Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/151

 APPENDIXES APPENDIX I Etawah, 2^th July, i860, o G. R. Haywood Esq. Secretary to the Cotton Supply Association^ Manchester, R Sir, —

Your letter and circular, dated December 1859 only cached me on the ijth of the current month — with whom the elay rests I cannot say — I at least am not in fault.

Fully concurring with you in the importance of increasing e quantity and improving the quality of the cotton grown in these provinces, I have for years given the subject as much attention as I could spare from my other multifarious duties, and am therefore in a position to answer most of the Queries put by you.

At the same time, lest, seeing how unsatisfactory many of my replies necessarily are, you should be disposed to wonder or cavil at my not having taken more energetic measures, to further the objects that I with you admit to be most desirable, allow me to remind you, that to an officer, to whom the entire government of six or seven hundred thousand people is confided, an improved or enhanced growth of cotton, can at most be but a very secondary object, to which time and attention can only be devoted, ! after weightier matters, such as the securing protection to life and property, the establishment and maintenance of schools, hospitals, and public libraries, the realization of f Revenue, the construction of PubUc Works, etc., etc., have been duly provided for.