Character of Mr. Mackay's Report.

3

management of India, which the intimate friend of John Bright, selected by him for this particular mission, was not unlikely to possess. Still, however, his disposition was essentially truthful and candid; and we know that he considerably modified his earlier impressions, and-gathering information as he went on-he must have found that some of his earlier data were also erroneous. It is only natural to suppose that any change of opinion, which he freely acknowledged in this country, found its way into the note-book he always carried about with him, or into his later papers; and if the reports now published are his first views simply compressed- but unrevised and unmodified by his later opinions-we cannot but think that great injustice has been done to the memory of the lamented author by his Editor. After this, it is painful to have to say that the present work is in some of its most important particulars singularly inaccurate and untrustworthy.

Mr. Mackay on his arrival in Bombay was cordially received by the authorities as well as by the Chamber of Commerce. Government offered him facilities for prosecuting his enquiries which were declined. The public records-to all others a sealed book-were freely thrown open to him. The local officers were desired to give him all the assistance and information in their power; and he was sensible of the frankness and good faith with which they carried out this duty.

The Reports are written in a pleasant facile style-in every way more genial and agreeable than that of" the Western World." But they are composed with a dangerous skill. We recognise in them that love of theorizing and taste for subtle and artificial reasoning which the author carried with him into private society, and which imparted to him an easy and deceptive copiousness in the development of his opinions-that charmed all who listened to his dissertations, and misled those who had not the power to analyse them. The same habit and turn of mind unfitted him to appreciate the results of experience where they conflicted with theory. Considerations of a practical nature seem to have made no impression on him ; and although those with whom he came in contact whilst in India, could have had very little else to give him-for we are all too much engaged with daily facts to neglect them for speculation-still, so far as the reports throw any light on the practical working of the systems and machinery which Mr. Mackay found in operation in this country, he might as well have written them in England. In illustration of this-not a thought is bestowed on the difficulties of the position of the East India Company-its debt-its limited revenue-the few European servants it can afford to keep up for civil employ in the districts, or the state in which the country was when it came into the possession of the British. But all Mr. Mackay's efforts are directed to shew, and to convince his Mercantile constituents, that the Indian

Government ought to double its expenditure and give up one half its revenue; a Government already in debt, and with little or no surplus revenue as it is! How this is to be accomplished, and the public treasuries are to answer the call of those who attend on the first of the month for their salaries, we are left to divine. It is worse than puerile for one, who is drawing up articles of impeachment against the East India Company, to reason in this fashion. Any person can easily point out what India wants, and can, with irresistible logic, make out that the country has been scandalously neglected,—if the pecuniary part of the matter may be left entirely out of consideration.

We may furnish another illustration of Mr. Mackay's love of theorizing, and of his insensibility to all practical evidence. The leading proposition which he endeavours to establish, and on which he dwells more or less throughout these reports, is that the ryot's tenure of the land in Western India is that of “a tenant at will," and that an interest in the land, so insecure, obviously offers no inducement to the occupant to improve the soil, but, on the contrary, is, of itself, a complete bar to agricultural progress. One would naturally suppose that Mr. Mackay would have taken some pains to enquire whether in reality the ryot did feel uneasy as to the permanency of his tenure. He appears to have considered this wholly unnecessary! Now we do not believe that there is a single cultivator throughout Guzerat who has the least idea that his tenure is insecure ; and Mr. Mackay does not affirm that there is.

We propose, in the present number, to confine our observations to the report on Guzerat, which forms the larger portion of the work. Mr. Mackay commences it with the following words ;

"I now proceed to lay before you, as briefly as the nature of the subject will permit, the results of my inquiries in Guzerat.

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In doing so I shall confine myself to those topics on which I feel competent to speak; and it will not be arrogating to myself too much to lay claim to some competency as a witness in speaking of Guzerat, after a tour through the province of three months' duration, and comprising, in extent, upwards of eight hundred miles.

"The whole of my time whether in the bungalow or on the road was devoted to the enquiry, and what I now proceed to lay before you is a faithful account of what I have actually seen and heard."

There is a tone of confidence in this passage which daily experience teaches us is always to be found in companionship with imperfect knowledge. Mr. Mackay conceived a three months' tour through Guzerat sufficient to qualify him-a previous stranger to India, to speak authoritatively on subjects which it has taken all others years of experience thoroughly to master. We have no doubt that he actually saw and heard all that he has put forth in his report; but we know that he heard a great many other things from unquestionable sources, quite at variance with the statements he has

Uutrustworthiness of Mr. Mackay's Report.

5

preferred to adopt as truthful; and it is inexplicable that he should have so confidently set the matter we allude to aside, and not even have adverted to it as having been presented to him. Mr. Mackay's belief of his competency to speak as a witness in relation to Guzerat, will probably be accepted in England as decisive of the correctness of every thing he has reported to his friends. In India it can only excite a smile. He spent his three months exceedingly well. We recognize indeed the fidelity of many of his statements on subjects on which ocular inspection was all that was needed for correct speaking. But it is simply ridiculous to suppose that a tour of that duration could enable him, however intelligent, to select-unassisted-the truth from the contradictory accounts he received, regarding the state of the country, and out of that mass of hearsay, to speak with the knowledge "of a witness." The phrase was altogether an artful one. It is deceptive in its suggestions. It gracefully covers the chief defect of these reports namely, that no one can discover from whence the facts in them are derived. It keeps off all who are troubled with a rude curiosity on this point, and enables Mr. Mackay-unseen-to give credit to the stories of truthless Patells, in preference to data derived from the purest sources.

