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Art. XII.—On the Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial Resources of India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2011
Extract
In accepting the invitation of a friend to read you a paper on the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial resources of India, I wish to explain that during my short residence there of seven years—for seven years is but a short time for learning muchof that country—my attention was devoted almost exclusively to this subject, andas I carried out with me a practical knowledge of public works, their adaptation to particular purposes, their forms and cost, and their utility in developing the resources of a country, I feel some confidence in my ability to speak to the purpose of these coarse and material yet important affairs—important, because they affect not merely the physical comforts and enjoyments of a people, but also their moral and intellectual condition; the material prosperity of a man providing him not merely with food, clothing, andshelter, but also leisure, and its necessary adjuncts, for the promotion of his mental and social enjoyments. I have, therefore, accepted the invitation of my friend, not willingly alone, but gladly, partly from my having devoted much time to these affairs, but more especially as my strongest passion on any public question is the desire to promote the welfare of the people of India, particularly that of the predial classes, of whose simplicity of character, truthfulness, and honesty I have received the most favourable impressions.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1861
References
page 417 note 1 1858–9.
page 417 note 2 Parliamentary Return, July 25th, 1867.
page 417 note 3 N. W. Provinces 65 per cent.; Madras Presidency 63½ per Cent.; Bengal and Bombay not shown.
page 417 note 4 American Almanack, 1860.
page 417 note 5 Cotton Supply Reporter, December 1st, 1860.
page 417 note 6 Mann's Cotton Trade of Great Britain, pp. 9, 114.
page 418 note 1 Total exports, 1858,—27,453,692l., from the Official Returns of the India House.
page 418 note 2 1 anna = 1½d.
page 418 note 3 The cultivation of Orleans staple cotton as practised in the Mississippi cottongrowing region.—Cotton Supply Association.
page 418 note 4 It is stated by some that Bérar is the best cotton producing district in India; this assertion, however, is not supported by the published prices current, which quote the Oomrawutty cotton as the lowest quality, except one, in the market; inferiority of staple being sure proof of scantiness of crop.
page 419 note 1 Western India, p. 120.
page 419 note 2 Report of the Sugar and Coffee Committee, 1848, Mr. Leonard Wray and Mr. A. Crooke.
page 420 note 1 Report on Indian Territories, Dec. 2nd, 1852,—Sir G. R. Clerk.
page 421 note 1 495 lbs. at 6d = 12l. 7s. 6d. “Afair average production, with proper attention to cultivation and irrigation.”—Sir J. Bowling's Report.
page 421 note 2 Idem.
page 422 note 1 “The general complaint in India, however, is, that crops are destroyed by cessive drought at unseasonable times,”—p. 224. “Irrigation would make the cultivation of cotton easy and independent of dry seasons,”—p. 227. “It is doubtful whether the climate in general is ever suitable to the successful culture of American cotton without the aid of such artificial irrigation as may be supplied by a canal,”—p. 291. “The planters seem to me to think more of climate than of soil, or rather, I should say, they find it more difficult to find a favourable climate in India than a favourable soil,”–p. 292. Dr. Forbes Koyle, Culture and Commerce of Cotton in India.
“By irrigation the cotton itself would be improved, and there would be a much larger production.”—Colonization and Settlement Committee. 1858. J. O'B. Saunders, Esq. Questions 10,237–38.
“He (his father) varied the culture; he subjected the ground to more or less ploughing and manuring, and, at last, to watering, and the conclusion at which he arrived, after several years' experience, was this, that the length of the staple and its fineness depend entirely upon the degree of care bestowed upon its culture, and upon its being irrigated at the proper time.”—Cotton Committee, 1848. Question 2,795. F. C. Brown, Esq.
