196 On the Establishment of an Agricultural Institution, <£-c. 
Large stock farms, employed as the means of producing good staple articles, 
would in the end be found more certainly profitable than that of a dye which barely 
yields a precarious subsistence to the actual labourers and responsible individuals. 
Articles more bulky than indigo, but not less valuable to the agriculture and com- 
merce of the country, would be produced in an abundance that would revive the 
shipping interest, and raise the character of the trade of the metropolis. 
Cotton would become improved by a greater length of staple, which would ere 
long invite fixed capital to the country, and restore the manufacture of a necessary 
of life, that Europe in her commercial grasping had filched from an industrious 
people. 
The native capital would then be brought to light, and the want of money would 
become a less frequent complaint. 
The wealthy Bengal native merchant, in the variety of objects for the profitable 
investment of capital, would then feel no necessity' to conceal his treasures ; while 
the extension of the market, by banishing effective monopoly, would serve to pro- 
duce effectual and beneficial rivalry. 
To accomplish such objects would demand a patient perseverance in a system that 
would perhaps scarcely quadrate with some commercial views : it is hardly to be 
expected that those, who hope to realise a considerable fortune in a few years, would 
be likely to enter heartily into such a plan. 
Principals on the spot could alone succeed ; since commercial speculations which 
have embraced agricultural objects, have been ascertained to be any thing but ad- 
vantageous to proprietors, whose necessary absence could admit the investigation 
of no detail, nor any certainty in their calculation of returns. 
The real cause of the deplorably depressed state of commerce is to be found in the 
absence of many objects, or its restriction to those articles which, compared with 
the productive powers of the soil, are but the small superfluities of a poor country, 
that are extracted at an expense totally unworthy of their value. 
India may be said to be one continuous mine of wealth, which can be brought to 
market by that amount of skill and capital, that will grow out of improved habits 
and new institutions. 
That the people should ever attempt any considerable improvement, whilst all the 
skill and machinations of Europeans are arrayed against them, so as to induce the 
most wealthy to plead improbable poverty, is quite impossible. 
If the country is ever to advance in real improvement, the Europeans must cor- 
dially join, and identify interests. 
New institutions, new relations must be commenced to effect such objects. 
The erection of a single institution, whose pretensions at first should be very 
humble, would in time serve as a basis for a noble superstructure that, in no very 
great distance of time, would be able to confound those invidious distinctions, that 
the European endeavours seek to render as lasting, as they may promise to be ad- 
vantageous. 
The disadvantages under which the native capitalist labours, must be apparent 
to every person of observation. 
The opulent and well informed natives require nothing more, as a signal to make 
a forward movement, than a tender of that encouragement from the State, without 
which they must remain content and satisfied with their present bumble position. 
To give all the effective support, they would require, would in the sequel bring in- 
to collision opposite interests ; and to hold the balance even would demand the ac- 
tive employment of a powerful arm, in order to counteract the machinations of a 
confederacy that would infallibly become actively engaged to procure, by every means 
and suggestions, a contravention of any plan for improvement, that must needs 
affect so many opposite feelings and wishes. 
An approximated estimate of the whole of the lands under tillage in indigo culti- 
vation alone, at an average of 15 begahs for every maund of manufactured produce, 
would for the most abundant seasons assign an extent of this single cultivation 
equal to a district of one thousand square miles*. 
The most productive years have more than once yielded the large quantity of 
143,000 maunds, while the least productive have yielded on some occasions not 
more than 65,000 maunds. 
The natural spirit of trade justifies the supposition, that no very considerable 
fluctuation would occur a 3 to the extent of speculation ; and therefore it may be 
fairly concluded that nearly the same quantity of land will be annually employed. 
* 1620 begahs to the square mile or J of an acre each. 
