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Public Debt, bearing Interest outstanding at the several Presidencies on the 30th April, 1832.

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The debts of India in 1833 were as follow:-Debts bearing interest-Bengal, about 32,000,000l.; Madras 3,000,000l.; Bombay, 630,000l.; not bearing interest-Bengal, 8,000,000l.; Madras, 700,0007.; Bombay, 300,0007. The five per cent. loan is the

principal debt, it amounts, in Bengal to 18,000,000l.; and in Madras, to 2,500,000l.; in Bombay none. The treasury notes issued by the Bengal government amount to 700,0007.

The home bond debt of the East India Company, amounting to 3,400,000l. is composed of securities issued by the Company under their common seal, Parliament having authorized their borrowing money to a certain extent, and limiting its subsequent reduction to 3,000,000l.; the rate of interest paid in 1831 on this debt was two and a half per cent.

It only remains to be added, that by the new East India charter the Company's trade is placed in abeyance, and their whole assets, amounting to upwards of 21,000,000l. sterling, appropriated to the India territory, excepting 2,000,000l. to be invested as a sinking fund for the redemption of the capital stock of the East India Company proprietors (6,000,0007.) on the termination of forty years, at the rate of 57. 58. for every 100%. stock; the remainder of the assets, as soon as realized, is to be appropriated, after payment of pensions and other charges arising out of the new arrangement, towards the liquidation of the six per cent. remittable loan, which amounts to about 9,000,000l. sterling.

CHAPTER IV.

COMMERCE OF INDIA, &C.-STAPLES OF HINDOSTAN, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR IMPROVEMENT AND DEVELOP

MENT.

THE commerce between Europe and India has ever been considered one of the most important subjects which could engage the attention of a mercantile statesman; and the fertile regions of the eastern hemisphere are now anxiously looked forward to as a rich field for the enjoyment of British capital, industry and skill; the result depends on the justice of England towards Hindostan. No two countries could be better adapted by Providence for the blessings of commerce than the parent (or governing) and dependent state; the one a small and insulated kingdom in the western ocean, teeming with a hardy, industrious and ingenious population, two-thirds of whom are engaged in manipulating and vending the produce of more genial climes; and from their numbers, compared with the area of habitation, pressing close on national subsistence, while peace and foreign competition are daily excluding them from the mono polized commerce heretofore possessed;-the other an almost illimitable territory in the eastern world, connected, though separated by the navigable ocean, rich to overflowing with every bounty with which nature has enriched the earth, and peculiarly so in those agricultural products necessary to the manufactures, comforts, and luxuries of the more civilized nation. Heretofore the incalculable blessings to be

derived from two countries thus favourably situate, have been wantonly or wickedly or inadvertently neglected; let me hope that a better era is now dawning for England as well as for India, that the former has now begun to perceive the injustice and folly of beggaring the latter,-the temporary ad vantages of which are as nought compared with the permanent injury received as well as inflicted; and that the merciful dispensations of an all and ever-wise Being who has made the interchange of superfluous or indigenous commodities one of the most powerful instruments for exciting and sharpening the inventive industry of man, and uniting the whole human race in bonds of fraternal connection and Christian charity, will no longer be spurned with an apathy or impiety which sooner or later will receive its merited punishment.

STAPLES OF BRITISH INDIA. The products of Hindostan are as various as they are valuable; I begin with one of its principal staples.

Indigo, from time immemorial, has been cultivated and manufactured in Hindostan, and in 1665 it was one of the exports from India to England; the East India Company's servants turned their attention to it about forty years ago, and its successful prosecution has been principally owing (after the circumstance of the destruction of St. Domingo, which, previous to its revolution, supplied nearly the whole world) to the small duty levied on its importation into England, the duty at first being little more than nominal: in 1812, 1d. per lb.; in 1814, 24d.; and in 1832, 3d. per lb. Its importance to India may be judged of

from the fact that in the Bengal presidency the cultivation of indigo is carried on from Dacca to Delhi, occupying upwards of 1,000,000 statute acres, yielding an annual produce worth from 2,000,000l. to 3,000,000l. sterling, whereof one-half, or perhaps more, is expended in India for rent, stock, wages, interest on capital, &c. There are from three to four hundred factories in Bengal, chiefly in Jessore, Kishnagur and Tirhoot. The factories are principally held by Europeans, but many natives have factories of their own, and in several instances produce indigo equal to any manufactured by Europeans. The low price which indigo now brings in Europe is diminishing the quantity produced. the exportation some years being 9,000,000 lbs. ; the recent failures in India will tend to bring the trade within more profitable limits. The cultivation of indigo in Madras is trifling, —there is little or none prepared in the Bombay presidency. The indigo produced annually in the East Indies from 1811 was:

Years. Chests. Years. Chests. Years. Chests. Years. Chests.

1811 21000 1816 25000 1821 21100 1826 28000
1812 23500 1817 20500 1822 25700
1813 22800 1818 19100 1823
1814 28500
1819 20700 1824 24100
1815 30500 1820 27200 1825 43500

1827 45300

29800

1828 30000

1829 43200

1830 32100

The price of indigo per chest in London was in 1824, 1117.; in 1825, 1407.; and in 1831 but 457.; the supply now exceeds the demand, at least in Eng

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