318 
ON THE RETURNS FOR EXTENSION OF IMPORTS. 
assertion that the resources are unquestion- 
ably inexhaustible. We agree with Mr. Bell 
that the amount of the external commerce of 
Bengal is now perfectly contemptible com- 
pared with what it might be. Our author 
is, and we admire him for it, enthusiastic in 
his expectations, that the effect of the abroga- 
tion of the Company’s trading charter the 
abolition of the transit duties, and the im- 
petus that will be given to the export. trade, 
when the home duties on sugar will have 
been equalized, will work wonders. 
Mr. Bell reprobates, and very justly, the 
idea that India has nothing to offer in re- 
turn for an extension of imports. He ac- 
knowledges that the successful extension of 
imports has been checked and occasional 
“gluts” in some particular branches pro- 
duced; but since the “avenues — 
“ To an immense Commerce have been 
nearly cleared of all the obnoxious weeds 
that formerly choked its growth, and the agri- 
cultural industry of India will, under proper 
example and encouragement, keep pace with 
the never-ending improvernents, which are 
from year to year progressing through the 
mechanical genius of our countrymen at 
home, which has so effectually changed the 
features of the Trade between England and 
India within the-last twenty years.” 
He contemplates a prosperity for the 
future, which will make us forget the past. 
The probability is, according to our intel- 
ligent author, that England will feel the 
necessity of drawing upon India for her 
supplies of sugar. 
“ And nothing has occurred in the politi- 
cal aspect of our West India Colonies, to 
shake this impression ; on the contrary, the 
shipments during the last year, of nearly 
nine thousand maunds of Sugar from Cal- 
cutta to North America, is evidence of a 
deficiency somewhere ; and it is obvious, that 
free labour in the West Indies, without 
taking into account, the immense sacrifice 
already made to rescue it from the stigma of 
slavery, can never be brought low enough to 
to compete with that of the Hindoo. 
Upon what principle, then, is the discrimi- 
nating duty on East India Sugar maintained 1 
The people of England have been made to 
pay enormous sums, to indemnify the West 
India planter for the loss of his slaves, and in 
return for this boon, the people are com- 
pelled to purchase the produce of the East, at 
a much higher rate than that of the West, 
because England must maintain a strong mi- 
litary force to prevent the enfranchised negro 
from cutting his employer’s throat. 
This monstrous injustice will remedy itself 
at no distant period, if England continue 
long to bolster up the interests of one country 
at the expense of another. So long as an 
unnatural price for Sugar is maintained by 
means of unfair resti ictions, the West India 
planter may endeavour to stem the current of 
competition from this country, but the odds 
are fearfully against a continuance even 
under the fostering patronage of protection, 
when it is considered that few estates are 
otherwise than deeply mortgaged, that the 
best lands are impoverished to an extent re- 
mediable only by importing manure from 
England, and that the amount of labor, to be 
purchased from a free negro, is far below the 
average of slave labor. The consequence of 
all these concurrent circumstances must be 
decreased production in the West, since in 
proportion to the enhanced cost of labor 
required to yield the same returns, as under 
slavery, it stands to reason that the Sugar 
must be sold at a higher rale, to give an ade- 
quate rate of interest on the capital employed. 
This inconvenience to the West India 
planter will be felt more and more every year, 
unless he can.replenish his estate with Euro- 
pean laborers, and the climate is such as to 
place success in this respect out of the ques- 
tion, and he must ultimately abandon his 
estate. Not so, if free competition were al- 
lowed. The extent of shipments from India 
would give the West India planter timely 
warning to apply his remaining capital to 
some other channel of production, which 
could not be displaced by India. Unless 
some effort of this kind be made, it is clear, 
that the British West India Colonies will 
cease to export Sugar. I'hey cannot com- 
pete with Foreign Colonies, where the trade 
in slavery is as life, as when introduced by 
the Portuguese nearly four centuries ago ; 
and unless England continue her restrictive 
duties on East India Sugar, an injustice that 
cannot be anticipated, she must necessarily 
look to India as the only source of supply. 
Here then is a field for British skill and 
capital, if British skill and capital be not 
scared from application, of which unhappily 
there is some dread at present.” 
The foregoing is written in a language and 
spirit which are highly creditable to the 
author’s feeling, whether we consider him in 
the character of a citizen, or, in the light of 
one warmly advocating the interests of this | 
people and this country. He next shows the || 
excessive amount of exports, in the past | 
year, which has been made up of increase as I 
follows, in round numbers. I 
“ But to proceed with our present enquiry, f 
— the excessive amount of Exports in the past [ 
year has been made up of increase as follows, I 
n round numbers : — 
