The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-07 00:00:00

in min

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1845.

The last advices from India tend to confirm, in their
fullest extent, the most sanguine anticipations we have
eter forined of the speedy diffusion, throughout that
magnificent country, of railroads. The most anxious
and profound attention of the enlightened Governor-
General ea man whose career in developing the arts
and realising the blessings of peace seems destined to
eclipse even that of his military renown—is constantly
devo! d to extending and multiplying the application of
eteaus pewer to facilitate the communication between all
the " countries, nations, names, and languages" which
compose our continental empire in Asia. We need
not dwell for a moment on the physical, geographical,
and political accidents of surface, extent, and institu-
tions, which are so many reasons why India requires
nothing so much as a well digested and substantially con-
struced scheme of railways in order to eliminate her
resources in new and multiplied channels, and to an
extent not yet witnessed even in the palmiest periods of
her eventful history. Such a scheme we need not doubt
that the administrative genius of Sir re
HAR-
DINGE will successfully superintend, and usher into exe-
Without this marvellous application of modern
science, on a grand scale, the almost innumerable diffi-
ctilties interposed by natural or artificial obstacles scat-
tered over an area of enormous territorial extent, and
the still mere formidable impediments established by
the force of habits consecrated by the lapse of from two
to. three thousand years—by the power of prejudices to
n hid; superstition has ascribed a character of sacred
and unimpeachable permanency—those difficulties would
have eperated, for ages to come, to the same bad results,
w4ich they have produced for ages past. Differences ofeasie
of usages, of popular feeling—the extreme remoteness
f even the most wealthy and enlightened districts from
cue another—the perils of the journey between them ag-
gravated by bad and imperfect high roads, and by the
want of all unity of notion in the sources of internal go •
teimment and protection ;—these have been among the
main causes which have hitherto effected a more com-
p Lee isolation of one province of Hindostan from
,e
ano-
ther than that which separates Hindostan from the
A miemans. Of the one hundred millions of people who
s journ over the vast countries comprised under the vague
designation of India, at least one-fourth are ill supplied
a fill salt, and occasionally great sufferers from the want
fit. Yet there is no country under heaven which pro-
duces that great ncceisary of life with more facility,
a• might Le made to raise it in larger quantity. Not
to mention its salt likes, its salt desert even,
(the " Rune," extending over a square of about
r,40 miles in the Goe;erat), or the plains
uf salt that occur north and west of the north
shires of the Indus, the prodigious extent of the Malabar
hlld Coromandel coasts is dotted with natural reservoirs
s cr.) stalised by the intense heat of the sun, and
with ar ificial " pans" and works, in which the menu-
-I',
.I,t.urieg and purifying processes are carried on by
% e industry and capital. Enormous quantities of
6.1• are sitnually made, again, in the huge alluvial tract
c::11cel the. " Suriderbunds"—eand islands forming the
x
of the Ganges, at the north-easternmost t
•y
of ;he Incli,n Peninsula. Now it is not
enoughtoal extremity
eit fir the scarcity of this i...aluable condiment to
at v that is .s occivioned by Government monopoly
o •alt—by that duty which, together with the "Land''
at .1" 54.3 er"—the " Ayeen" and " Akbar 4" re.enues—
-IL.re, during so many years, formed ro large an item in
at. financial resources of the East India Company. In
so ee of the tributary States, which are among the great
stz-brers from the want of the commodity, this " salt
duty" has never been collected. The plain fact is, that
at Free t there is a deplorable want of high roads, even
of a practicable kind, throughout the Peninsula. The
sr.:mu and the scale on which the land-tax is collecte

cutiun.