page 422 note 2 And the great Ganges Canal. It is asserted that the famine is attributable to the unfinished condition of this work. We learn, however, from the “Memorandum,” published by the Indian Government in 1858, of which the following isan extract, that “on the 30th April, 1856, the canal had been carried so farthat the water flowed continuously through 449½ miles of the main trunk and terminal branches. The extent of the main channels of distribution (rajbuhas) completed was 435½ miles, and 817 miles more were in active progress.” Estimated cost under 2,000,000l.,—amount expended 1,560,000l. According to the local newspapersthe scourge is most severely felt about the upper or finibhed portions. “The amount of distress,” says the Lahore Chronicle, “existing around Delhi is appalling.” I am informed, on the best authority, that the supply of water in the dry season is greatly insufficient to supply the channels now open, although the quantity running waste in the rivers is more than enough to irrigate all the land in the Doab throughout the dry season. My opinion, therefore, is that had the finished portion been efficient it would have prevented any scarcity of food, not only in the Doab of the Jumna and the Ganges, but throughout the North-West; the more so as the canal is navigated, after a fashion, as low down as Cawnpore. It is now upwards of 15 years since the surveys were commenced (Sept. 16th, 1845). If it had been undertaken by private capitalists it might have been completed 10 years ago, not as a comparatively valueless ditch, but as a fully efficient canal. That it is a ditch only, although a very large one, is shown by Col. R. B. Smith, the Director of the North-Western Canals, in his bookon Italian irrigation (Vol. ii. p. 361), in which he states that the Commissioners appointed to report previous to its commencement recommended that it should be kept below the surface of the country, which recommendation was adopted. Thus the first object of an irrigating canal, which is to get the water above the surface of the country, and one which would be cheaply purchased at a cost of 5,000l. a mile, was ignored, or as is more probable (the Commissioners were not commercial men, or civil engineers, but of the military profession) overlooked at the beginning. That it possessesnone of the requisite features of a carrying canal, is proved by the cost as given in the “Memorandum,” viz., 2,200l. per mile. It is said that a district once visited by severe famine does not recover for ten years (vide evidence of Sir John Lawrence before the C. and S. of India Committee, 1839). The cost of the present calamity to the public treasury will probably exceed the interest of 40,000,000l. The loss of human life, and of labour, which is the source of all revenue, will be something enormous, and can never be recovered. According to Sir John Lawrence, the Government revenue suffered in the famine of 1838, to the extent of 400,000l. in one year, in one of the divis'ons of the North-West Provinces, viz., that of Agra, which has apopulation, according to the last return, of 4,373,156. The present drought, which is said to be much more severe in ita effects than that of 1838, prevails, as is reported, with greater or less intensity throughout a population of upwards of 33,000,000.
page 425 note 1 Vide Evidence of Mr. Arthur Crooke.—Sugar and Coffee Committee, 1848.
page 425 note 2 Sir John Bowring's Report.
page 425 note 3 The coat of one watering of an acre of land in the dry season from channels and wells, witḥ bullocks at 3d.per pair per diem, and men at 2d. per map per diem, as given by Mr. Leonard Wray (vide Report of the Sugar and Coffee Committee, 1848, p. 55) is 5s. 4d.; and by Dr. Moore (Colonization and Settlement [India] Committee, April 7th, 1859) 6s. 3d., exclusive of the cost of wells or channels and lifting machines.
page 425 note 4 Brunei's Treatise on Draught.
page 426 note 1 The navigation of Indian rivers is so much impeded by shoals and other obstructions, that the cost of carrying on them is as much, or nearly as much, as by cart. In Scinde “the Banyans generally, and the Affghan traders altogether, prefer the land to the river route.”—Letter from the Collector of Shikapoor tothe Commissioner in Scinde. The Godavery, although said to be navigable for at least sixmonths in the year, and that, too, immediately after the gathering of the cotton crop, has not a ton of carried traffic.— Vide Colonel Cotton's “Public Works in India,” p. 81.
page 428 note 1 The relative cost of lifting this quantity of water by steam power, and by permanent dam, would be as under:—
page 431 note 2 Cotton Supply Reporter, August 1st, 1860. This includes a portionused in its raw state for padding purposes.