They directed that the articles
should be bought at an equal and public market from the native
merchants; and this order they directed to be published in all the
principal marts of Bengal.
Your Committee are clearly of opinion that no better method of purchase
could be adopted. But it soon appeared that in deep-rooted and
inveterate abuses the wisest principles of reform may be made to operate
so destructively as wholly to discredit the design, and to dishearten
all persons from the prosecution of it. The Presidency, who seemed to
yield with the utmost reluctance to the execution of these orders, soon
made the Directors feel their evil influence upon their own investment;
for they found the silk and cotton cloths rose twenty-five per cent
above their former price, and a further rise of forty per cent was
announced to them.
SILK.
What happened with regard to raw silk is still more remarkable, and
tends still more clearly to illustrate the effects of commercial
servitude during its unchecked existence, and the consequences which may
be made to arise from its sudden reformation.
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