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    MERCANTILE AND COMMERCIAL.

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    TEA AND COFFEE IN THE HIMALAYAS . The next stage to the establishment of the tea cultivation in Assam is its extension to the Himalayas , which has now reached the stop of successful and practical experiment , and which will next year have acquired com . mercial importance . Concurrently with this , tlio coffee cultivation is being introduced , for which the successful results of coffee plantation in the South , in Mysore , Coorg , the Neilgherrios , and the Shevaroys , have act the

    example . The importance of those undertakings must indeed uo rated very highly , not only on account of the oxtc"t 01 territory they affect , but on account of the poiiuoui consequences . The length of the Himalaya "' F 1 " 1 , ^ , "" the borders of our territory is not less than 1200 mtm exclusive of the Sowalik and parallel ranges , ana « the Hindoo Koosh , and other chains reaching to iiw west . If on the sides and borders of these ranges ^ oa , coffee , and cotton planting can bo successfully c » r " on , the English sanatoria will become effective colon « , because they will have available emp loyment for c » 11 » and enterprise , and capital and enterprise , » "r"c ™ " " £ such reBources in the southorn borders , will wnuww .

    and open up tho bac | c countries ; of ^ ahoui , * « ' * £ Bussahir , Koonawur , Darjeellntr , andsp inahy now" » known regions of European climate lying bctw ° ™ . JJ " Chinese borders and our own . Show our home . popiUj tlon that there are health and wealth in these HUM , »»

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    abundantly and cheaply obtained . Although the engineering profession , like all others , is said to be overstocked , although the medical profession is overstocked , and drafts of engineers and surgeons for Indian service are not to be obtained , except by pressing on the home market , inspectors and schoolmasters for all the grammar-schools « i India might be obtained from ^ ome on moderate terms . While the outlay for inspection is disproportionate , the means of inspection in India are most deficient . It will take any one of the Bengal inspectors , with the present inefficient and expensive means of transit , years to get over his district . What the inspection is , we unfortunately too well know . It is cursory and ineffective , because there is neither time nor

    do justice to the work it lias on hand . While the engineer , whose district is large as Yorkshire , is superintending a bit of new road in . one place , his other roads elsewhere are falling into disrepair under the eyes of the native superintendents . It has been too often pointed out that the paternity of the Government , narrow as is its practical influence , is altogether stayed in its exercise during war . An expedition to Burmah or China will stop canals and roads in Bombay ; a war on the North-West Frontier will stay the hands of the engineers , whosedistricts are asfarsouth as Cape Comorin . Thus

    GOVERNMENT PATERNITY IN INDIA . Theke are many worthy and distinguished men in India who , in their several governments and collectorates , have carried out great ameliorations , restored public works , opened new branches of agriculture and commerce , and much improved the condition of the population under their charge , and they are very desirous not only that such improvements shall be carried out , but that they shall be

    carried out solely by the Government standing in a paternal relation to the people . With this object in view , they would exclude capitalists and exclude companies , nor are they satisfied when they have them tied down in leading-strings of red tape . Above all , they would exclude independent Englishmen from India , because they might mar the designs of a paternal Government , and , it is affirmed , keep back the children of Government from advancement , even if they do not , as is insinuated , oppress them . and it

    As the famous memorandum shows , yet does not go into full detail , the Government has done much and many things for India . It has under its charge roads , railways , canals , rivers , and lighthouses j it runs its mail carts , parcel express , river and ocean steamboats , to the envy and eclipse of the ambitious Rowland Hill ; it has introduced or fostered the cultivation of indigo , opium , cotton , tea , and coffee ; it has carried out many social reform Sj suppressed infanticide and suttee , saved female children , and restored widows to life . It has its Government printing-presses and lithographic

    presses , prints school books , works the electric telegraph , and provides systems of education for all classes and all sects . More from the necessities of the country than its own'ambition * the Indian Government has become a great manufacturing and trading concern , beyond even the Russian or any European Government . Some of the South American Governments , which have full treasuries and a large body of barbarians , under the name of citizens , do establish civilisation on a very comprehensive scale ,

    even to the importation of church furniture , and opera companies , the establishment of theatres , and the provision of local newspapers . The Government of India is , however , the grand useful knowledge machine and apparatus for providing enlightenment , and it has nearly two hundred millions ol customers dependent upon it for everything that lies between the policeman and the schoolmaster , and for every step above the mud hut and waistcloths .

