Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/368

 ^52 COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF tation, is made of cheap conveyance. The present low prices of cotton wool, and high prices of coffee and sugar, articles which may be brought into the market with less skill and less expenditure of capi- tal, are unfavourable to the rise of the cotton trade. It may be safely predicted, that in a more settled state of the markets oftJie world, a share of the ca- pital and skill of the inhabitants of Java may be ad- vantageously applied to it. With what advantage this may be done, we can estimate from the comparative costs of raising cottons for foreign ex- portation in Java, Bengal, Bombay, and Georgia. A picul of Java cotton may be shipped at 12, or- dinary Bengal cotton costs ISfj, Bombay I7 dol- lars, and the average of American cotton, for a pe- riod of years, and of all qualities, 26 Spanish dollars. China, from its vicinity, will always afford the best market for the cottons of the Indian islands. They may be sent thither for half the freights from Bengal, and probably for one- third of the freights from Bombay. The junks may be employed in conveying it even to a market nearly altogether new, that of the province of Fokien, where the cottons of the continent of In- dia will not interfere with it. At present they convey small quantities thither in the seedy a proof of the demand in China for the commodity, as it is reduced by being freed from the seed to one- fourth of its weight with it, and farther re»