dwelt on the great distress and loss caused to sugar plantations by the emancipation of slaves, and the difficulty of obtaining free labour; and they recommended a differential duty of 10s. in favour of sugar, the produce of British possessions. COTTON COMMITTEE. A more important Select Committee was appointed in the same year to inquire into the growth of cotton in India. India was known from ancient times for her cotton fabrics with which she had supplied the markets of Asia and of Europe. And when England, with the help of her power looms and her protective tariffs, had suppressed that industry, the hope was still entertained that India would continue to grow the raw material required for the factories of Lancashire. Endeavours were therefore made to extend and improve the growth of cotton in India, with the idea that Great Britain would thereby have both the raw material and the manufacture in her own hands, and be thus independent of America and other foreign countries. The Select Committee, which was appointed in 1848, was therefore entrusted with a task of the very highest importance; and one of the most illustrious men of England was the chairman of the Committee. John Bright, who had already won distinction as the colleague of Cobden in the agitation which led to the repeal of the Corn Laws, was in the chair; and it was in the course of this inquiry that he obtained that intimate knowledge of Indian affairs, which marked his public utterances during the rest of his life. It may be said without exaggeration that John Bright filled the same place in the House of Commons in the middle of the nineteenth century that Edmund Burke had done in the last decades of the eighteenth. Their endeavours to render justice to a vast Eastern Dependency will live in the memory of mankind, when England's Empire shall have passed away. And their published utterances will be read as among the finest specimens of English prose, possibly when the present English language shall have ceased to be a spoken tongue. Before the Select Committee had gone very far in recording evidence on the subject of the cultivation of cotton, the connected question of the assessment of the soil in India forced itself to their notice. Francis William Prideaux, then Assistant-Examiner of India Correspondence, read from the petition of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the subject of land assessments: "Amongst the obstacles to the better cultivation of cotton, none are more obvious than the Land Tax, the tenure under which land is held, and the want of roads and the means of conveyance. Your Memorialists believe that your honourable Court is itself impressed with the conviction that the Land Tax in the present cotton-growing districts is imperfect, and has more than once begun reforms which have been abandoned almost as soon as begun; but until the injustice of levying a heavier assessment upon cotton than upon other crops be abandoned, and the tenure of land be placed upon a wise and equitable basis, all hope of so improving the quality of cotton as to procure for it prices which will stimulate further culture will be futile." I 1 The influence of British manufacturers had so far prevailed that all duties on cotton exported into England from Bengal had been abolished in 1836, those on Bombay cotton in 1838, and those on Madras cotton in 1844. But the Court of Directors declined to reduce the land assessment in order to stimulate the cultivation of cotton. The next witness was Dr. John Forbes Royle, who had been for nine years in charge of the Botanical 1 Select Committee's Report, p. 6. Gardens at Saharanpur, and in 1837 had published a valuable essay on the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine, explaining the nature and extent of the chemical and surgical knowledge possessed by the ancient Hindus. He deposed that Surat cotton was 30 per cent. lower in price at Liverpool than American cotton, and that Indian cotton was generally shipped in a dirty state. American cotton grew better on the red soil, and Indian cotton on the black soil, in India. In the American States of Alabama and Louisiana, they got 400 lbs. of clean cotton per acre, while in India not more thân 100 or 150 lbs. The cultivation of cotton had much increased in Northern India since the new settlement of 1833, which gave long leases to cultivators. It was desirable to introduce the saw-gin into India, but Manchester spinners would not use the Indian cotton if the American cotton was cheap. Indian cotton was used in two ways in England; it was either manufactured into cloths, or used as wadding, i.e. people wore coats padded with cotton in the cold weather. The importation of English cotton goods into India was increasing, and was superseding the manufactures of India more and more every year. Thomas Bazley, President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, furnished a table showing the proportion of Indian cotton to American cotton imported into England the proportion of the Indian supply to the total British import varying between 8 and 15 per cent. The figures for ten years from the date of Queen Victoria's accession are given on the next page. The same witness deposed that while the spinner obtained from 1 lb. of Surat cotton only 12 ounces of yarn, he obtained from 1 lb. of American cotton 131 ounces of yarn. The price of the latter was therefore between 3d. and 6d. the lb. when Indian cotton was between 3d. and 5d. Towards the conclusion of his evidence, Thomas Import of Cotton Wool into England, Scotland, and Ireland. Bazley explained in a few words an Englishman's idea of the trade between England and India. "In India,” he said, "there is an immense extent of territory, and the population of it would consume British manufactures to a most enormous extent. The whole question with respect to our Indian trade is whether they can pay us, by the products of their soil, for what we are prepared to send out as manufactures." 1 Robert Crawford, a merchant who had been resident in Bombay, gave figures showing the extent of cotton cultivation in some Bombay districts during twelve years, from 1834 to 1845. In Broach cotton cultivation was 43 per cent.; in Surat it was 22 per cent.; in Kandeish it was 18 per cent.; and in Sholapur it was 3 per cent. of the total cultivation on assessed lands. Asked as to the nature of land-assessment in Gujrat, witness said: "As the Government and their officers may justly claim the credit of getting all the revenue they can possibly get, it follows that the land is let at a rack-rent." And the witness, quoting from the report of Mr. Davies, collector of Broach, said: "As the present state of the market does not unfortunately give him [the cultivator] 1 Select Committee's Report, p. 57. that reimbursement to enable him to keep up his stock, it far less enables him to reckon upon any profits; the inference is too obvious that he mainly depends upon remissions and balances for his escape from ruin.” 1 The same witness also deposed to the evil effects of the Navigation Laws, requiring ships to be manned by English seamen. "I have known times," said the witness, "when it would very well have suited for a ship belonging to the port of Bombay manned by lascars to come to this country if she could have sailed upon the same terms as an English ship does." 2 A more important witness was Major-General Briggs. He had entered the service of the Company in 1801, and had worked thirty-two years in India. He had served under men like Sir John Malcolm and Mountstuart Elphinstone, and had been Commissioner of Mysore and Resident of Nagpur. He had written the most valuable and exhaustive work on the Land Tax of India, and had advised Lord William Bentinck in regard to the Settlement of Northern India. And he had studied Indian history from the original sources, and produced a scholarlike translation of Ferishta's "History of India" which is still a standard work. Major-General Briggs spoke of the enormous consumption of cotton in India, and of the capacity of that country to "produce sufficient cotton for the consumption of the whole world." And he considered that the two great obstacles which prevented a larger export of Indian cotton to England were the Land Tax, and the want of road for conveyance.3 Questioned on the first subject, he said: "The Land Tax of India, as well as all direct taxes, have been founded upon the principle of an Income Tax ; a portion of the income, whether in grain or in money, has usually been considered the right of the sovereign; and under the Hindu rule the portion was originally fixed at a tenth of the produce.* 1 Select Committee's Report, pp. 96 and 97. 2 Ibid., p, 104. 4 Ibid., p. 123. |