    The Government of India has done very much and is proud of it , but there is another Set of people less satisfied , who , instead of counting up , as the Government does , what has been effected , enter up an account of its short-comings of what it ought to have done , of what it has not done , and of what remains to be done , and this account is of such significance that the display of pride and satisfaction looks very small after the comparison . There is not a collectorate in India which has not a list of wants to be supplied by the paternal Government such as would horrify any Government in Europe , even benighted Portugal and Naples , Many is the large and populous collectorate in India as roadless as the Pampas or as the Great Sahara , many is the river with volumes of water running to waste ,

    without providing navigation , without fertilising the land , and where myriads are , from time to time , actually starved to death in periods of famine , notwithstanding nil the exertions and best intentions of a paternal Government . There are some collectorates , which have demanded works of irrigation for half a century , and which are still exposed to the horrors of famine , because Government paternity has not been able to dole put the small sum of capital which would save the people from death and double tho revenue of ' the district .. At all times the means of tho Government nio insufficient for effecting even works of irrigation ; tho road funds are miserable , the educational resources paltry , and the Government has not even engineers enough to

    war brings a twofold scourge upon India , and those collectorates which feel not its blast , are yet made mindful of it by its baleful effect on material and intellectual progress . The moment the Indian revenues feel the effect of a war , public works , reproductive or unproductive , are subjected to a paralysis ; the grand canals remain unfinished , the roads are stayed , and so it must be so long ^ as there is to be dependence on Government exertions , and funds derived from the ordinary revenue of the Government . There are no other colonies of the empire subjected to such disadvantageous conditions

    of finance as those of India , not even the Cape and New Zealand * which have warlike populations , and have been engaged in wars menacing their existence . Even by such a paltry province as Auckland or Natal— . and India contains no collectorate so inconsiderable in population—large loans have been raised for immigration and public improvements . Thus our colonies in America , Australia , and Africa , instead of being dependent on their own narrow resources , and being kept back , share in the capital and energies of the metropolitan country , and have public works in advance of their population . Natal , Auckland , or Western Australia , with a population

    of a few "thousands , can raise public loans on the credit of their revenues , but there is no collectorate of India which has a debentured debt for its roads or works of irrigation . In Ireland , a shire or barony may give its guarantee to a railway , but in India each collectorate is made dependent on the financial vicissitudes of the supreme Government . Were the shire of Middlesex deprived of the resources of credit , we should still await our large asylums and public buildings , because we cannot endow the present generation and posterity with works of necessity and amelioration , and because we

    fear to anticipate the resources , of the present and rising generations . ? The Affghan war was an omen to public advancement in India } the mutiny has proved alike fatal , and vast countries—Bengal , Madras , aud Bombaywhich no mutineer has traversed , are deprived of public works of primary necessity . Had it not been for the Railway , and Steamboat , and other companies , Indian progress would have been paralysed ; but happily , by the introduction of private enterprise , some independent resources have been brought to bear . Educational improvement , in so fur as the Government is concerned , is subjected to a like check , and now , even at this stage of the expiring mutiny , the supreme Government

    lias issued a decree to stay all educational buildings and all educational outlay throughout India that can be postponed . This is on account of the financial difficulties of the Government . Education is , to a certain extent , provided for in India by village school funds , in some very few places by a special school tax on landowners , and by the missionary societies ; but in every department of education , superior , special , and elementary , the wants of the country arc such that India is below the condition of every regular Government in Europe and America * There is no province of Russia and no state of South America , for instance , which is so ill supplied as most parts of India with colleges for superior and professional education ; and now at a period when progress is demanded , delay is interposed . *"

    Tho funds of India aro too' wastefully applied at tho present moment from tho want of English assistance . The few officials arc , as a matter of necessity , enormously paid ; and in Bengal 7000 / . tp five officers is paid for inspection , while only 4500 / . is distributed in grants in aid ; and yet' of nil classes of professional assistance that of tho schoolmastor is , in most advanced countries , tp bo most

    power to carry it out satisfactorily . In Bombay , colleges the students of which had passed brilliant examinations in English year after year , have , on a subsequent investigation , been found incompetent in the instruction of the rudiments . In Madras , the Government have been impeded in appointing assistant-inspectors of education , although the want of such officials is most urgently felt . la England , with railways and good roads , inspectors can get over a larg e district , but in India the want of transit alone is a serious impediment . Thus , at every stage and in every direction , we are led to the same conviction of the necessity of an improvement of the transit as the first element of progressive

    civilisation . The dependence of India on the paternal exertions of Government , it must never be forgotten , means dependence on the Government treasury , and as there are whole governments which yearly present a clironic deficit , the means of the Government are only to be calculated on the most restricted scale . The public debt of India is large in the aggregate , and its charge is considered a heavy ouje , and there is as jnuch tenderness about raising a loan for public works as if the salvation of the country were thereby imperilled . Until the collectorates of India acquire the attributes of governments , and municipal institutions arc extended in India , the . financial resources of India for the

    development of its public works must be altogether inadequate . At this moment , in our money-market , the states and cities of our own empire and the world at large , are demanding loans for railways and other public works . Chili , with a population of one million , asks another railway loan ; an Indian collectorate , with one million population , can get nothing , and were it not for the railway companies , niggardly organised by the Government , India would obtain nothing from a plethoric moneymarket . The cities of India arc not known m our market , and yet Calcutta can as well expend a loan of a million in public improvements as ! Ncw York , Melbourne , or Quebec , and its application lor capital would be as well rccciyed .

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    I N D ^ I A .

    Mercantile And Commercial.

    MERCANTILE AND COMMERCIAL .

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    1 O 72 THE LEADER . ' [ Ho . 4 , 4 , 6 , October 9 , 1858 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 9, 1858, page 1072, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2263/page/24/