Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/477

 LA .WNU n MDPS 455 Seventeen millions in the first period have risen to fifty-one millions in the last. The vastly increasing export of hides is clue to the demand for a by-product of agriculture, and benefits the farmer mainly by the accumulation in the hands of those who profit by this trade of capital destined (like the capital which the excise contractors are accumulating) to become an important factor in a,ricultural improvement. Staple. Annual average value of exp? of each staple during the period. 185 66. 1867--77. 1878t90. ]de8 .... Indi. go .... Gram .... Oil Seeds Sugar ...... Tobacco ..... Total of the above 17 41 67 25 174 56 175 7O 96 82 83 17 56 6 14' Five cilhers omitted. The imports of grain have generally amounted to five-sixths of the exports during the years discussed. The return of t]e sea- borne cotton trade is interesting: Imots. Piece goods and yarn. Ten million rupees a year in the first period, twenty-five million in the second, thirty-four million in the third. Eots.--Piece goods and cotton wool. Twenty-three mil- lion rupees a year in the first period, eighteen million in the second, eighteen million in the third. The cotton-wool exported in the six years 1855-61 averaged annually Rs.7,600,000; in 1861-66, Rs.35,100,000; in 1867-78, R.15,200,000; in 1878-90, Rs.14,300,000. The local production of piece goods and the export thereof is increasing. In 1861-66 the special demand (at a price beyond all previous experience) for cotton caused by the Civil War in America, drove up the value of the cotton exported to five times that of the period immediately precedent to the outbreak of the war. After the return of the trade to its normal conditions, it has remained at about double its former amount; I speak of the cotton wool shipped from Madras and its subordinate ports. The