3 OCTOBER 1863, Page 2

The trade of India, exclusive of the Straits, which belong

to it only because it is convenient to pay for that bonded warehouse of Asia out of Indian revenue, last year exceeded a hundred millions. In 1813 the Court of Directors, whose successors still fill the Indian Council, proved to a demonstra- tion that the trade could never exceed two millions, and argued that it would be less even than that, unless they kept their monopoly. It is very little even now to what it ought to be. If the average of imports rose to the level only of those of Ceylon, that branch of trade alone would be 150,000,000/. There is not the slightest reason why, if only the roads are made, the canals cut, and the tea and cotton planters allowed to occupy the waste lands, the trade of India should not rise to 300,000,000/.