double letters, law papers, periodicals, &c., for the three Presidencies, at L.10,000. There are 250 corps in India, and as many regimental messes, and about 150 agency houses, and public offices. I believe there are considerably more, but I have not had an opportunity of ascertaining the exact number. Isuppose those establishments, independent of private individuals, will each take an English daily newspaper when they can get one at a moderate rate, and by a regular monthly conveyance. The mess I was in took two daily newspapers, besides two weekly newspapers. Now, we will suppose 150,000 newspapers are annually sent to India, and there is a postage of 6d. put upon each, it will amount to L.3750. Then, suppose there is an average of five passengers in each voyage at L.50 each, which will amount to L.6000 more, this will make a receipt of L.51,100. Ceylon is not included in this estimate, and by putting that down at the moderate rate of L.4000, we raise the amount to L.55,000, and upwards. I have just seen a statement, which will give the Committee an idea of the newspapers in circulation in the Indian provinces. The India Gazette has a circulation of 373 daily, 195 weekly, making a total of 568; and the Bengal Hurkaru circulates 726 daily, 228 weekly, making a total of 954. Then I suppose there will be also a considerable profit in the communication with Egypt, where there are a number of European mercantile houses; and all the French, German, Italian, and other European letters, must pass through this channel of communication. They will go to Malta, and there be taken up by the mail.' · There is a good deal of supposition here, and some vagueness. The rate they offer to pay in India:'-who are they?' How many of the 'they' are included in the senders and receivers of the supposed 500,000 letters? How many of the 500,000 may be fairly supposed to be received by private soldiers, who pay nothing for them; and by poor persons, who, if they did not correspond as cheaply as they do round the Cape, would not correspond at all? It is an ancient Hindoo prejudice to prefer the longer way without a toll, to the shorter way with one; and with all our superiority to Hindoo prejudices, we would not assert that the Europeans in India are uninfected by this. But it is a part of the plan to make the higher rate uniform on all letters, come by what route they may; so that the cheap correspondence by the Cape will be cut off, and the expected public benefit will be no benefit to the poor, but the contrary. First to prove that the people want a thing, and then to take measures for forcing it upon them, is not exactly a new practice, but it cannot be commended in the present instance. We do not believe that newspapers, at the rate of 500 a-day, doubled in price by postage, will be sent to India by any conveyance for a century to come. We now come to passengers. five to a voyage, at L.50 each. Major Head, we see, allows lized, even twice over, and it will still go but a small way towards reimbursing the cost. In short, it appears to us that all these expectations of profit are chimerical. The establishment will be always in the condition of Falstaff-its waste will be great, and its means slender. If an expeditious mail be essential to the good government of India, in a degree commensurate with the charge, let the Government establish it, with their eyes open to the charge. If it can be shown to conduce to the benefit of the Ryots of India, the cultivators of the land, whose labours produce the territorial revenue-then the territorial revenue of India may be justly charged with it; but assuredly not otherwise. If it can be shown to strengthen the British hold on India, to promote the integrity of the British Empire, considered as a British interest peculiarly-then the nation at large may be fairly called on to bear its share of the charge. If it promote the interest of the commercial community especially then the commercial community should bear an especial share of the burden. If it promote the pleasure and the comfort of communicating with distant friends among the European residents of India and their connexionsthen that pleasure and that comfort should be paid for by those who enjoy them. We take it, when all these matters are weighed, and duly apportioned, it will not appear that the territorial revenue of India ought to bear the whole, or the largest part, of the burden. It has been said that it is essential to the good government of India, to the economical government of India, to the safety, indeed, of that country, and the retaining of it in the King's dominion, that every man there should feel that he was immediately under the eye, and within the reach of the Government at home;-that nothing can be done well unless we so conduct the correspondence with India, as to render it possible that the man who commits a wrong shall be punished for that wrong within a short time from its commission. It is not sufficient that he should know he is ultimately responsible; he must be made to feel that he is responsible within no distant period; and that steam navigation, more than any thing else, will conduce to this end. It seems to us, however, that the home authorities cannot possibly, in the great majority of cases of delinquency in India, be any thing more than a court of ultimate appeal. With some exceptions, the local governments decide; the home authorities confirm or reverse. The government of India is carried on in writing, and the whole of the business that comes before the VOL. LX. NO. CXXII. 2 H Government passes, in the form in which it is recorded, under the revision of the home authorities. In every complicated case, months of enquiry and deliberation are consumed, and must be consumed both in India and in England. In no case that affects individual character, in no case that involves important public interests, would a judgment be passed without possession of the whole of the records; and therefore, not letters only, but the whole of the India records also, which are very bulky matters, must come by the same conveyance; and the records must keep pace in their dates, with the dates of the letters, or the letters will bring but half tales, on which no measures can be founded. Supposing no time to be unnecessarily lost in either case, the difference of a few weeks in transmission and reply can make but little substantial difference in the effect of the ultimate decision. It is important that the decision should be just; that it should be firmly enforced, and rigidly adhered to. Deficiency in these particulars would be ill compensated by mechanical expedition in a portion of the middle stage