COMMERCIAL FAIRS IN INDIA.
Fens will soon be obsolete in Europe. Even the great fair of Leipzig sees its glories begin to pale in this day of railways. Fairs belong to a time when there are no roads, or but few and those indifferent, and when there is no permanent efficient police. Tra- velling and the carriage of goods are then arduous, tardy, expen- sive. Men travel as little as they may, and travel in crowds for mutual protection. They make assignations to meet on certain days at certain places. Thieves and impracticable countries are as Mire to render the operations of trade periodical as the snows and ices of the North. Priests and taxgatherers associated themselves with the periodical gatherings of traders brought about by the necessities of society, and gave them completeness both in Europe and in Asia. An important element fairs have been in the operative causes blended together to promote civilization. But they seem to have done their work over the greater part of Europe. New modes of intercourse and business are superseding them.
Not so in Asia. Of this the Anglo-Indian Government are aware, and have ordered that two great fairs shall be held annually in Made : one at Kurrachee—the Alexandria of " young Egypt," as some have affected to call the delta and lower valley of the Indus ; and one at Sukkur—some three degrees further North, where the native routes from Malwa and Delhi to Beloochistan and Canda- hex cross the Indus. The idea is a good one. The native traders of these regions are accustomed to frequent fairs. The bad roads and anarchical state of society in the surrounding countries render this mode of trading a necessity ; and fairs are still associated in tlie minds of the dwellers in the valley of the Indus and the ad- joining territories with periodical religious migrations. Judiciously conducted, thede -fairs may contribute materially to develop :the trade of the Indus ; for it must not be forgotten that it has yet to be developed. The commercial capabilities of the Indus regions have been grossly puffed ; at first as a decoy to draw off attention from China, when the monopoly which the East India Company enjoyed in the commerce of that nation was first assailed ; and lat- terly from habit. When men have contracted a habit of ex- aggerating and telling fibs, they cannot at once get rid of it even when they know its uselessness.
The benefits of these fairs will first be felt in India: to be suc- cessful, they must be worked by the natives, or by Europeans settled in those regions. It is premature to invite the direct co- operation of Manchester, as would appear to have been done, from what passed: at a recent meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. The trade at such fairs is a detail trade. It must be left to the native merchants, and to the American half-traders, half-whalers, or to the Anglo-Indian speculators in the " country trade," who are beginning to visit the mouths of the Indus and ihe coasts to the East' and West of them. The effect of their operations will be to stimulate industry, increase wealth, establish orderly and honest habits in those countries. Hence will ensue an increased demand for the goods consigned from this country to Bombay ; increased demand from Bombay for consignments from our home manufacturers and merchants, and in time a direct trade between this country and Scinde, will spring up : but this consummation would be rather retarded than accelerated by the premature interference of our home speculators in the business of the Indus. The large capitals and wholesale transactions of English merchants and manufacturers are ill adapted for Seindian peddling : it must be left to the classes enumerated above with whom time is of little account, and. who make as much of the sale of a dozen bales of cloth as a Manchester man of the consignment of thousands. The Sukkur fair seems more certain of immediate success than that of Kurrachee. It is in the immediate neighbourhood of Shi- karpore, already a centre of native commercial enterprise : the bills of the Shikarpore money-dealers are as good as cash as far as Herat or Calcutta. The current of trade (such as it is) that ascends and descends the. Indus, crosses at'Sukkur the current of trade which flows backwards and forwards from Anglo-India to Beloochistan, Affghanistan, and Persia. Nature and the habits of society have already made,the district a permanent rendezvous of merchants. The work is more than half done to the hands of the Anglo-Indian Government. At Kurrachee the existing trade is a thing of yes- terday and accident. It has followed our army, and may follow it to other quarters. It does appear, however, that an independent coasting trade to that spot is growing up ; and the experiment of making Kurrachee a permanent centre of traffic deserves a fair trial.
It is of good augury that the Anglo-Indian Government is not attempting to do too much. It promises traders no more than protection from violence within the limits and during the time as- signed to the fair, and facilities in obtaining sites for their booths and tents. Native governments might have turned to account the religious observances of the country; but that our peculiar rela- tions and connexions forbid us to attempt. Native governments would have made the fair subservient to fiscal extortions, that the sagacity of our rulers in those quarters has kept them back from essaying. But something more may be done than merely to esta- blish an efficient police on the spot. It was not such local pro- tection alone that made the great fairs of Germany so effective in promoting industry and introducing more efficient government ; the system adopted in the territories wherein the fairs were held, and in others more or less remote, of protecting merchants bound to the fairs by granting them convoys, increased the numbers of those who ventured to them, and served as the rudiments of a police. It will be worth the while of the Anglo-Indian Govern- ment to organize a system of convoys for traders visiting these new fairs, within its own dominions, (for Scinde and the Punjaub are not the most orderly of countries,) and by negotiations to stimulate the neighbouring tribes and governments to follow their example. By these means, the rudiments of police and more effi- cient administrative government may be introduced in these re- gions, in the same way that they were introduced in Europe in the rude feudal ages. Persons and property will gradually be placed in greater security ; the development of civilization and material wealth will be accelerated.
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