Southern 
Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and Gambia, 
under the most favorable circumstances .... 
will not be capable of producing more than 350,- 
000 bales, and these figures will not be attained fop 
many years, if ever." 