of the proceedings. Ut sit lenta, tamen certè magna ira deorum, is the ground to be relied on for making responsibility real. No doubt there are emergencies where prompt communication is of the highest importance; but the packet may sail on the first of the month, and the emergency may arise on the second. Emergencies must be provided for independently. The plague must not be forgotten in the comparison of the routes to India. It is not a small advantage of the Cape route, that it is free from this scourge. Egypt, and the cities of the Euphrates, are alike liable to it. The Egyptian plague might be avoided if there were a good harbour in the Mediterranean north of Suez, and the land transit were not to Cairo and Alexdria, but to lake Menzaleh. This was considered impracticable by the British agents in Egypt, in reply to some questions asked in 1829; but some of the witnesses before the Committee speak more encouragingly to the point. The plague cannot be avoided on the route of the Euphrates; but it is less formidable on this line than on the route through Egypt. Summarily, and in conclusion,-reversing the order of our enquiry, and beginning our summary with the financial branch of the question,-we recommend, to borrow the words of a writer in a Calcutta paper, a very careful consideration of the 'means of converting steam into rupees,' before we recommend the conversion of rupees into steam.' This point being dis posed of, and the choice of the three routes being next to be made, we certainly give the preference to that of the Persian Gulf; as being the easiest, the most certain throughout the year, the most in the line of all our Asiatic interests, and the most economical. And we would have, for the Persian Gulf, steam-vessels of great power, and of the very best description, of 500 or 600 tons measurement, and not less than 200 horse power, built in England; experience having demonstrated that vessels built in India, with engines sent from England, would be twice as costly and half as efficient. We would send them out under steam to Bombay, having deposited coals at the Cape de Verde Islands, at St Thomas's, and St Helena, at the Cape, at Johanna, and at the Mauritius. If one or two experiments should be conclusive against steaming round the Cape, we would work out all following vessels under sail, but we would always build them in England. These vessels would go in one run from Bombay to Bussorah, and from Bussorah to Bombay; and we are satisfied that such vessels would, through the whole year round, run the 1600 miles each way, in a week or ten days. We would provide for contingencies, by having an intermediate depot of coals at Muscat or Bassadore; but we should not contemplate the necessity of often using it. If it should be determined to adopt the route of the Red Sea, either for the whole year, if practicable, or for that part of the year during which there is no doubt of the practicability, we would do this also with vessels of great power, capable of running the voyage in two stages; but we would not send coals to Suez at all, seeing that they must be sent either by sailing vessels beating up against the wind, in the worst part of the Red Sea, or carried by barges from Alexandria to Cairo, and by camels from Cairo to Suez, involving in either case an enormous charge. We would not send coals to Suez at all, except a small quantity to provide for contingencies, but not to be used unless the contingencies arose. We would have depots at Socotra or Aden, (Socotra, if possible,) and again, either at the Arabian port of Camoran, or the Abyssinian port of Massooah: both are islands, and therefore out of the reach of molestation. From either of those ports such a steamer as we propose would carry coals sufficient to take her to Suez and back, and the chief difficulty and expense of providing fuel would be got rid of. We are We do not speak now of the south-west monsoon. not adventurous enough to recommend the experiment in that season. We would try the experiment of the line of the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates throughout the year. At all events, the phy 'sical difficulties on the line of the Red Sea appearing to be con'fined to the months of June, July, August, and September, and 'those of the river Euphrates to the months of November, De'cember, January, and February, the effective trial of both lines 'would open a certain communication with the Mediterranean in every month of the year, changing the line of the steam vessels ' on both sides, according to the seasons.'-(Resolution 10 of the Committee's Report.) We would use the Llangennech coals, which appear to carry greater power in the same bulk than any other kind of coals; and which are exported very economically direct from South Wales to India. But both for the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea we should look only to Bombay. There would be no saving of time sufficient to counterbalance the great additional expense and difficulty of running a steamer, on either of those lines, to Calcutta. When a steamer from Calcutta is at Point de Galle, she may as well run on round the cape of Good Hope, and get into the line of the southeast trade-wind. It is not worth while, for so small a consideration as 3000 or 4000 miles, to run to the northward again, and encounter all the risks and inconveniences of the Red Sea and the plague. If we are to carry on steam communication with Calcutta, we should do so by the cape of Good Hope: at least from Calcutta, though not from Bombay, we would give this line a fair trial. We would reject the idea of steam navigation to Calcutta altogether; but if it were determined to have it in some way, we would try it by the Cape. Whatever line we adopt, we would build the vessels in England, and work them out to India; because by so doing we should get better vessels for half the cost. The cost of an Indian-built steamer, as it appears in the Evidence, is enough to alarm the most resolute advocates for Indian steamnavigation. We would build the vessels for the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf in England, and work them out to Bombay; and if the object of steam navigation to Calcutta be kept in view, we would work them out by steam; and thus make them, though destined for other lines, conducive to a series of experiments of steam navigation round the Cape. For Bombay, we should not think of this route; for Calcutta, we should prefer it to the Red Sca; though we repeat, that in consideration of the great increase of expense, and the diminished saving of distance, we should reject the idea of steam communication with Calcutta altogether. |