INDIAN WHEAT.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 253, 8 May 1883, Page 4

INDIAN WHEAT.

■ — *. — -v ; , . , .. „ A brochure of considerable dimen* iU sions has just reached ua, say's tKe' 1 ' 'Globe, 1 from Calcutta, in which ( l;he n question ia discussed . of" supplying.*'' Great Britain with Indian wheat', and / * raaize; The writer does not vouch- ; safe his name, but describes nimself as • } ■ a "staunch Liberal," and therefore fully ; convinced that everything is .for the ; best "under our present progressive and Liberal "Viceroy ;" ; and it must be admitted that the text of his essay; goes some way to support the optimist view thus courageously put forward;' ' The starting-point of his argument js f:[ that the corn-producing land of India is fully adequate to supply the whole of the home demand. Putting this into actual figures, the produce of the peninsula would amount to , 26£ million quarters of wheat, whereas ' the requirements of the United Kingdom - are set down at 11 million quarters of imported wheat. This would leave a balance of over 15 millions for the consumption in India, which the writer ' assures as needs only a very insignificant supply, as the natives subsist chiefly upon lighter and cheaper sorts , of food. But there are also vast'; tracts of country both in the Puiijaub ; and in Central India which could quickly and profitably be cultivated for wheat. Then, if all this is the case, why does not India now send \is ! the whole of her surplus wheat % The cost of the grain at the place where it is grown is shown in the pamphlet to be much smaller in India than in the eastern States of America ; and in, fact the difference is so great that it would outweigh the extra cost of oariage by sea which handicaps the In* ' dian producer. But the real cause which hinders the latter from monopol ising the English market and excluding tho Yankee is the want of communications in the peninsula itself. It would; the writer maintains, well pay the Government and private speculators to open frdsh routesthroughout India, and thus at lengthbring the fertile lands of the dependency into reasonable proximity to our shores. But whether -all these • brilliant prospects are justified by the facts; is aquestion which, can probably, 1*; not proved except by the practical tesfc > of experience. /