their own Surat, Broach, Jumbooseer, or up-country cotton, instead of entrusting the choice to extortionate Natives, who impose upon them country cotton, and receive their commission as if they had sent the best? Why should not branches of the great cotton houses be established in the localities where the raw material is produced,-Surat, Bulsar, Broach, Jumbooseer, Gogo, or Dhundooka? The amount paid away as commission, which must be very considerable, would be saved. We shall be met by the argument that only Natives can deal with Natives; that the upcountry brokers have got possession, each of his own market; that the supplies are in a great measure produced by their making advances to the cultivators to enable them to grow them. But every one of these arguments falls helplessly to the ground when we assert, and offer to prove, that the difficulties suggested have been, and therefore can still be, overcome. It is a mistake to think that only Natives can deal with Natives; for the Natives, taught by experience, will rather trust a European's honour than one of their own countrymen. True, the brokers are in possession, and make advances to the growers; but enter the market, and compete by making larger advances. Energy and fair dealing must gain the day. And why should the employment of European capital in the Mofussil be restricted to dealings in cotton? There are numbers of districts in the Bombay Presidency that produce wheat, rice, barley, and many other species of grain, which would be valuable articles of export, and sugar-cane from which there could, with proper machinery, be manufactured sugar of any quality. Europeans have only to settle in the proper localities to procure any quantity of the cane they may require; for the soil in many parts of the Ahmedabad, Kaira, and other collectorates is peculiarly fitted for its culture. Until we ascertained the truth in a late visit to Manchester, we had supposed that accounts of the way in which cotton was adulterated before being sent from Bombay to England were exaggerations. Careful inspection convinced us of our mistake, and we then pointed out to some most influential men the parties who must be held responsible for the fraud. Every bale, we believe, with the exception of those sent by Mr. Landon from Broach, is opened in Bombay, and, by being rescrewed, is reduced to compactness for shipment, so that the quality of all can be easily ascertained. But as some brokers of European houses, who are entrusted with the inspection, are, we firmly believe, in league with up-country dealers from whom the supply comes, Proposal to speculators. 319 and as the European partners are above scrutinising such matters, good and bad are mixed together, and the latter is frequently substituted for the former. Adulteration in each stage, as the cotton passes from the field in which it was grown to the Colaba presses, could be distinctly traced in all Bombay bales at Manchester. Particles of leaf and rice husks showed the original fraud committed by the grower; handfuls of seed cotton (kuppas), and damp-stained stuff mixed with good proved the second stage in the hands of the cotton cleaner or wukharia; and mango-stones, tiles, lumps of rag-which are more destructive than anything else to the spinning machinery-and other filth, filled up the measure of Bombay. In one instance a cannon-ball was in the middle of a bale; and daily, large tin cases, full of stones and other substances used in the adulteration of the staple, were removed from the cleaning rooms. Is it not a crying shame that our island tolerates such a system? Why do Bombay merchants take bad cotton ?-and why do they not look with their own eyes into this matter? We were told that the American saw-gin cuts the short staple of the Bombay cotton too much, but that it is nevertheless preferred on account of its superior cleanliness. The best machine for cleaning our cotton appears to be the "mule," a revolving cylinder armed at certain distances with rounded spikes, which, turning within a box, beats the dirt out of the cotton as it revolves, and does not injure the staple. Here is a plan which we think would afford excellent employment for the capital and energy of any one who would adopt it. Get out machinery from England that will drive a sufficient number of mules, and set up a factory for cleaning cotton, either at Dhundooka, where a great deal of the Dhollera cotton is cleansed, or at Gogo, which, being on the sea-coast and not on a tidal river, is peculiarly fitted for the shipment of cotton in large vessels. We believe that it might be shipped direct for England, if proper screws were put up either at that port or higher up the country, and steam tugs were to tow the vessels up at once to Gogo, so as to escape the violence of the ebb tides. By a saving of expense in freight, commission, and other items, a large return on the capital laid out would be yielded. The only difficulty would be that of procuring fuel wherewith to work steam machinery; but if that can be obtained at Broach it can be at Gogo; and probably a large enough reservoir could be formed by damming up one of the many streams that issue from the Khokra hills, on the west of the district, so that the cleaning process might be carried out by water power. We hope, moreover, before long, to see a railroad VOL. IV.NO. II. 41 running from Gogo northwards to Veerumgaum, thence ultimately through Kutch to Sind; and this would bring direct to Gogo the enormous trade of Dhollera, now dependent on a miserable creek, which even country boats ascend with the greatest difficulty at the highest spring tides. The port of Gogo is the best in the Gulf of Cambay, being sheltered from the violence of the monsoon by the Island of Perim, which lies immediately to the south of it, and has an excellent lighthouse. A pier or a mole, run out from the mouth of the little creek in which native craft generally lie, would allow small vessels to remain in security during the monsoon, whilst there would be but few days in the year in which large vessels could not receive their cargoes outside from lighters or barges. Local improvements of this kind depend upon local energy; but the general measures of reform that India requires will not be