Again-candid, and open to conviction, as he was, in regard to most of the subjects on which he was seeking information, on one point he was immovable. He came to India with an opinion as to the pernicious effect of the landed tenures on the industry of the country, so deeply rooted that he could not listen even with temper to any other view. At the very commencement of his tour, he had the inestimable advantage, to one in his situation, of passing several days at the house of Mr. Landon of Broach, whom he justly describes as one of the most intelligent, energetic, and enterprising of the Europeans connected with the experiments of cotton cleaning in Guzerat. From this gentleman, perhaps the most competent authority in that district on the real condition of thecultivator-the practical effect of the landed tenures, the oppressiveness or otherwise of the assessment-and who certainly was the most disinterested and independent witness Mr. Mackay could have resorted to-he received very valuable data, which, strange to say, he has put entirely aside, adopting in their place other and most inaccurate statements derived from sources which we are left to conjecture. Mr. Landon's opinion as to the effect of the tenures of Guzerat on the position of the cultivator is, that they do not practically impede the progress of agriculture. We know this from himself, and that he combatted in vain the theories on the same point which Mr. Mackay" had brought, ready made, from England-an argument which the former from his great experience was able to illustrate with facts which could not have been previously known to his guest, and to which the latter could only offer speculative and theoretical replies. We must,

therefore on this the most important part of his enquiry-correct Mr. Mackay's statement, that his report is a faithful account of what he had actually seen and heard. He brought certain fixed views with him to India. He saw and heard much that should, at least, have modified them. He sent them back, by the post, in the state in which they arrived here; and they have now been reproduced as the results of a tour through Guzerat!

The first chapter of the Report on this Province, touches on "cotton," its cultivation, and treatment before it reaches the hands of the merchant for shipment to foreign countries. A few words dispose of the question of the relative merits of indigenous and exotic cotton in Guzerat; and we must be content to follow Mr. Mackay's example in the brevity of our remarks in this respect. It is only in the vicinity of Broach that the culture of cotton of both kinds, experimentally under the superintendence of Government Officers, has ever been fairly tested in Guzerat; and this was in the case of the farm which was under the superintendence of Dr. Burn, of the Bombay Medical Service. Strange to say, this experiment, although carried on at great expense for some years, is not even mentioned in the work before us. As we are not in the same favoured position that Mr. Mackay was, with reference to authentic documents concerning the Broach farm, we can only state, in general terms, that the result of the experiment in some of the best cotton growing soil in Guzerat, on the banks of the Nurbuddah, near the town of Broach, was unfavorable to the successful culture of exotic cotton, as well as to the introduction of the more highly finished and theoretically superior agricultural instruments tried; and we doubt if the experimental farm ever paid its own expenses. Attempts have

been made to introduce the culture of exotic cotton in other parts of the country, by distributing seed to the cultivators themselves. We have conversed personally with numbers of these men, and have inspected their crops, and from all that we have as yet had an opportunity of seeing we should say, that the cultivation of cotton from foreign seed in the ordinary black soils, in which the indigenous variety arrives at perfection without manure and without irrigation, will be unremunerative. The plants raised from New Orleans seed appear dwarfish and stunted, and their produce is not to be compared in quantity with that of the indigenous plant. Their quality is still superior notwithstanding the disadvantage of climate; for the staple retains all its characteristic length and silkiness of fibre. What may be done with this description of seed in well manured soils and with proper irrigation remains to be seen; but if the failure of the experiments hitherto may be attributed to the want of moisture in the climate, artificial irrigation is the obvious remedy; and time may induce the partial supplanting of the short

Adulteration of Cotton.

7

stapled indigenous, by the long fibred and more valuable foreign

varieties.

Whilst the cotton is yet in the hands of the Ryot, the series of adulterations, to which it is subjected, commence. Frequently, ideed, it suffers from neglect before it is ready for picking, owing to the practice of selling the crop in an unripe state. In these cases, from the moment of the sale the grower takes no further interest in what he has disposed of. He prefers paying attention to some other crop to the neglect of this, which, being already sold, he cannot expect to get much more out of; and the fields that contain the latter are accordingly carelessly weeded and watched. When the cotton has ripened, the loss arising from dirt and other deteriorating substances getting mixed with it in the picking, does not fall on him but on the buyer; and in fact their admixture, from increasing the weight of the article, rather adds to the seller's gains; so that apart from his want of interest in the cleanliness of the cotton, the temptation to an unscrupulous grower to adulterate it is great. The remedy for such a state of things is not exclusively in the hands of Government or its servants. Only let the dealers know that adulterated cotton will not find the market which it now finds, and they will take care so to make their bargains with the grower, that they shall have it cleanly and carefully picked and put into their hands in a pure state, that will not oblige them to adulterate it still further in order to remunerate themselves. The remedy, so far, is a self-evident one, and the evil is not to be removed by such measures as are recommended by a late official, great in cotton matters, and in high favor with the Chambers of Manchester and Liverpool, that cultivators should not be granted remissions when they asked for them on the plea that their cotton had not been cleanly gathered, and that the native servants of Government should not be deemed worthy of promotion unless they had taken an interest in the extension of its culture!

The staple is now in the hands of the native up-country dealer called in Broach the "wukharia," not because he is a cotton dealer, but because he holds a "wukhar," or store-house. This person separates the cotton (henceforward called "roo" or "rooee," in contradistinction to "kuppas," or seed cotton) from the " kupassia," or cotton seed, packs it in rather loosely screwed bales, and ships it to Bombay. The cleaning instrument employed as yet,-for saw-gins have made but little progress in native favour-has been tho "Churka." Mr. Mackay discusses the relative merits of these machines, and observes, correctly, that the saw-gin has the advantage of its rival in celerity, and cheapness in turning out the cotton in a much cleaner state. He overrates the powers of the churka, however, and supposes that "two men, working day and night,