CHAPTER XXXIII. COMMERCE OF INDIA-continued. Rice-Jute-Cereals-Seeds-Tea-Sugar-Opium-Coffee-IndigoSaltpetre-Timber-Tobacco-Agriculture-Primitive method of Natives-European Planters. Rice.-Next to cotton, rice ranks in quantity though not in value as an export, and few trades have grown with the extraordinary rapidity of the Indian rice trade. From Calcutta and the ports on the Madras coast rice is extensively shipped to Bombay and the ports on the West coast of India, to Muscat, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea ports, Mauritius and Australia. It is from British Burmah, however, that the rice trade has developed in the most remarkable degree. Little more than twenty years have elapsed since the first cargo of rice was exported from a Burmese port, and now the exports thence exceed half a million of tons annually to all parts of the globe. This very cheap and nutritious article of food is growing in favour, particularly on the continent of Europe, and it is to be regretted that the people of England do not sufficiently appreciate it. Jute.-How little is known to the public at large of this most useful article of commerce! To many wellinformed persons the name even is unknown, and yet what a conspicuous place it occupies in the manufactures of the United Kingdom and India! The jute or Indian hemp trade received its first important start in 1854, during the war with Russia, but the Civil War in the United States gave the strongest impetus to it. Before the year 1853 the export of jute from Calcutta was only about 20,000 bales; in 1863, the exports were 800,000 bales, and in 1872 the shipments of jute and jute cuttings actually exceeded 2,000,000 bales. Of this quantity the United Kingdom took about a million and a-half bales, America 450,000, and the Continent the remainder. But in addition to the large quantities of raw material thus exported, there is a considerable local consumption of jute cloth and extensive export of manufactured articles; in the year 1872, above referred to, there were 106,000 pieces of gunny cloth and 28,500,000 gunny bags exported from Calcutta. Jute is used for sacking, sail-cloth, carpet manufacture, paper making and many other purposes. This one article of commerce has built up the prosperity of the town of Dundee, and the trade between Calcutta and that port employs a splendid fleet of iron sailing ships, of which the nation may be proud. The quantity of jute imported into the United Kingdom now exceeds 200,000 tons per annum. Some excellent jute mills have recently been erected in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, but the manufacture is at present chiefly confined to sacking and gunny bags which are exported to China, Australia and all parts of the globe. Efforts are being made to establish the manufacture of the finer descriptions of cloth, and with reasonable prospects of success. Cereals.-Hitherto India has not been a large grainexporting country; wheat, maize, barley and pulse have been chiefly grown for home consumption, and the exports have been comparatively limited owing to grain deteriorating during the long sea voyage round the Cape to Europe; but the opening of the Suez Canal and the construction of railways and roads in India having accelerated the transport to Europe, wheat has been shipped in annually increasing quantities from Calcutta, Bombay and Kurrachee to London and Liverpool. Last year 5 per cent. of the British imports of wheat came from India, and there can be little doubt the trade will grow rapidly. The valleys of the Nerbudda, Upper Ganges, Indus and other large rivers in India are capable of producing an almost unlimited supply of wheat, and demand will speedily ensure it. The average annual importation of wheat into England at the present time is about 12,500,000 quarters, and with our rapidlyincreasing population and decrease of arable land, the deficiency of home-grown breadstuffs must increase. The knowledge of this fact has long occasioned more or less anxiety. It has been stated that the great wheat-producing countries have only to combine to withhold their supplies to starve us into submission. It is improbable that such a state of things could be brought about, but admitting the possibility, why should not India in this respect largely provide for our require ments? The exportation of wheat would enrich her, by forcing a larger importation of the precious metals which would tend to diminish the losses in exchange with Europe, which have of late been sustained by merchants who have had to remit money from the East, and by servants of the Crown whose incomes are derived from India. Lord Lawrence, in his report on the Punjaub when Lieutenant-Governor, states, that 500,000 tons of wheat might be exported annually from that province alone,* without interfering with the wants of the people, and the Times recently drew attention to the following remarkable growth of the Calcutta wheat trade:-In 1870 the quantity of wheat exported from Calcutta was 2,000 tons, in 1873 it was 10,000, and in the first eight months of the last year (1876) no less than 120,000 tons were shipped to England, which came chiefly from the Punjaub, and it only requires the completion of the Indus Valley Railway to export wheat in greater abundance at a cheaper rate, from this province. The quality of Indian wheat is much liked by millers because of its extreme dryness.† * Vide "The Indus and its Provinces," by the Author. "Since the report was published advices had also reached them from India that arrangements had been made with Scinde, Punjab and Delhi Railway Company, by which purchasers of grain in the Punjab would be able to send it down to Calcutta from Umritsur-a distance of about 1,215 miles at the remarkably low cost of about 128. 9d. per qr.-Speech of Mr. R. W. Crawford, Chairman East Indian Railway, Jan. 4, 1877. The Dundee Advertiser, under date 8th February, 1877, states:"the following figures show the extraordinary rapidity with which the shipments of wheat from Calcutta to Great Britain have extended. It will be seen that while the clearances were only 500 tons in 1870 and 14,370 in 1874, they sprang up to 49,930 tons in 1875 and 141,715 last year. The shipments through the Suez Canal were equal to the freight of forty steamers of 2,000 tons. The total quantity of wheat shipped from Calcutta in 1876 was equal to the entire crop grown in Scotland. The following are the figures:— Seeds.-Collectively seeds form a huge item in the commerce of India-linseed, rape, gingelly, castor and other oleaginous seeds are largely shipped from India to Europe. In utilizing these seeds, the oil is first extracted and the refuse (in the form of oil cake) is then used for cattle feeding and artificial manures. A large quantity of rape and linseed goes forward to the south of France and to Italy, where the oil by careful refining is used for adulterating olive oil, and for preserving fish, &c. The use of oil cake in England for cattle feeding is extending. The production of meat for the increasing necessities of our large population cannot be overtaken by grazing or feeding upon farm produce, consequently CLEARANCES OF WHEAT TO GREAT BRITAIN DURING Total 81,797 39,423 3,650 8,060 6,560 | 200 2,025 141,715 |