But the passive resistance offered by the Indian officials was as great as ever, and although the Presidency towns, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, were more or less open ground, non-official Englishmen in the interior received but very scant courtesy. The indigo planters, who were a rich and powerful body, for various reasons contrived to hold their own in the country parts of Bengal, (until they were extinguished by an Act of the Legislature), but, as a general rule, any Englishman who endeavoured to establish any trade or industry soon found the place he had chosen for his operations was made too hot to hold him. He was called an "Interloper," a general word, which was expressive, like the old Greek termi Barbarian, of any Englishman who was not in the Company's service.

Natives could not be interlopers. Natives did not and do not count. The wolf asks not how many the sheep be, as the proverb runs. A native never can give trouble. He dares not even answer again. And if he does, he can be wonderfully easily extinguished. The loss of the Sahib's favour is in itself a punishment few natives care even to risk, and if any one is sufficiently abandoned to think differently, he is easily sent to guol as "a man of evil repute,' visited with some mark of the Sahib's displeasure, to the great delight and admiration of the offender's friends, relations, and companions. Next to securing the great man's favour for himself, nothing a native relishes more than seeing his acquaintances deprived of it.

or

But an Englishman does not share their feelings. He does not value the favour of the collectorin which, seeing that he is living in an Oriental country, he is quite wrong; and he refuses to be extin

guished. To imprison him would cause more trouble than it would be worth. It would raise a great outery, and there is no Act by which he may be quietly shut up as a "man of evil repute," like Act X. of 1872, chapter xxxviii. But he is extinguished nearly as easily, and quite as surely. His person is safe, but his enterprise cannot succeed in the face of Government opposition.

The Indian Government is like the steam engine, as described by the late Mr. Babbage. It can bend or break up, or draw out, huge bars of steel or iron-or spin a thread as fine as gossamer; it can crush huge masses of metal as flat as a pancake or crack a nut without injuring the kernel. And the Indian Government is as much concerned to crush a miner or a millowner, a contractor or a planter, in the interior of India, as to crush a mutiny or feed the starving population of a province.

And a very powerful engine is. the Indian Government. Not always well directed, but capable of doing anything; and when it does hit, always hitting hard. An engine with which no sensible man would care to come into collision, as being an engine well furnished with stones something like those of which it is said that upon whomsoever they shall fall they shall grind him to powder. And an active as well as a powerful engine, too. There is nothing of the old-fashioned sergeant-atarms ways about it. Worked by machinists who are responsible to no one, and care for no one, it is not only able to hit, but constantly hitting, and with all the hitting and crushing machinery in firstrate order, and kept so by constant use. It is an engine to be proud of; and if the machinists were only a little more skilful, it would

be the finest engine in the world. But above all, it is an engine to be feared. And feared it is-as the Inquisition was feared; as the Jesuits were and are feared; and as the old-fashioned but tremendous engine that was once guided by Hildebrand and Gregory the Sixteenth is feared by those who know it best. All these things must be realised, and that to a greater extent than is, we fear, possible from merely reading a brief sketch like the present, by those who desire to understand why English capital is not invested in India.

But those who may still think that the reason, or even one of the reasons, is that there is no profitable opening for enterprise in India need not go so far even as Bombay to be undeceived. They have but to pay a visit to the India Museum, and to read some of the Government Blue Books that are published every year on the moral and material condition of India.

They will find in the one a mute record which, intelligently read, will shew what India can do for England, and what England can do for India; they will find in the other abundant evidence that in spite of all the obstacles we have mentioned, or alluded to, the eternal laws which govern the

world are stronger than even the great engine we have described, and that year by year more English money is going out to India, and more Indian produce coming home to England.

The Indian officials found the indigo planters were becoming too prosperous and too powerful, so the Indian Government, as we have said, passed an Act of the Legislature which ruined them, and the amount of INDIGO exported by India to Great Britain in 1875 was only 17,400 chests; but it is a hopeful sign to see that this in

creased in one year to 28,000 chests, which was the amount exported in 1876.

The Indian tea planters have, as a general rule, been more fortunate in their relations with the Administration than the indigo planters. Individual cases of opposition, and even oppression, are not wanting; but on the whole, the tea planters have been let alone by the officials. The consequence is that China is being rapidly beaten out of the field, and while the enormous amount of 24,000,000 lbs. of TEA was exported to England in the year 1875, more than 28,000,000 lbs. were sent from India to England in 1876.

