1 4 6 
every other industry, imperilled by Germany and the United States ; 
combination and reform in methods. The question is very im- 
portant to India, and I therefore venture to deal with the subject 
at some length. 
Decreased Imports at Marseilles. 
Indigo imports have steadily decreased in the last few years. 
Ten years ago the Marseilles market received 1,400 to 1,500 cases 
annually, whereas in 1899 direct imports did not exceed 600 cases. 
The import rose slightly during 1900. Of the 600 cases imported 
in 1899, 130 came from Java, 50 from Bengal, the remaining 420 
from the coast of Coromandel. The causes of this decrease were 
as follows : European buyers no longer care to compete against 
the relatively higher prices paid by Japan and the Levant for Coro- 
mandel indigo of which they have now become the principal buyers. 
The few Java planters of indigo who used to send their produce 
here, have now completely given up the cultivation of indigo, 
which no longer paid, for the cultivation of tobacco and sugar. 
Imports at Marseilles from Bengal have almost completely ceased 
because, in the first instance, consumers buy from the growers 
direct more than they used to, small dyers receiving one or two 
cases direct from Calcutta during the season of public sales in that 
town, and lastly because the Havre market now almost monopo- 
lised Bengal indigo, on which quality term sales are based. 
The above mentioned figures refer solely to indigo actually sold 
on the Marseilles market. Lastly, German competition in artifi- 
cial indigo has already decreased the demand for natural indigo by 
at least 10 per cent at the close of the first year’s operations of the 
German manufacturers in France. This proportion is bound to 
increase with the output of artificial indigo. The artificial dye 
already regulates prices. The small crops of last year, would have 
justified a rise in prices of natural indigo, but owing to the artifi- 
cial produce put on the market, this has not taken place. 
Artificial Indigo. 
The researches of German Chemists, with unlimited means 
placed at their dispossal for that purpose, begun in 1865 by Herr 
Von BayER, resulted in 1890 in the chemical production, at com- 
mercial prices, of a dye having nearly all the qualities of Indian 
indigo, the substance obtained being chemically similar to that 
produced by the indigo plant. In 1897 Herr Heuman succeeded 
in producing this dye to which the name of ‘‘.artificial” or " syn- 
thetic indigo ” was given, from a cheap chemical substance of 
unlimited supply, napthaline, by an easy process. One thing only 
appears wanting to make this dye perfect, it is not yet impervious 
to chlorine. But science as practised in Germany, with such emi- 
nently practical results, is expected to cope before long with this 
last remaining difficulty. 
Two German firms are now operating in France in the Lyons 
district. The first to start was the Bedische Anilin und Soda 
Fabrik of Ludwig-shaven-am-Rhein, holders of the first patent. 
They established a branch house at Neuvill-sur-Saone, near Lyons, 
