TRADES and Tradesmen. Amongst the races in the East Indies many are keen traders, engaging in extensive transactions with distant countries. The Bhattiah, Natha-Kothi, Marwari, and Banya Hindus, the Parsees, the Povinda, Bora, Moplah, and Labbai Muhammadans, the Bugis of the Archi pelago, are not surpassed in enterprise by the mercantile men of any race. The trade of the Arabian Sea, Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the east coast of Africa, and of the Eastern Archi pelago has been in the hands of the races of Southern and Eastern Asia from the times that the Buddhist religion prevailed, and the Marwari race, who are of the Jain sect, still pursue it ; and it is a proof of the tenacity with which races follow mere,antile pursuits, to find the Marwari from. the desert of India E4nrPaill Arntiahmit thp country as its great financiers, with transactions in all parts of Asia.
The Bhattiali Hindu raco' occupy all the great conunercial centres from the north of Rajpiitana to the western coast of India, and to the shores of Arabia and of Africa, as far south as Mozambique, residing there for years together, or as temporary visitors during the trading season. They belong to a Vaishuava sect who follow the teaching of Vallabliacharya. Amongst them are to be found the keenest of traders, and yet the most sen sual of voluptuaries ; intellects remarkable even among Hindus for acuteness and subtlety ; some times an obtuseness of moral consciousness which would startle a. galley-alave, but in rare exceptions a simple devotion to truth which would do honour to a Christian martyr. Hindu merchants, trades men, and artisans of India are mostly all associated in classes, sects, castes, or guilds, who do not inter marry, and seldom eat with others. The blacksmith, goldbmith, coppersmith, carpenter, and stone-cutter are the five artisan castes, komsala or kansala, in contradistinction to the five learned castes. The artisan castes all wear the poitu or sacrificial cord ; they do not revere Brahmans, and they carry their dead to the grave and inter them in a sitting posture ; the leather-workers' dead are deemed unclean.
Such social customs of the Hindu traders, how ever, axe peculiarities of their respective guilds, and in no way affect their business habits or occupation in their intercourse with the, to them, outer world. For over two thousand years the people who have been dwelling on the coasts of the Arabian Sea, sometimes at one town, some times at another, have been actively engaged in coramerce with the nations of Western Asia and Europe, and when disturbed by conquering races at one place, they have found shelter at another. The British have only been in India since the 17th century, but in that time three great cities, which had absolutely no previous nucleus, have grown up around their fortressea.
In 1881 Bombay had a population of 773,196 ; Madras, 405,848 ; and Calcutta and its suburbs, 684,658. Kurachee, in the year 1840 a small fishing-place, has now 73,560 inhabitants ; and in the thirty years from 1852, Raugoon has grown from 25,000 to its present (1881) population of 134,176. India, with a population in British teriitory and in Native States of 253,891,821 souls, has 3,057,522 mercantile men, general dealers, carriers by land and sea, or engaged in storage ; and in Bombay, Calcutta, and Rangoon will be found the representatives of every civilised race on the surface of the globe, all earnestly engaged in trade. That they are largely immi grants is shown by the fact that British Burma, in a population of 3,736,771, has 245,239 more men than women.
The closing years of the 15th century saw Portu guese ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and a century later companies began to be formed by European nations for trade with the East.
Tho Portuguese trade was a royal monopoly. An English E. I. Company was formed in 1600, and a Dutch Company in 1602. There have been six French companies,-1604, 1611,1615 ; Riche lieu's in 1642, Colbert's in 1641, and Company of the Indies in 1719. A Denial' E. I. Company was formed in 1612, and another in 1670 ; a Scottish Company in 1695, Spain's Philippine Company in 1733, Austria's Oatend Company from 1723 to 1784, and a Swedish Company, 13th June 1731. But it is since 1833, when steamboats began to run in Indian sena, and sbace Count de Lessepfi coinpleted the Suez Canal in 1868, that its com merce lute received its chief development, and ita foreign trade in the past forty-three years has grown as under : China, tho other great eaatern country with which European and American nations have been trading, has only in recent years been communi cating information as to its external trade ; and it may be of use to mention here, for future observa tion, that in the eleven years 1872 to 1882, the values of its imports have been ranging as under, in Ifaikwan taels, viz. : 1872, 70,222,000 I 1876, 72,391,000 1881, 03,884,000 1874, 67,211,000 I 1879, 81,796,000 I 1882, 79,715,000 Coal, in 1882, . . 253,099 tons. 1,220,000 II.T.
Cotton, raw, . 178,478 pikuls. 1,917,000 Cotton manufactures, . 22,707,000 G ins en g, . . . 4,731 763,000 Metals, . . . 4,700,000 Opium, . . . 65,709 26,746,000 3Ialwa, . . . 20,335 13,090,000 Patna, . . 15,379 5,958,000 Benaree, . . 15,017 5,499,000 Others, . . . 5,977 2,300,000 Sea-weed or agar-agar, 400,106 1,344,000 Wool manufactures, . 4,496,000