Every one who knows the difference is aware how superior the flavour and quality of Indian tea is to that grown in China, and Indian tea is so far chiefly used by the trade for mixing with inferior China tea, and so bringing up the whole to the desired standard. TEA bids fair to become one of the most important articles of Anglo-Indian commerce, and the tea gardens situated on the slopes of the Himalayas are at an elevation, and consequently in a climate, more favourable to English life and health than most parts of Europe. JUTE, again, has lately become an important staple, and over a million bales were imported into England in the year 1876. HIDES and skins are perhaps the most valuable article of export at present, requiring no personal labour on the part of Europeans, and, indeed, no personal attendance beyond that of the agent or broker who purchases the hides; and above all, requiring no investment or sinking of capital. The number exported to England in the year 1875 was 18,700,000, and in 1876, 20,400,000. So far, with the exception of ground laid out as tea gardens and the ill-fated indigo

concerns, no great amount of private English capital has been laid out or sunk in India. And this is exactly what India most wants. English money, so far, only passes through the country; it must do more before it can permanently enrich it. WHEAT ought, undoubtedly, to be one of the most important, if not the most important, article of export from India to England, and this both to England and India. In 1875 only 98,600 tons were exported; in 1876, 230,000. This rapid increase is hopeful; it shews what can and what may be done, but even the greater quantity is not a hundredth part of what we might, and what we ought to see. The fact is that grain is a bulky commodity, and cannot bear the expense of long railway journies. From Cawnpore to Bombay is nine hundred and sixty-four miles, and the cost of sending one ton of wheat by rail is 26rs. 12as., or at par say £2 13s. 6d. The freight from Bombay to Liverpool comes to about the same amount, and the ton of grain which is worth say 50rs. at Cawnpore has to be sold for something like 150rs. at Liverpool to give a profit to the grower, the Indian buyer, the Bombay agent, the Liverpool agent, the Liverpool buyer, and to defray the various miscellaneous expenses which must be incurred in getting the grain from the field where it grew in the North-West Provinces to the mill where it is ground in Lancashire or Yorkshire. Cheap canal carriage to the coast would enable millions, instead of thousands of tons of wheat to be sent from the interior of India to Bombay and Calcutta, and shipped to England, at a price which would not only undersell Russia, Spain, and the United States, but would enrich India, and enable England to depend only on her

own possessions for her daily bread. But so far the Government engine has employed itself in crushing canals; so the wheat has not been sold or not been grown-and the machinists complain of the poverty of India, and the want of elasticity of Indian finances!

TOBACCO, again, is an article that only needs a little English capital and enterprise to become a most valuable Indian product. We can speak from experience, but the curious can see for themselves in the various Government reports and Blue Books on the subject, that the soil of many parts of India is peculiarly suitable for the growth of tobacco, and that, in fact, an enormous amount of tobacco does grow, but that for want of any care or knowledge on the part of the natives, either in the cultivation or the preparation of the leaf, the article itself is inferior in quality. The natives are satisfied with it, and that is enough. It never occurs. to a native to make anything better than it is, or have anything better than he wants. Even as it is, capital is, capital cigars cigars are made at Coconada, at Dindigul, and at Trinchinopoly; and we are sure that anyone with a little Virginian experience or a little Virginian assistance, with tact enough or interest enough to avert official opposition, with the patience and firm kindness requisite to manage the natives, and capital enough to wait a year or two for any return, might make half-a-dozen fortunes in growing good tobacco in favourable soil, in curing it secundum artem, and shipping the raw produce to England. We would even go the length of advising any healthy and enterprising man who was idling at home to try; but we could not conceal from him the fact that there are two drawbacks to the suc

cess of this or of any similar enterprise in India: Official opposition

or

even disfavour; and the great distances which separate one place from another in India, with the consequent expense of the carriage of goods. The railways' passenger fares are liberally low. In the case of tobacco, however, the cost of carriage would be a minor consideration, as the value of the article in proportion to its bulk would prevent any rate of carriage from being a very serious drawback. The same remark applies to even a greater degree to SILK, which was once one of the most valuable products of India, but which now, in consequence partly of native carelessness in the growing and reeling, and partly of the increased skill and improved machinery in France and Italy, as well as the immense development of the trade with China and Japan, has taken a much lower place in the English market. As an instance of what may be done in India by the English care and skill, and English capital, we may say that reeled silk has been regularly sent home from India, during the last two years, which actually commanded a higher price than the Chinese, or even the best French and Italian Greges. One Englishman, who had not even the advantage of being connected with the silk trade at home, convinced of the improvement that might be wrought in the growing and the reeling of Indian silk, went to Lyons, learned how to reel, started for India with a model machine, made friends with the Government and the officials, taught the natives. how to rear the worms, gave them good seed, advanced them money, set up a reeling mill full of machines, on the model of that which he brought from Lyons, taught hundreds of native boys to do the work which is done by the

