The evil was present and inherent in the act. The means of letting the
natives into the benefit of the improved system of produce was likely to
be counteracted by the general ill conduct of the Company's concerns
abroad. For a while, at least, it had an effect still worse: for the
Company purchasing the raw cocoon or silk-pod at a fixed rate, the first
producer, who, whilst he could wind at his own house, employed his
family in this labor, and could procure a reasonable livelihood by
buying up the cocoons for the Italian filature, now incurred the
enormous and ruinous loss of fifty per cent. This appears in a letter to
the Presidency, written by Mr. Boughton Rouse, now a member of your
Committee. But for a long time a considerable quantity of that in the
old Bengal mode of winding was bought for the Company from contractors,
and it continues to be so bought to the present time: but the Directors
complain, in their letter of the 12th of May, 1780, that both species,
and particularly the latter, had risen so extravagantly that it was
become more than forty per cent dearer than it had been fifteen years
ago.
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