the Times people being really known and recognized in society
It has been suddenly and powerfully revived. At the last as great powers, though their position is ignored by social meeting of the Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway Company etiquette. This, no doubt, aggravates the unpleasantness to a paper was read, which seems to have escaped the reporters;. Mr. Cobden, but it certainly does not aggravate the temptation but which, if only half true, is enough to create the most. to which he ascribes the attack. If only those struck who serious apprehensions. It was a report from the River can strike in the dark, even a moderate amount of publicity Surveyor to the Master Attendant, dated 1st Sane, and it must tend to hold back the hands of mere cowards. That announced that the last practicable channel could not be safely which adds to Mr. Cobden's sense of humiliation must relied on to hold out for longer than a few months more. As certainly be held to diminish the irresponsibility of his soon as the rains should cease there was every reason to
assailants. believe that the Hooghly, and with it the trade of Bengal, Mr. Cobden's imagination is of that sensitive order would till next year be closed. There have been till i too vividly, enhances all the disagreeable elements of year three channels by which decently large ships
could ascend the river,—the Bedford, the Lloyds, and motive a hundred times by simplifying them into corrupt the Western. At the close of 1862, the second ceased self-interest, just as he would rightly simplify commerce into to exist, Lloyds filling up entirely, with the faintest hope wise self-interest, and so manages to get a very false but con- of its being ever re-opened. The Western Channel is nected theory of his adversaries' taunts and blows. Mr. dangerous during the south-west monsoon i.e., during the Cobden's imagination and theoretic power are only fit for best time for arrival, so dangerous as to be officially called impassable, and the " Bedford " was, in fact, the only one re- maining. This was reported fast filling up, so fast that the River Surveyor gave it only two months' grace, and earnestly recommended a new attempt at dredging. His recommendation was, of course, followed, but without result, and but for the vast volume of water brought down by the rains the traffic would already have been closed. As it is, a private letter from one of the most experienced seamen in the port assures us that the Bedford is entirely closed, that its closing is officially admitted, and that "the whole trade of Bengal, with the hot weather still to come, literally depends upon a single channel, in which there is now not seven feet at low water, not getting any worse." If that silts up, as all others have done, the tendency of the river being to spread and become shallower as the deposit of mud raises the general level of its bottom, the trade of Bengal is, for the time being, at an end. There is no other port than Calcutta fitted to be its entrepdt. Goods could not be landed on the coast, for there are no means of conveying them over the mud fringe of ninety miles between the sea and Calcutta ; the new port on the Mutlah is not built, has not a wharf, or a crane, or a house, and even -should it ultimately be to the great city what Greenock is to Glasgow, there must be a loss of time which may involve millions sterling.
It may be said that the danger cannot be so pressing or it would be more widely known, and we dare say dozens of letters will appear suggesting this, that, or the other ground of hope. This channel may improve ; the river may cut out a new one ; lighter vessels may be employed ; stronger steam power may make the Western channel safe at all seasons; commerce is certain to find some mode of escape out of so serious a danger. That may be all very true, and very pos- sibly is so ; but, nevertheless, every statement we have now made is based on official authority, is supported by men who have passed years in work connected with the river, and is directly opposed to the interests of the local government, and of all men connected with Bengal. The trade, unless the Hoogbly can be re-opened, hangs upon a may-be—a position in which none of the great interests involved will be content to leave it.
We do not believe, in spite of the officials, that any river running at the pace and with the volume of the Hooghly, which can deposit an estate in a night, or scoop out a deep chafixtel in three weeks, is or can be altogether beyond the reach of art. Building upon the Mullah is all very well, and should be done at once, but no government in its senses will suffer permanent ruin to fall upon a city like Calcutta, and no exertion or expense should be spared to place the ancient route permanently above danger. The local authorities have evidently got their minds into a groove on the subject, and Bengal does not possess, unless Sir Arthur Cotton is available, which we doubt, a first-rate hydraulic engineer. The Government ought to despatch one from England at once, specifically for this one purpose, or better still, engage, if the blockade will let them, some trustworthy Louisianian. They have overcome difficulties almost as great on the Missis- sippi, and to despair of the Hooghly is unworthy alike of statesmen, seamen, and engineers. Suppose the work costs a quarter of a million. That is a few weeks of the customs' revenue now accruing in Calcutta, and which, even if saved in the end, must be lost for a time should the Hooghly be finally closed.
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