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194 teeming with produce they cannot dispose of. Others are scantily bearing what they would carry in abundance, if only it could be conveyed whither it is needed. England is calling aloud for the cotton which India does already produce in some degree, and would produce sufficient in quality, and plentiful in quantity, if only there were provided the fitting means of conveyance for it, from distant plains, to the several ports adopted for its shipment. Every increase of facilities for trade has been attended, as we have seen, with an increased demand for articles of European produce in the most distant markets of India; and we have yet to learn the extent and value of the interchange which may be established with people beyond our present frontier, and which is yearly and rapidly increasing. Ships from every part of the world crowd our ports in search of produce which we have, or could obtain in the interior, but which at present we cannot profitably fetch to them; and new markets are opening to us on this side of the globe under circumstances which defy the foresight of the wisest to estimate their probable value, or calculate their future extent.'

Lord Dalhousie provided free play for the mercantile possibilities of the railways by removing the previous checks and hindrances on Indian trade. Sir Edwin Arnold sums up these measures in a pithy marginal note — 'All ports in India