merce at Stoke-upon-Trent; satisfied themselves that Himalayan Tincal would give them the weather gage of Tuscan Borax, and immediately wrote off a memorial to the Governor General begging him to develop the Tincal traffic immediately. The request was a little vague, and involved making a road of some hundreds of miles over the Himalaya; but the Staffordshire Potters did not mind waiting, and the Marquis of Dalhousie was never deaf to the cries of legitimate commerce. All our readers know about the Hindostan and Thibet road; we hear on good authority that Borax is coming down to Simla in quantities calculated to make the Tuscan contractor's heartache. That it exists in the more Westerly Hills is as certain as that iron exists; the problem as to both is, how to carry them to market. But if we descend from the mountains to the beautiful valley of Kangra, we feel sure that this is a difficulty which must in the course of years disappear. It is as impossible as that the P. and O. should continue to carry us round by Gibraltar, that the grain and the rice with which this most fertile and most lovely district abounds should not find their way to the mouths of hungry men. The Tea plant carries with it the same promise, and is as threatening a foe to the Chinese, as the Tincal to the Tuscan. Whether Europeans will ultimately come to Kangra, or the produce of Kangra will be carried to Europeans we do not venture to assert; but that one or other event will take place we are quite certain; and either must lead to a great improvement of the Overland route ;we use the phrase, it will be observed, in an extended sense, as stretching not merely from post to post, but from London to Ladák ; as comprehending that much required improvement a great highway from the hills to the plains. This however is still a hope for the future; not certainly remote, but we fear not immediate.

It is not till we reach Umritsur that we find the first great practical improvement of the existing Transit undergoing serious consideration. The Calais and Mooltan may be a joke, even the Mooltan and Umritsur a project too large for our minds to grasp; but the Lahore and Umritsur falls within the speculative compass of the feeblest imagination. The two largest cities in the North of India are separated by 35 miles of level road. There probably is not an easier tract in the world to carry a Railway over; there are certainly no two isolated points between which there is a greater trade to convey. Government is in the field already it is counting the carts; the small two-wheeled onehorsed, bell-tinkling, ricketty vehicles which at present monopolize the native passenger traffic of this brief but important line. The English passenger traffic is accommodated by one mail cart or palki gharri per diem. There is nothing to complain of in the pace.

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The Railway would probably not bring much improvement in this respect the average rate at which the mail is conveyed between Umritsur and Lahore exceeds the rate at which it is carried by the Railway between Calcutta and Raneegunge; but when the one mail cart, or the one palki gharee is bespoken, the descent is sudden and great, for there is then nothing left but the old fashioned palanquin and bearer jogtrot. It is barely possible that the local traffic may be thus accommodated, but if we are regarding the 35 miles from Umritsur to Lahore as a link in the chain of the Overland route, it is clear that one unfortunate horse (nay scarcely the half dozen unfortunate horses which might be found, were there three private companies in competition with Government) cannot do the work. We repeat that Government has already been engaged in counting the carts. This preliminary operation has we believe been happily accomplished, and the result will shortly be published. In anticipation of such publication we will not commit ourselves to figures which could be but loosely given, but we believe it may be confidently asserted, that one conclusion has been established by this traffic census, as firmly as any conclusion can be settled by any a priori argument, viz. that the rate at which the Railway can be made is so moderate, and the existing traffic is so great, that there is not the least doubt without making allowance for any great increase of the existing habits of locomotion, supposing that the line were to be isolated and not connected by Rail, as it certainly must be ere long with Calcutta on the one side and Kurrachee on the other; that even under such unfavorable circumstances the undertaking would be highly remunerative. The sole question remains, where is the money to come from? There is capital enough in Umritsur to make the line six times over; but spirited men as the Umritsur merchants are in their way, they have not yet attained that confidence in the resources of science which shall enable them to subscribe their tangible Rupees to an object unseen, unknown, unheard of. When the Railway is made they will travel on it in flocks; they will use it more habitually than the English do; they will invest their money in it, though at a sacrifice, when once they see the money collector selling tickets behind the counter but at present they applaud the scheme faintly; praise the unceasing energy and skill of the paternal government, but evince a most unmistakeable intention to leave the paternal government to make the Railway. The natives have no faith in Railways which they have not seen; and English Capitalists have little right to laugh at them, for these latter have no faith in India for precisely the same reason. The aristocracy of the stock exchange have but a limited vision after all; they dislike quite as much as the Umritsur Brokers to let their money go out of

sight; were it not so, they would not lose so favorable an opportunity of making a golden investment. A moderate man, not used to visions of cupidity, cannot but feel exalted as he pictures himself a Shareholder, some years hence, in the Lahore and Umritsur, a cheaply-made well-paying easy line, making its own terms with the two main lines to both of which it is absolutely essential. Failing however both English and Indian Capitalists, and neither the example of the Crystal Palace Company nor the permission of limited liability having yet taught us the lesson of associating ourselves without the aid of the Capitalist's crutch, and making many short purses do the work of our long one; enthusiastic advocates of this tempting scheme are driven to the last refuge of the destitute;—the Government must do it all. The old arguments are repeated: the old invectives are not wanting. Men who have spent their lives in getting as much as they can out of India, and giving back as little, are heard preaching with ludicrous gravity the doctrines of philanthropy. The duty we owe to our native subjects is extolled with unresting ardor. Others will put Manchester to shame and out Yankee Yankeeism by the energy of their go-ahead policy. How blind the Government is to its own interest! How reluctant to make a little present sacrifice for so certain and so noble a profit! If Government has not got the money let it borrow it is always ready enough to borrow for unprofitable wars, why this prudence when the profitable works of peace call for liberality; when the conquered ryots-and the argument again passes off into a stream of philanthropic rhetoric. Meanwhile the Government keeps its pockets buttoned up, and for this cautious attitude we cannot blame it. Certainly it is not by flowers of philanthropic rhetoric that one of the most difficult conceivable financial blems is to be solved. The Lahore and Umritsur Railway, the development of the mineral resources of India, the extension of Canals; in a word the whole question of Public Works versus expenditure, turns on this one point; to what length is a Government justified in going in a course of borrowing money for useful works? We are glad to see that the press of India is addressing itself with freedom and spirit to this most important subject : but we confess that it seems to us that this is precisely one of those questions on which we might well avail ourselves of our nearer relations with England, to obtain the benefit of English experience and statesmanship on a great State question. If the point were reduced, as it easily might be, to some sharp definite practical issue such as alone Parliament can deal with; could Lord Albemarle leave alone the salaries of Civil officers, or could Mr. Bright be induced to celebrate his return to health and the House

