The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-02 00:00:00

JUNE 2, 1855. The Fibrous Plants of India. By J Forbes Boyle, M.D., F.R.S. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Tins is a work on a subject always of great interest, but which is of more than ordinary importance, both in a social and a political point of view, at the present mome n t. Th e questions which Professor Royle has under taken to investigate are, whether substances may not be found among the fibres of India calculated to remedy in some degree the de ficiency in the material hitherto used for the manufacture of paper; and whether in the same quarter may not also be discovered sub stitutes for the flax and hemp which form so large au item in Russia's export trade. In ea ch case his solution of the question is in the affirmative. He shows with great clearness that there are numerous fibrous plants of com mon growth in India, more especially the plantain, which would produce excellent stuff for paper; while in the jute, the musa textilis (or Manilla hemp), and the fibres of the plan tain and aloe, he shows substitutes, to a great extent, for the true hemp, were this deficient in our Eastern empire. Of these fibres the jute is already an article of considerable im port into England, though it is only of late years that it has been known to European corn rnerce. But while such are among the substitutes for hemp which Professor Royle points one, he also shows clearly that in an empire every province of which abounds in hemp nothing is wanting but proper management in the giowth and after-manipulation to produce the hemp of commerce in a state in no way infe rior to that received from Russia. In India the hemp is grown solely with a view to the flowers and seed, which are valued for their intoxicating qualities, the stalk, which con tains the fibre, being thrown away ; while in Europe it is the stalk alone that is looked to, the production of both flower and seed being sacrificed to obtain this in the highest perfec tion that it is capable of. In India, in conse quence, the plants are placed wide apart, so as to admit air and sun freely between them. These afford to them that strong and healthy development which throughout all animal and vegetable nature such exposure produces ; but in Russia the plants are grown as closely as possible together, which gives the long, and slim, and tender, sickly stalk, from which alone the longest, and softest, and most valuable fibres can be produced. The ordinary errors of the natives, too, in respect to the extraction of the fibre, and the defects in their mode of preparing it for the market, are pointed out ; and we have no doubt that, with a due atten tion to what the Professor tells them on this subject, an article might he produced in India of sufficient strength and firmness, and in more than sufficient quantities, entirely to supersede the importation of hemp from Rus sia. In the way of obtaining from the Indian flax-plant flax equal to the flax of Russia there appears to be more difficulty; but this lies not in the nature of the plant itself, and may therefore of course be overcome. The diffi culty lies chiefly in that more careful and costly mode of preparing the fibre which the more extended application of European skill, aided by capital, is alone likely to secure. Indeed, at every step the economist and the statesman meet with the same difficulty whenever their attention is turned to the de velopment of any of the vast natural resources of India. There is no country in the world more fertile and more possessed of a greater variety of natural products adapted for corn merce, because especially calculated to supply the wants of man ; but natural products can only be made available for commerce by the applica tion of skill and capital, and skill and capital require greater temptation than exists for them in India under the present state of things. Who, for instance, will embark his capital in land or in raising the land's pro ducts there when no propert3 in land is recog nised by the Government beyond the right to present occupation at existing rents—a right which is equally recognised among the Irish rackrent peasantry or the serfs of Russia? Or who will lend money to the cultivators there for the purpose of improvement when the title to such a tenure is all the security they have THE PRESS. to give ? How can a man expect that such borrowers will be able to fulfil their engage ments, however willing to do so, if he knows that they are habitually subject to the most shameless extortion and oppression by the subordinates of the collector of the district they live in, and that against such extortion and oppression they have no appeal but to the virtual author of the evils, because the wilful conniver at them—the collector himself? We hear much of the indolence, incapacity, and occasional insolence of the persons who form the Civil Service of England, and though we believe the charge to be greatly exaggerated there doubtless may be some occasional founda tion for it in fact ; but, at any rate, the evil is confined to their own offices, for their power of misconduct extends not beyond them. But in India it is a much less carefully and more irresponsibly appointed &Lyn service who fill every office of the Government from first to last. The Indian civilian who to-day was whistling " Peter Dick " in the Treasury is the collector and magistrate of a district covering ten thousand square miles to-morrow, and front his decision, or, as is more frequent, his refusal to listen to a case, there is practi cally no appeal. Or, if found incompetent for this office, he is turned into a judge, to ad minister laws he is wholly ignorant of, and to give such decisions as the corrupt native clerk of his records may have been bribed to sug gest. Tho only plan by which a capitalist can get on in such a country is that followed by the indigo planters and wealthy Zemindars in Bengal. Bribes given periodically to the understrappers, and dinners, loans of boats, and of elephants and tents, and horses and houses, and sometimes indirectly loans of rupees, to the European functionary, are found effectual where an appeal to law or reason would utterly fail. And the official gets the character, in the end, of being a good fellow among those who condescend to yield to the system, while every one is ruined who is possessed of a spirit of hottest manliness and independence. Such being the state of the case, it is need less to say that the Legislature must first reform the government of our Eastern empire if it would wish to encourage the preparation of flax and hemp, or that of any other of the natural products of India. Skill and capital are largely required for all such ventures, but capital will