undertaken until public opinion at home can be brought to bear upon them. India as yet is so far off, that a general interest in its welfare cannot be excited in England, unless those connected with it are true to their trust, and exert themselves to make its wants known. The members of the Court of Directors who sit in Parliament are too few, and have too little influence to command attention. Party feeling, moreover, is apt to bias the House more or less against their representations. Latterly, too, a most unaccountable and deep-rooted prejudice against the Court appears to have sprung up, which unfair statements made by interested parties in such cases as Dyce Sombre's will, and the Nawab of Surat's treaty, have tended to inflame. The Court of Directors have no recognised organ by which they can defend their measures; and one at least of the Indian members in the Commons is looked upon with such personal dislike as to render his advocacy injurious rather than beneficial. Independent members, not in the Services, returned by the chief towns in India, might be listened to with more attention on Indian subjects; but many a long day will, we fear, intervene, before the interests of a hundred and fifty millions of our fellow-creatures will be thought of sufficient value to be entrusted to such good keeping. The opinions of retired Governors General appear at present to be the only ones that carry any weight. But Governors General are generally noblemen who sit in the Upper House, so that the Lower House, where all great measures of reform must be discussed, has not the benefit of their advice. Of these even, only those who from their statesmanlike abilities take comprehensive views of Indian politics, can be expected to do much good; and some lose sight of Indian interests as soon as they no longer Appeal to public opinion. 321 pocket Indian pay. The health of our late excellent ruler the Marquis of Dalhousie is unfortunately so precarious as to prevent him, for some time at least, from taking any active part in public matters, so that at present we can only hope, with Mr. Micawber, that something may "turn up." In the mean time, India, with her hundred and fifty millions, must get on as she can; but it is no less the duty of those interested in her welfare to put their shoulders to the wheel. The British public should no longer be permitted to urge as an excuse for neglecting to interest themselves in the matter, that no one will furnish them with correct information, or point out the way in which their energies are to be applied. ART. V.-GOVERNMENT EDUCATION IN THE 1. Copy of a Despatch from the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the Governor-General of India in Council, dated July 19th, 1854. 2. Papers relating to the Examination held at the Elphinstone College, Bombay, December 1855. 3. Papers relating to the Examination held at the Poona College, December 1855. 4. Second Report of the Calcutta Sub-Committee of Arts, June 2nd, 1856. THE interest excited by the recently-published Papers relating to the Examinations held at the Elphinstone College, Bombay, and at the Poona College, has induced us to take up the subject of Government Education. All the evidence, however, which relates to these Colleges, to the Tuition pursued in them, as welk as to the Examinations, has not yet been published. And we have to express our regret that we are not in possession of all the light which pertains to a matter of such public concern. half of the Reports of the Examiners of the Poona College have been published. The Rev. P. Anderson, Captain Cowper, and Captain Hill, make allusions to matters discussed in their unprinted But one Reports. The Professors of the Elphinstone and the Poona Colleges were called on before the close of 1855 to report on the teaching of the year; but their Reports also have not yet been published. To speak out our own sentiments on the Selecting Principle, we have no sympathy with it whatever. It is but a truism, to say it does not furnish the elements for forming a judgment in its integrity. Let everything be made known. What one man glances at negligently or passes over, may occupy the attention of another, and may present to his mind evidence probably less obtrusive but not less instructive. "It was a happy thought of Glauber to examine what everybody else threw away," is a wise remark of Sir John Herschel, which admits of various applications. Let the light then shine fully. Though in the physical world, light may possibly so interfere with light as to produce darkness; in the moral, we forebode no such obscuration. In the moral, light is associated with everything that is good and just. "Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines." We believe a positive injury has been done to some most able and zealous men by this partial publication. A general judgment has been formed and expressed; but that judgment is too indiscriminate, and stands in need of some correction. When the public is fully informed, we have every confidence in the discrimination and judgment of the public. The public has been but partially informed on the teaching of the Elphinstone and Poona Colleges; and we believe their judgment has been of a corresponding kind. This cannot be satisfactory to any party. When more facts come to light, the Examinations themselves may possibly become the subject of a deeper criticism. We shall, however, we hope, be much better engaged in not attempting any such minute consideration of them. We shall endeavour to profit by the important accession of light they supply; and they will be our text. But we shall also take a more rudimentary view, and also a somewhat more extensive view of the subject of education, than lay within their province. In the combination of means which tend to the amelioration of mankind, or of any portion of mankind, Education is one indisputably necessary. We must still echo the wisdom of Greece and Rome, that "Man has been but commenced by Nature"; and still chime in, with Horatian sagacity, "Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam." In its effects, immediate and remote, we believe ourselves justified in asserting that no other Art or Science of the many which are marshalled under the "most |