138 On the Expediency of introducing Machinery into India. 
In the name of common sense, what is it that stands in the way of such an 
improve nentto both countries; but, want of confidence, and of clear-sighted views? 
If one-tenth part of the enormous capital, that was lately embarked in the wildest 
projects that ever entered the brain of man; had been invited to India 25 years 
ago; Great Britain would have commanded the commerce of the world, in the vast 
article of clot ling alone (now become universal). And she could well have exchanged 
the hundreds of effeminate, and demoralising cotton mills, for thousands of such 
establishments as those of Boulton and Watt ; since all the machinery to be worth any 
thing must have been made by English artists in their own country ; as well as that 
of numerous other sister arts, which would have sprung up with the progress of 
general improvement in a country, which is stored with uncounted mines of incal- 
culable wealth. 
Should Englishmen be induced even, eventually, to abandon the country, they 
would do so, after creating tastes and wants, that could not be so well gratified ashy 
that people who had given them existence ; and thus, India, totally disconnected with 
us in every other point of relation, would be tea times as valuable to Great Britain, 
as America is at this moment. 
But, in order to render the importation of machinery, extensively beneficial ; a 
preparatory step would, in some sort, be requisite. The’ cotton of the country, is of 
a quality so inferior (although very fine) to that required for manufacture by 'machi- 
nery*; that it is totally unsuited to being employed in the present neglect of the 
culture of this great staple commodity. 
Its inferiority is so great, that it sells for less in the Liverpool market sometimes, 
than it can be procured for in the country of its growtli ! 
Is cotton then not worth cultivation ? That it is worth cultivation, is proved 
by the fact of the improvement which proper care effected, having been ascertained 
to exceed the ordinary length of staple, fourfold, and upwards ! This is a fact, of 
which any one may satisfy himself, by making the experiment in his own garden. 
It would be no idle speculation on the part of those engaged in indigo cultivation, 
to 1 -ai e cotton also ; and to these, sugar, arid coffee, could be demonstrated to be 
no unprofitable additions. Tire consequence of such an arrangement, or method of 
com nercial farming, would be, that a planter might have the whole of the crop* 
nearly in a ring fence; instead of being compelled, to visit distant patches of indigo 
cultivation, to the great injury often of his health, and not unfrequeutly of his for- 
tune. 1 
It can he shown, that such a system, even in an unfavourable season, would re- 
duce his gross loss to a fraction of what is often experienced by tire present system. 
It is not very creditable to tits understandings of Europeans, that they should con- 
sider such a country as India, to be capable of producing little more than four or 
five small ship loads, of a dyeing drug '. And to complain of tire dullness of trade, 
and the narrowness of the commercial channel, without making even an infant 
exertion to extend, and expand this channel by seeking new objects ; is to plead 
guilty to the existence of an apathy, that can have no other foundation than in a 
total want ot all energy and enterprise. 
* bailie is attauipted to be cast on the anomalous relations of Europeans 
in India : these are certainly singular and peculiar ; but the peculiarity can frame 
but a very slender apology, for that extreme caution, of which, glaring facts de- 
monstrate tue total inexpediency. A great change is perhaps about to he made in 
many of the relations of Europeans in India; since it is shrewdly imagined, that the 
good old way of making the most of the country, must be exchanged for a better. 
The task of enlightening 80 millions of people, must require two or three centu- 
ries ; for w-e may reasonably suppose, that they will not advance much faster than 
European nations, who were little raised above barbarism three centuries ago. 
But let any man take a survey of Europe since Watt, and Arkwright, and Smeaton 
ndaert a new impulse; and he will soon perceive, that the last half century has 
eltected more than wus accomplished in the two preceding. 
The philosophers and chemists, are undoubtedly very assisting, in the vast im- 
wm'Jrf!,?' 1 ° f kno "' led ge; but their labours, though equally valuable, did not form so 
powerful an appeal to the common sense and feelings of mankind, as the first great 
almost'evervl whose labours, bring them into our prL e nce> 
mme expedui u, W • CO '"f“ rt we en ? oy- , lhe P^o.-ophers, rendered navigation 
M a Se , CUr f : , mt ' t ,U artlats quadrupled British capital in 
haU a centar} , and made England what she »s, and could not have been without 
them. It was well said, that “ the Steam Engine had fought thfbaSL of Emope"’ 
• Ihe writer knows this practically to be the case. 
