Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/155

the surrounding districts who purchase or as far as I can judge would purchase cotton. Nor are there any native merchants who purchase cotton on a large scale. Radhe Lall, Bhugwan Dass and Umrao Singh are the chief native cotton purchasers of Etawah, but they together scarcely purchase ;^io,ooo worth per annum. Some twenty-five years ago Messrs. Wright and I think Ritchie at Agra, and Mr. Bruce at Calpee did a good deal of business in this line, here and in the neighbouring districts — and Mr. Bruce was a cotton planter as well as purchaser. All seemed to have failed. This was long before I came to this part of the country, and I cannot therefore offer any opinion of my own as to the causes of their want of success, but if any reliance may be placed in native accounts, their failure was due to causes independent of the trade in which they were engaged. Mr. H. H. Bell of Oomergarh, in the Muttra district, also I believe some fourteen years ago, tried (at the request of the late J. Thomason Esq., Lt.-Governor) the experiment of growing American cotton and purchasing the native variety, but he too would seem to have found the business unprofitable. You ask what agency should be employed to purchase cotton and send it home to England. I would suggest that the Association send out to Etawah some member of one of the large Manchester firms whose name would be a sufficient guarantee for the character of his transactions. That this gentleman should estabhsh here a regular agency for the purchase and factory for the cleaning and pressing of cotton. This should be bought raw and cleaned under his own supervision — a good steam Pratt gin, for instance, would increase the value of the cotton 15 per cent, and save 5 per cent, in labour, while if fuel became ultimately any difficulty, as it possibly might, cattle, horse or mule power might be used as in the States. The cotton so bought and cleaned should be pressed, packed, and sent off from here to England (in boats to Calcutta by the Jumna). The cotton agent might at the same time gradually introduce better kinds of cotton, keeping up a small model farm both with the view of ascertaining which varieties are best for