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of Commons (a return which all lovers of the House of Commons rejoice in,) by the adoption of a nobler and more useful relation to Indian Politics; and instead of declaiming on details of which neither he nor his hearers can possibly comprehend the real merits, were to invite the House of Commons to examine thoroughly a great general principle of Government; we should listen in this country with respectful attention, and should begin to think that we were at last reaping some practical benefit from the India Bill of 1853. A studied speech from Mr. Gladstone on such a subject would be invaluable: a man who, whatever may be his faults, as a politician, does undoubtedly hold the very first place among modern English statesmen as a Financier.

If the Lahore and Umritsur Railway has to wait till the Public Works question is scientifically settled, it will, we fear, wait a long time; but the Public Works question will probably not be settled but only nibbled at; each particular case will be separately dealt with, and few perhaps will have a stronger claim than that under consideration. At any rate the making of the Umritsur and Lahore Railway is the first great improvement of which the existing Overland route is capable.

The second improvement which we may hope to see even in our day is the Lahore and Mooltan; and there is no link so essential as this to the perfecting of the Overland route to Western India. They may send steamers to Kurrachee, they may improve the navigation of the Indus, they may make Railways to Hyderabad and from Hyderabad to Mooltan; but Mooltan itself is at present a Cul de Sac. We speak of passengers. The mails are carried on horses, parcels are conveyed by Bullock Train in five days; but for passengers it is the Mail Cart or nothing. The Mooltan road has been briefly described in a recent number of the Review, and we do not intend to travel over the same ground now. Indeed it is ground which no sane man travels either in body or spirit when he can keep off it. But it bears on our present subject to notice the two hundred miles between Lahore and Mooltan as a lamentable hiatus in the great chain of communication. It was truly remarked lately by the Lahore Chronicle on the occasion of the death of the unfortunate Lieut. Campbell in the wilds of the Punjab, that the magnificent works between Jhelum and Peshawur cannot be accepted as a set off against the utter absence of all facilities of travel in the Mooltan and Leia Divisions. We do not take poor Mr. Campbell's unhappy case for more than it is worth. He may have been ill-he may have been of a weakly constitution; there may have been many circumstances which neither we nor the public know of; but this fact must remain after all abatement, that travelling on the public service, not on any emergency in which as in action an officer may fairly be called on to risk his life,

but in the ordinary course of duty, he died for lack of civilization. Men do not die on the Mooltan road: indeed there are Dâk Bungalows every forty miles: but there are no bearers, and as between Umritsur and Lahore, one horse and cart a day, though it travel at the rate of ten miles an hour including stoppages, is not sufficient to accommodate the English passenger traffic of the North West. We believe the practical question just now is, whether to have metal technical or metal literal; kunkur or iron ; a good road or a Railway. It is acknowledged on all hands that no half measure will make that wilderness of sand even tolerable; but the expense of metalling the road would be enormous, for kunkur is not to be had, though zealous search has been made for it at both ends of the line. An immense expense being then essential in order to make this important road tolerable, it is argued with great plausibility that it is better to incur an expense greater indeed than is absolutely necessary, but final: better to spend fifteen thousand pounds a mile for a railway which shall be a possession for ever, than ten thousand for a road which however excellent must one day be superseded. This question is before the Judge-and pending its decision, sand is rampant, and the natural route from Northern India to England is grievously marred. Some people indeed cut the knot by floating down the Sutlej in a boat. We have nothing to object to this mode of locomotion :-it is philosophical: the man who makes two such voyages has more leisure than occurs to most of us in this railway age, in a lifetime. But furloughs are short in these days: and the man who has to leave Lahore in January and return to it in June, having visited his friends in the Highlands of Scotland in the interval, cannot spare time for such dignified locomotion. Moreover a route must work both ways. It is all very well to go down the Sutlej, but it is a dreary business to be "tracked" up it.

Arrived at Mooltan we have no choice but to float to the Indus. The majority go by the monthly steamer down the river and through the tidal channels to Kurrachee. The objections to this mode of travelling are, first, the great uncertainty of the Steamer, which reaches Mooltan at such time as the Captain considers the patience of the upward passengers has been sufficiently tried, and his own profits sufficiently multiplied by the operation of friendly sand banks; so that the uncovenanted officer availing himself of his newly granted privilege of a six months' leave from station to station, may find three or four weeks of his very brief furlough consumed in looking out of the windows of the Mooltan Dak Bungalow, leaving him five months to go to Kurrachee, thence to Bombay, thence to Europe, and back again to Dera Ghazee Khan. Secondly, the vexatious regulation concern. ing table allowance above referred to, which gives the Captains of SEPTEMBER, 1856.

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