Tim Cotton Trade of India ; being a Series of
Letters written from
Bombay in the Spring of 1863. By Samuel Smith. (Effingham Wilson.) —This is really an exceedingly valuable little pamphlet, treating in detail and with great lucidity of all the elements of the Indian cotton question, and also of many of the conditions affecting the cotton growth of Egypt. Mr. Smith estimates in a letter, in the course of which there is, doubtless, some understatement of the case, corrected, however, at the close, that India had probably never grown before this crisis more than 2,000,000 bales of raw cotton, and never recently retained for home consumption more than 1,000.000 bales, so that the native supply, which we expected to tempt to England by offering high prices, is far less important than we had hoped. Mr. Smith thinks the native manufacture cannot now absorb more than 500,000 bales. He then estimates the export of cotton from India during 1862 under the stimu- lus of the rising price, which had not, however, been applied in time for the planting season of 1861 (in July, 1861, fair Dholleres being under 6d. a pound in Liverpool), and thinks it reached 1,200,000 bales —an estimate we know to be probably above the truth, as our own Board of Trade tables of imports from India give only 3,500,000 cwts., and the bale, as Mr. Smith calculates it, is about 3i cwts., while it is not very likely that much of the exportation from India can have gone direct to any country but England. For the present year 1863 he thinks the total export from British India may be at most 1,400,000 bales, which is smaller than it would otherwise be owing to the great failure of the crop in Berar, and, indeed, in many districts in Bombay, and even Bengal. On clear and apparently sound principles he esti- mates the possible increase in future years, with average crops, under the influence of anything like the present stimulus, thus:—
Export from India, 1864 2,250,000 bales.
1865 2,500,000 „
11 1866 2,750,000 „ 22 1867 3,000,000 „ And from this Mr. Smith infers that India is not able as a cotton- growing country to supply the place of America. Perhaps not, though the estimate for 1867 is not far beneath the highest American export to England in mere weight. But then it also shows that, with Egypt and Turkey, it is amply sufficient in mere quantity to supply the place of America. Mr. Smith thinks the present Egyptian crop will reach 250,000 bales, as against a previous average production of 150,000 bales —an increase of 66 per cent., and that next year we may have from Egypt 350,000 bales, and if Turkey, as is now expected, send 250,000 bales also, the supply for 1864 from all sources will not be, at all events, smaller than that of the year 1857. Mr. Smith's pamphlet contains also very much interesting information concerning the mode of culture in India and in Egypt and the mode of contract in India. He thinks the present high prices have very generally emancipated the ryets from debt to the small contractors, and enabled them to reap the benefit of tha high prices themselves. The pamphlet is full of instruction and interest.
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