New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-06-12

The annual report of the trade and condition
Of India, just published, has produced a shock
in England of alarm, and of something almost
amounting to compassion. Policy, If not pity,
dictates that some restriction should he placed
on the steady exhaustion Of that colony which
has been going on since 1872. The policy of
England has always been to drain the Vitality
out of this colony 10 strengthen the mother
country. The ports of India were thrown open
and british manufactures forced on the Hin
do-tancsc people, free of duty; native manu-
features Of every kind were discouraged. The
native population are compelled To sustain the
whole Of the vast cost of the machinery of the
English Colonial Goycrnmcnt-itS army, wars
with nGghboIius provinces (Which item alone
last year reached the sum of F2S,3j",9Ouh
the salaries and pension, of the holdc~ of
younger sons and bcuciciarics who are sent
ont from England To grow rich. and the con-
,trucion of the costly railway, which are built
for the convenience Of the foreigners.
TO raise this money ENGLAND claims to hc
the actual owner of all Land iu India, and cN-
act, from each ryot or occupant rent or
l-~c. .lncnt of produce usually averaging abon.
lllf the actual annual valr" OF the laud.
Opium j. thc nc,t most fruitful source of nv
cuuc. It's culture was forced upon the Buf-
iuc>c AGAINST their earnest protest. They a,
forbidden to sell it except 10 tlr Government
AT Government Iic., Nhcn bought ibis
Government a-ain forces il or rr Chimes.
we an know AGAINST what y.hr.rd oppD..-
item Of thril rulers. Tho native Indian is thus
crippled on every side; Do is barred ont FROM
Office or trlGr; hc cannot umnuinrtur'; Dee j..
ovcrtaxcd a. farmer; there j. absolutely no
chance for development for Tai, people and
when We add 20 the heavy weight of Lngli,A
cyaction which they have to carry the Iccur-
renee of famine ever, few years, it is no Won
der that the rapid lnupcrzatiou of Tie people
alarms even their rulers "1hc European
"clargc.." SAYS The PH VaH C1-cf;c (which
"have yearly to Ice met by India ont Of the
"excc.. Of her exports over imports. exceed
"considcrably 900, 600 900. II is therefore of
"thc utmost Importance that her exports should
abe stimulated and her imports chcclcd.'
This is late wisdom. But. as the exports of In
da consist almost wholly of opium and salt,
we may guess how soon England will yield to
the protests of China against the growth and
importation.
Another nation which is undergoing the same
course of slow death from exhaustion is Japan.
A recent article in The atlantic Monthly by
Mr.. House. late Editor of The Toxic Times
called attention to the condition Of this pco-
ple. According to his statement the treaty by
which their commercial relations are regulated
with every other nation was the work of a
single man, an American, Townsend Harris,
To whom these smplc-hcartcd crcdulOus peO-
pie, when their ports were opened, ignorant of
the very name of customs left the whole mat
ter BY this treaty, with some cancellations by
Lord Elgin, British manufactures are admitted
free of duty, and tie treaty is made perpctu-
ally binding on them. There being thus no
revenue from the customs, the burden of sup
port of the Government falls on the agricul-
tural class, who are heavily taxed. The japanese
Government is almost bankrupt, and the peo-
pie have been struggling braycly for years
against wretched and extreme poverty.
The exquisite works Of their art with
which Europe and America are flooded,
are not, as we are apt to suppose,
the overflow of Oriental magnifccnce, but
the relics of q wealth and power long since
past Sold in most cases, that their owners
may not starve. Americans in Japan send to
us pitiable stories of the slow impoverishment
of this people; people sngularly mild, intel
ligent and ambitious, but who were manacled
to poverty by this treaty, forced on them in
their days of ignorance. The Daimios-princes
who can trace back their ancestry through