Lyonnaise girls, and justified all his labours, and was rewarded for all his energy and perseverance by complete success. His name is not necessary either to point a moral or to adorn this true tale, but it is that of a man who is known to most Indians to be on the high road to fortune. What he has done in one instance, hundreds and thousands might do in similar, and even in widely different ways. But if we were asked how and why this man succeeded, we should say, not merely on account of his talents, his energy, his perseverance, his patience, his skill, or even his capital, but because he chose for the theatre of his operations a province which was ruled over by a friendly governor, and a district administered by a friendly and intelligent official; and because the natives with whom he had to deal were made to understand that he enjoyed Government favour, and that he was a man whom the Government did not desire to thwart. Add to this that he was a man well qualified by position and influence to hold his own with the highest, and with whom, from his connections, as well as his dişposition, it would not have done to trifle, and one knows, if not exactly why he succeeded, certainly why he did not fail.

We make no apology for intrɔducing this story, or, rather, this experience of real life. It may tend to shew what English capital and English skill may do in India, and how. We could tell other stories, and of different experiences, without travelling beyond the limits of the same province; of promising enterprises frustrated, and even prosperous men ruined by official opposition. But we refrain. Without giving names, dates, and places, we could add little to the force of what we have already said, and it is no part of our duty to formulate

specific accusations against individuals.

Indeed, it is only right that we should repeat here what we have stated upon a former occasion, that with all their faults there is no body of officials in the world more deserving of respect, if not of admiration, than our Indian Civil servants. They are not as they were. Competition has lowered. the tone of the service by introducing a certain number of men of a lower social grade than is desirable, but the Indian officials are still, with very few exceptions, hardworking, painstaking, honourable men, just to the natives, loyal to their superiors, full of prejudices, but full of zeal, respectable and decent in their moral life, opposed to interlopers by tradition, unjust to them from a sense of duty, arbitrary on principle, made tyranmical by circumstances, and jealous from a sense of responsibility. They keep the country quiet by their vigour, and contented by their justice; they keep it poor by their ignorance, and backward by their prejudice. They are at once small-minded and great-hearted, and a consideration of their lives calls forth, alternately, our indignation, our admiration, our regret and Our satisfaction. By the natives of all classes they are almost universally respected, and as their primary raison d'être is to govern and to satisfy the natives, this is so far satisfactory. But if India is to prosper and improve it must be owing to the endeavours, not of the natives but of Europeans; and the one thing that the Indian civilians have hitherto shewn themselves utterly incompetent to do is to govern, still less to satisfy Europeans. And this is where we hope to see a change.

This leads us at once to say what we have not yet, perhaps,

And

made sufficiently obvious. that is that it is not sufficient to send English capital to India, without sending English hands to work it, or at all events, English brains to administer it.

Here is, no doubt, the primary reason why so little English capital is employed in India. Even people who know nothing of India officialism know that the climate is bad and that the. country itself is a very long way off. With the climate we may have something to do in a subsequent article. Suffice it for the present to say that it is, like many worse things, not nearly so bad as it is painted; and that as far as remoteness is concerned, India, thanks to M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, is nearer England than Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, the whole of South America, and the greater part of the West

Indies.

An objection is sometimes made by men who are at once practical, and ignorant of India, that a study of the results of the employment of English capital in the great Dependency, as evidenced in the quoted values of shares in Anglo-Indian trading companies, is far from sustaining the view that India is the El Dorado of investors. The objection is a practical one, but not unanswerable. The most successful English ventures in India are those which are not in the hands of public companies, and the best of those that are, are little known to financiers and dealers in shares even in India, still less in England. The best things never come into the share market at all. And as undertakings that are managed by individuals or by private associations succeed better in India than public companies, so the more successful of even these latter are never placed upon the London Stock