The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-29 00:00:00

We have three pamphlets before us on Steam
Navigation to India. The first is called " State
of the Question," Scc.," by T. A. Curtis ; the
second, " The East India Company versus her
Majesty's Ministers," by Captain J. Barber ;
and the third, " A Modest Defence of the
East India Company's Management," by Philo-
johannes. To speak of the last first,
,it is a little
satirical notice of Mr. Curtis' pamphlet, and a
short defence of what the Company has already
done. The practicability of conveying the mails by
the route of Alexandria, Suez, and Bombay, has al-
ready been demonstrated by the exertions of the
Company and its agents ; and we now look for
the arrival of the mail from India in less
than forty days, if not with the same certainty as
for the arrival of the mail from Ireland, yet with a
confidence which would have astonished the states-
men of Mr. Pitt's time. It is true that we. have
had a long peace, which has given unexampled
facilities for the extension of our commerce, which
we have not fully profited by. While peace con-
tinues, it is, however, our duty to extend our com-
mercial relations, which, binding nations in amity by
their mutual interests, are far better guarantees
against the calamities of war than the policy of any
statesmen. Now, then, is the time, if ever, for
forming acommunication with India, which shall not
only be expeditious and certain, but shall, by its
general advantages, be liable to continue perma-
nently, even should war again desolate the civilised
world,

The East India Company are accused by their
opponents of being reluctant to promote a free
egress of its Mahommadan and Hindoo subjects by
means of large and capacious steamers passing from
the several Presidencies to Suez, or elsewhere, and
a free ingress of Europeans or Asiatics, perhaps
Mahommedans, from Suez or other points, into
its Indian territories. Hence, though it has esta-
blished steam-packets for the conveyance of the
mails between Bombay and Suez, it is accused of
purposely employing only small vessels, which will
not carry many passengers, and of throwing ob-
stacles in the way of those who are anxious to esta-
blish a Company, and employ large steamboats of
2,000 tons burden ,to convey passengers by sea from
England to Alexandria, and from Suez not only
to Bombay, but to Madras and Calcutta. Its four
steamers, with their poor accommodation, are de-
scribed by Captain Barber as " locomotive stays,"
two of them, though now called the Zenobia and
Semiramis, having been built to carry pigs be-
tween Ireland and England ; and their whole ac-
commodations are much ridiculed. The im-
mense advantages, commercial and social, which
would result both to India and England from facili-
tating the communication between them, are as un- I
deniable as to describe them here would be super-
fluous. Whether the plan proposed of establishing
a company with a capital of one million sterling,
to ply with steamers between England and Alex-
andria, and between Suez and the three Presiden-
cies, would be a profitable speculation or not, we
can give no opinion ; but Mr. Curtis and Captain
Barber strenuously advocate the establishment of a
Company to carry the project into effect. It is
called the "comprehensive plan," and Captain Barber
strongly recommends that it should he attempted
without waiting for the fostering hand of the East
India Company. Mr. Curtis requires, according
to the original proposition submitted to the East
India Company, a contract to carry the mails for
ten years at 100,0001. a year, to enable the Com-
pany to start. Not pretending to judge for our-
selves of the feasibility of the plan, but taking
the assertions of both gentlemen, Captain Barber's
conclusion seems to us the most rational. " The
scheme once accomplished (he says), there can be
no doubt of a revenue. The Government are
willing to be—the East India Company of neces-
sity would be—your anxious customers." If the
scheme have all the advantages these gentlemen
say, the East India Company would in one year
beg the Company to perform the services it now
performs almost at any price. Besides, it does not
look well in Englishmen being unable to commence
a great commercial enterprize without the favour of
the Government. Are they in the City now so
deeply in love with the centralizing system ? do
they wish to follow so closely in the track of the
Prussians and the Dutch, that they can undertake
nothing unless it have the sanction and the pecu-
niary aid of the Government ? If Mr. Curtis
believes his own statement, he ought to follow
Captain Barber, and press on the commercial
community connected with India the propriety of
immediately forming a Company to carry the com•
prehensive plan into effect.

There can be no doubt that such a scheme would ;
promote the communication between India and
England. One curious instance of this is quoted
by Captain Barber :
" The effect which is likely to* be produced upon the
minds of those natives of India who may hereafter be
induced to come to England may be fairly estimated
from the effect which a residence in England had upon
the mind of the late Rammohun Roy, a Hindoo, and a
brahmin of high caste. He told me that eighteen Brah-
mins and four rajpoots of his acquaintance, in different
parts of India, had, in consequence of his having written
to them an account of the manner in which he had been
received in England, and of the knowledge which he had
acquired since he had been in the country, authorized
him, in the event of a steam communication being esta-
blished between England and British India through
Egypt, to purchase land for them in England, intimating
to him their intention of coming and residing for some
years in the neighlnurhood of London, and making
themselves acquainted, for the benefit of themselves and
their countrymen, with our laws, science, and institu-
tions ; and, not long before his death, he one day when
he was with me drew up in my presence the sketch of a
work which he intended to write, in imitation of Cicero's
Tusculan Questions, aed to circulate it throughout
every part of India, purporting to be a Dialogue between
a Brahmin from the Thames and a Brahmin from the
Ganges, in which, after discussing our moral and political
institutions, both Brahmins agree to recommend such of
their countrymen as can afford it, to come to England,
and acquire that degree of knowledge which is necessary
to raise them to that moral and intellectual, superiority
which the Supreme Being has qualified them to enjoy in
this world."
We will quote another short passage explanatory
of the effects of opening the trade in 1814, which
may be assumed as an index to the still greater in-
crease of communication with our extensive Indian
territories were the " comprehensive plan" carried
into effect :

Towards the close of the East India Company's char-
ter, that terminated in 1814, it was then contended, that
no great increase of trade in that country could be ex-
pected. The Chairman of the Court of East India
Directors, in a letter to the Right Hon. Robert Dun-
des, 1809, referring to public opinion, on this head,
said :
" The article or the first necessity (cotton) their own
country furnishes more abundantly and more cheaply
than it is possible for Europe to supply them."
In the year 1814, however, the trade was opened ; at
that time the export of manufactured cotton to India,
and the whole tonnage employed were
Yards. Ships. Tonnage.
In 1814 817,000 180 68,732
In 1824 23,685,426 222 98,463
In 1832 51,833,913 330 122,952

The value. of cotton exported in the same time, in-
creased from 201,1821. to 3,238,2481.; and the value of
all exports from Great Britain from 1,874,6901. to
4,674,6731.
As with commerce so it is with literature ; but even
under the present system of intercourse, limiting, as it
does, the advantage to Bombay (from whence to all
parts of India the charge. for postage of newspapers is
very heavy, while for periodicals it amounts to prohibi-
tion), what is the result e
In April 1837 Newspapers sent were 127
In August 1839 ........................ 2,700
We leave the subject, expressing an earnest wish
for the success of Captain Barber and the " Com-
prehensive Scheme in spite of the East India Com-
pany.

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Mr. Gurdon, of the Norfolk circuit has been ap-
pointed Recorder of Ipswich, vacated by the elevation
of Sir R. M. Rolfe to the Bench.
FLEET DITCH.—The rains during last night
increased the height and current of the Fleet Ditch to
such an extent that it swept away the ladders and stage
which had been erected for the operations of the work-
men w
who have, for sonic months past, been employed in
repairing the sewer.