Mr. T. Mellor, M.P., in a speech last week at
Ashton-under- Lyme, offered some explanation of the reason why our cotton cloth was being beaten out of the Indian market. It was, he said, the rascality of some of our exporters, in adulterating the cloth with 200 per cent. of china-clay. This was the sort of rascality which undermined the influence of our Missionaries. The Ilindoos did not believe in the religion of a people whose traders tried to cheat them by such fraudulent bargains. We ourselves have seen specimens of such cotton, and assuredly any one who ever accepted such " gummy " rags, even as a present, with the in- tention of using them, would be only less foolish than the pur- chaser of such rubbish. To attempt to sell such goods as cotton, is hardly less dishonest than was the infamous sale of shoes soled with brown-paper to the wretched army of General Chanzy, during the Franco-German war of 1870. If the English traders are really identified to any serious extent with these commercial frauds, Englishmen deserve to lose their reputation as manu- facturers and merchants in the East.
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