only go where, whatever be the form of government, a capable and conscien tious administration of the law prevails. If in India capital is collected in such enormous masses at the Presidencies, and if commerce flourishes at them, it is because there, by the establishment of courts presided over by Crown-appointed judges, this sine quci non has long obtained. Extend the jurisdiction of those courts—let them, at any rate, have the power (a power in England possessed by the Queen's Bench) of controlling and revising the proceedings of the magistrates and district judges in the Mofussil—introduce, in short, law and justice and true Administrative Reform, and the same scene will be witnessed of peace, and happiness, and plenty throughout India which are so conspicuously seen within the limits to which the jurisdiction of the supreme courts extends at present. We have only a word to add as to the general character of the work under notice, and that is, that, though confessedly hurriedly written, it is in every way worthy of the high reputa tion which the author bears—a reputation which in this branch of subjects is too firmly fixed to derive any addition or suffer any diminution from anything that we could say. The History of the Corps of Royal Sappers anti Miners. By T. W. J. Conolly, Quarter master-Sergeant of the Corps. London : Longmans. UP to the year 1772 the British army was dependent for the execution of military works (as it is in some degree just now in the Crimea) on hired civil labourers—the " navvies " of the time. At that period the importance of the works at Gibraltar required an attention that thoFe in command found they could not obtain from mechanics hired for no definite period; and having a right to leave at their option. In this difficulty colonel Green, the chief engineer at Gibraltar, conceived the idea of a working military corps. He made his suggestion ; and at that time it seems useful suggestions had a fair chance of being attended to, for a warrant under the sign manual was issued for the raising of sixty eight men professing various handicrafts, whose officers were to be selected from those of the Royal Engineers. Such was the origin of one of the most perfect and effective corps in the British service—the Royal Sappers and Miners. Mr. Couolly, the author of this very inte resting history, was employed in 1836 to assist a superior officer in making out a list of such officers of the Royal Engineers as had at different times commanded companies of the Sappers and Miners. This occupation sug gested to him the propriety of getting toge ther a history of the corps, and this tusk we think he has performed with singular success. It is certainly the most varied and, so to speak, personal of modern military histories, conducting the reader not only through the actual services of the corps in hostile warfare, but through those undertakings to which it was devoted in time of peace, and which went very often far to solve the social problems of the time. We may remark, for instance, that there is to be found in Mr. Conolly's book a more lifelike account of the actual state of Ireland in the famine of 1846.7, when the . Sappers and Miners were employed on the public works, than all the blue-books of the period could supply. The book has the charm of being written not only from personal communication in many cases, but with a very cordial esprit de corps, and embodying many of the traditions of the service. It would probably be difficult to find anywhere else so pleasant an account as the following of the famous " galleries " of the Rock of Gibraltar : On a fine lay in May, l7tr2, the Governor, attended by the chief engineer and staff, made an inspection of the batteries at the north front. Great havoc had been made in some of them by the enemy's fire, and for the present they were abandoned whilst the artificers were restoring them. Meditating for a few moments over the ruins, he said aloud, " I will give a thousand dollars to any one who can suggest how I am to get a flanking fire upon the enemy's works." A pause followed the exciting exclameo tion, when Sergeant-Major Ince of the company, who was in attendance upon the chief engineer, stepped forward, and suggested the idea of forming galleries in the rock to effect the desired object. The general at once saw the propriety of the scheme, and directed it to be carried into execution. Upon orders being issued by the chief engineer, twelve good miners of the company were selected for this novel and difficult service, and Sergeant-Major ince was nominated to take the executive direction of the work. On the 25th of May he commenced to mine a gallery from a place above Farringdon's Battery (Willis'), to communicate, through the rock, to the notch, or projection, in the scarp under the Royal Battery. The gallery was to be six feet high and six feet wide. The successful progress of this preliminary work was followed by a desire to extend the exca vation from the cave at the head of the King's lines, to the cave at the end of the Queen's lines, of the same dimensions as the former gallery. A body of well instructed miners was expressly appointed for the duty, and on the 6th July they began this new ta übter• raneau passage. On the lsth the first embrasure was opened in the face of the rock communicating with the gallery above Farring.lon's. To effect this, the mine was loaded with an unusual quantity of powder, and the explo sion was so loud that almost the whole of the enemy's camp turned out at the report. The gallery was now widened to admit of the placement of a gun, with sufficient room for its recoil, and when finished a 24-pounder was mounted. Before the ensuing September five heavy guns were placed in the gallery, and in little more than twelve months from the day it was commenced it was pushed to the notch, where a battery, as originally proposed. was slier. wards established and diatinguished by the name of St. George's-hall Of the unusual respect in which the new corps were held at Gibraltar, and of the ex• ceedingly unusual way in which it was pro posed to testify it from an unexpected quarter, an anecdote is given to the effect, that the Jews on the rock wished to decorate the men with gold lace, instead of yellow braid, free of cost, but the compliment was declined. The narrative of the services of the Sappers and Miners embraces an account of the greater number of enginnring improve ments made under the auspices of the Government during the last seventy years. It is, therefore, a story full of interest, embracing operations in the West Indies, America, and at home—the masterly " Ordnance Survey of Ireland " being one of the most important of the latter. The Sappers and Miners, how• ever, had a more disheartening work to per