The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-15 00:00:00

nit W 1 AT_LOSIIOIII 211/111S.

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LONDON, ruzsad Y, APRIL 15.

IT can be no surprise to Sir C. WOOD, pay more
than to the rest of the world, that the lAssembire
operatives should follow the example of the mill-
owners in protesting against the protective system
act up in India on behalf of the cotton manufac-
ture there, since 1859. There will soon be peti-
tions on the table of tho House from the work-

people of perhaps every cotton mill in the kingdon
against the import duties on cotton goods and
yarns levied in India ; and never, certainly, was
any remonstrance better founded, or more tho-
roughly reasonable than that which is
likely to be signed by the whole of our
largest manufacturing clam A public meet-
ing recently held at the Manchester Corn
Exchange, with the Mayor in the chair, received
the report of the deputation who recently waited
on Lord Panmarron, and discussed the terms
of the petition with which the House will soon
have to deal ; and certainly the impression of all
who have attended to any of the proceedings
must be that there never was a case in which ern
right was more manifestly all on one aide.
So lately as the 24th of February, a Calcutta
Grwtte Extraordinary warn leaned, containing a
Resolution of the Government which sets Lan-
cashire asking whether the authorities have for-
gotten their promise that those import duties should
be the very first tax to be repealed. The Go-
vernment Resolution proclaims that money had
come into the Treasury so plentifully up
to the end of January, that the License
tax was not wanted. This License tax
had been proposed, among the rest, when
Mr. WILSON took Indian finance in hand ; but it
was imposed only last July. The Govramoa.
GENERAL declares his approbation of the tax, am
the best means of making the small trader and
artisan class bear their share of the public bur-
dens ; and ho regards it as a proper moue*, in
any time of need : but he announces that it is not
wanted at present, and therefore it is dropped
out of the financial system, and the amount
already raised is being returned to the payers.
While this is going on the import duties are ope-
rating on Indian society in a way which will not
be forgotten in native history, long after these
duties have gone the way of the License tax. The
native cotton manufacture is burdened with no tax,
while it is bribed by a heavy duty on the English
manufacture. The natives turn away by tens of
thousands from the growing of cotton or other
crops to spin and weave cotton under an arti-
ficial advantage which ruins a multitude of
Englishmen while it lasts, and will ruin a

multitude of natives when it is withdrawn.
According to the Lancashire petition the number
of looms and spindles iu India, established or
ordered, is ten times as many as before April,
18590 when the duties were imposed. But for
those duties there would have been little or no in-
crease of manufacture, because it would have been
cheaper for the natives to buy British fabrics ;
and at the same time there would have been ample
employment iu India in growing the cotton instead
of manufacturing it. At this moment Lancashire
men are starving for want of cotton ; and in a
little while Hindoos will be ruined by the influx
of English fabrics which should never have been
stopped from flowing in. The Lancashire peti-
tioners point out that, at the least, a correspond-
ing burden should have been placed on the
Indian manufacture; but the claim to be now
urged is that there should be no burden on
either. The Government has pledged itself to
remove the duties as soon as it can, and does not
pretend to vindicate such a tax. Yet the License
tax, which involves no special injustice, is given
up tint ; and Government is increasing its own
difficulties with the native manufacturers while
it encourages a factitious industry to involve
more and more capitalists in setting up ma-
chinery, and more and more labourers in
working it, when it is certain that the whole
structure will soon be overthrown. The mischief
is so certain, anti must be so great, that it is well
that the Government, both in India and at home,
is pledged to the repeal of the duties. It must

now go through with its task, and let down the
native manufacture which it has so imprudently
set up. For the sake of all parties, the sooner
this is done the better.
The other features of the cue, as seen from
Lancashire, are very impressive. The stations of
the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and the
halting places on every other road leading to Bom-
bay, were in February the scenes of uniialial
activity. The c.tton offers itself in unmanageable
quantities ; and the I:ineffe tells of a single train of
sixty cars laden with 2,500 bales. That cotton
would best servo India by coming to England ;
but a daily increasing proportion is detained
for Indian consumption, in order to make every
native who wears a cotton garment pay more
for it than he used to do, and than he will do
hereafter. .lust at the same time something im-
portant was taking place in the Punjaub. There
the load is laid out in large breadths of cotton
tillage : and the people expect to send their thou-
sands of bales to market ere long ; so they were

ready to hail the sight of the first locomotive thatil
ever appeared in their region. We read of the
honours paid to it—the tents pitched for a
festival where it was to pass—the great
men who came forth to look at it, the gallant
escort it had of sowers and police, the volunteer
band greeting it with " the Conquering Hero,"
the photographers with their apparatus, and the
wondering multitude. First appeared four bul-
locks abreast, and then four behind them, thirty-
three times over, a harnessed drove of above 130
bullocks, and then the truck on which the engine
rode, and then the bulky creature which made the
bullocks look like a team of dogs, the elephant