THE SAL FOEESTS. 375 



actually been transported thither in great numbers, while all 

 the time vast areas of the finest land are pining for labour in 

 the interior of their own country. There cannot be a doubt 

 which they would most willingly go to, in order to escape 

 from their densely crowded condition at home, were the in- 

 ducements offered to them the same. What has tempted 

 them to other countries has been the superior wages which 

 their industries could afford to offer ; and in India, wherever, 

 as in Assdm, Cachar, and the Wynaad, such articles of Euro- 

 pean demand as coffee, tea, etc., have attracted European 

 enterprise, and where similar wages have been held out, an 

 abundant supply of labour has been furnished by these 

 fountains of population. What appears to be necessary, then, 

 to effect the rapid reclamation of these wilds is the introduc- 

 tion of some special industry which will attract the European 

 energy and capital which alone can ever effect the movement 

 of Indian labour in large bodies from one part of the country 

 to another. That there are such industries capable of intro- 

 duction there cannot be a doubt. Leaving such exotic sub- 

 jects as tea, coffee, and cinchona out of the question, as not 

 having yet been proved to be suitable, India is fast attaining 

 a point at which it will pay imported capital to invest in the 

 culture of her old and well-tried staples, particularly under 

 such improved scientific conditions and methods as may be 

 hoped for from European knowledge. Improved communica- 

 tions have so much equalised values in different parts of the 

 country, that the extension of cotton tillage in Western India 

 alone has more than doubled the local value of all sorts of 

 agricultural produce throughout the greater part of India. 

 Cattle are worth about three times what they were ten years 

 ago. Such a rise in the value of the produce of the earth, 

 and all that is connected with it, as has taken place since the 



