The Sun.
London, England, 1857-08-18 00:00:00

OUR TRADE WITH INDIA.

The possible disturbance of our Indian trade is a
serious question, but the vague alarm it awakens would
be mitigated by a little calm calculation. The danger,
according to the first impression of its magnitude,
is that a market for seven or eight millions ster-
ling of our exports may be entirely stopped, and

that specie instead of goods will be demanded of
us. After the drain we have experienced for three or
four years past this would indeed be an embarrasoing
prospect. But it exists only in imagination. Rs. n
taking the alt igether improbable supposition that
the produce henceforth to be shipped from India
will suffer no diminution, and that the natives, in their
terror, will accept in payment for it nothing but silver
that they can hoard, the dimensions of the evil would be
much smaller than most persons suppose. On the seven
millions of gent's which we send to Calcutta we can
nardiy assume there is a profit of more than 1,050,000/.,
or 15 per cent. The balance may be regarded as the vatue
of the raw produce and of the labour consumed in its manu-
facture and transportation. If we no.longer require this
raw produce we of course instantly lessen our purchases
of it, and, the lass from the stoppage of the trade
is proportionahlY thrown upon foreign countries.
If India will not buy cotton cloths, America, which
produces the staple, will suffer from that fact much
more even than England ; while, a: regards the les-
sened employment of our operatives, no permanent
inconvenience would be threatened, as ever since the
Australian discoveries, the supply of labour hai been
short of our requirements. A moderate reduction of
wages would be I Mowed by a rather diminished
consumption of imported luxuries, which would tend
to avert drains of specie in other directions, but
would certainly lead to nothing like general dis-
tress. As to the produce of India, in whatever quan-
tities it might continue to come, we should
take it only at prices at which we could make a profit
from it: Looking at the matter, therefore, in its worst
aspects there is nothing to excite uneasine-s. Doubt-
less individual firms would suffer, as is always the case
in any revolution in business, but the effects experienced
by the nation would be slight. There is no ground to
assume that our aggregate trade, except perhaps dur.
ing the first few months of the crisis, will be at all
disturbed as regards amount. According to every
probability the exports of India will be quite as exks-
sively interfered with as her imports, and consequently
the balance to be paid to that country in specie will be
much as before, chile in proportion as she sends us
short iupplies other countries will be stimulated to
produce their, aitd these countries in their increased
priw-perity wiil require augmented consignments from .us
in return.- It is this power of turning froth market to
market and of adapting themselves to all changes that
cOnstitutes the irrepressible grandeur of a free cowmen•
oral community. The wants of the world are alway s
increasing, although the activity of particular

districts may wane, and a people who have no
exclusive relations, but who are ready to deal on
terms of equality will all mankind, can never sustain
much damage from any hing but a universal convol,ion.
However much it might mortify our edf-esteem if we
'were swept out of India to-morrow, there is rewon,
from pest experience, to believe that the BJard of Trade
returns for future years would continuo to xcite no less
surprise than heretofore. It is the people of India and
not of Great Britain that have to lock will dread on the
miseries to be experienced from the check to eiviCsation
and industrial advancement that must be cArsequent on
the disasters of 1857:—Times City Article.

•
EMIGRATION TO THE Can.—The Cork papers slate
that on Monday Mr: Chaunt, an agent of the Colonial
Land and Einigration Commissionere; attended at the
workhouse for the purpose of selecting 5O women to be
sent, under the grant recently made, to the Cape of Good
Hope. The Borne Government has made arrangements
with the Colonial authorities that they shall-receive pro.
tection until provided for, either by marriage or in ser-
vice.