Europe.—Owing to the removal of the E. India Cotnpany's monopoly, and subsequently of customs and navigation laws, and still later the opening of the Suez Canal, the current of trade shows a diepo sition gradually to return to the channels chiefly used before the discovery of the passage round the Cape. The cities on the Mediterranean aro again receiving and profiting by that share of the Eastern trade which ennched them, until it passed first into the hands of the Portuguese, and thence into those of the Dutch and English.. London still retains its supremacy as the centre of at letust i0 per cent. of the trade of the Indian Empire ; tut Trieste, Venice, Genoa, and Marseilles play in increasingly important part in the commercial 'ACC.
The itnports of merchandise via the Suez Canal 'rom Europe, Egypt, and the Levantine coast of Asiatic Turkey, increase year by year. The route is not so largely used for exports of Indian produce, the reason being that largo quantities of these, such as opium and rice, find their way to Ohina and the Straits, Mauritius, Ceylon, Arabia, and other countries.
China trade with India is practically confined to the opium traffic, though, within the last few years, that country has become an important con sumer of Iudian-mado twist, which no doubt displaces to some extent in the Chinese markets the spinnings of Manchester. Tito time will come when the Chinese will spin for themselves, and then India will have to be content with her own local markets for her goods. In all respects but 013C the Chinese are better adapted than the people of India for the profitable manufacture of cotton ; they are capable of longer and more sustained exertion, they are more ingenious and ekilful as operatives, and their counnercial classes aro at least as acute and bold in speculation AS those of India. But China is compelled to import cotton, and India will have a good market in China and Japan for a portion of the out-turn of her mills. The imports from China, even with the addition of treasure, amount to hardly a fifth of the exports thither, the truth being that the opium is paid for by China through Great Britain. The chief articles imported into India from China aro copper (supposed, however, to be Japanese, imported via China), raw silk and silk piece-goods, and sugar and tea in small quantities. The itn ports of raw silk reach the comparatively high figure of 41a lakhs (£415,000). The sugar brought from China is landed in Bombay, where it sup plements or competes with Mauritius sugar. The tea imported from China is of inferior quality.
Straits Settlements trade must be regarded in connection with the trade with China. The goods imported are of little consequence, tin excepted.
Ceylon trade with India is identical in character with the coasting trade carried on from port to port. Crowds of Tamil labourers flock to Ceylon
every year from the Madras Presidency, to work on the coffee plantations, and over two-thirds of the exports consist of grains for their sustenance. The imports front Ceylon are hardly a sixth of the xports in value.
Between India and France the articles chiefly consist of apparel and millinery, brandy and wines, and silk goods ; while the exports comprise cotton, coffee, indigo, oil-seeds, especially rape and gingelly, raw silk, and raw jute.
After France, the United States do the most trade with India. Imports are small, and practically were confined to ico and kerosene oil ; but ice is now manufactured and sold in India at half the rate hitherto charged by the Tudor Ice Company. In kerosene the value rose from 3,18,898 rupees in 1876-77 to 16,37,966 rupees, and 21,07,907 rupees in the two following years. The imports of grey cotton goods from America aro increasing. Indian exports to the United States consist mainly of indigo, hides, skins, raw. jute, gunny bags and cloth, lac, saltpetre, and linseed.
Mauritius sends sugar very largely to India. The most important export to Mauritius is rice, which with other food-grains amounted to nearly a kror of rupees in value.
Italy's trade includes corals, glass beads, false pearls, spirits and wines, and silk goods. The exports to Italy consist mainly of raw cotton, hides, oil-seeds, sesame, and raw silk. The total value of the import and export trade with Italy in 1878-79 was about two kror of rupees.
India is rich in raw products, mineral, vege table, and animal. It supplied all its own people's wants until the maritime intercourse with foreign nations, and particularly since the construction of lines of railway allowed the delivery of many articles in the Indian ports, and even in its remoter provinces, at lower rates than the native products could be obtained. Its marketable mineral substances useful in the arts, are,—aluns, agates, amber, antimony, arsenic, asbestos, barytes, beryl, bismuth, bloodstone, borax, cornclian, chrome ore, coal, cobalt, copper, corundum, diamond, emerald, fluor spar, garnet, gold, graphite, gy psum, iron ores, jade, jasper, kao-lin, kyanite, lapis-lazuli, lead, lithographic stone, magnesite, manganese, marbles, meer schaum, mercury, mica, mineral oils, petroleum, platinum, potstone, rock-crystal, rubies, salt, salt- 1 petre, sapphire, turpentine, silver, sodium com pounds, spinel, sulphur, talc, tin, topaz, turquoise, zinc. The chief of the vegetable exports are,— coffee, cotton, indigo, grain, and pulse, jute, oils, opium, seeds, sugar, tea, and woods ; and of animal produce are,—living animals, feathers, hides and skins, horns, ivory, lac, musk, oils, saltpetre, silk, wax, wool.