334

INDIA

Supposing, on the other hand, that iron factories were
established in the different provinces of India, their immediate
 effect would probably be to lower the price of
English iron, since India is one of England's largest
customers, and thus the margin of profit would probably
be swept away”! This was written more than twenty
years ago, but no recent developments have occurred to
modify the opinion thus expressed, What the effect of
State influence might have been had Government started
the manufacture of iron on a large scale when railways
were first introduced it is impossible to say. The conflicting
 interests involved would have presented a formidable
array of difficulties.
What is true of iron is also true of most of the other
mineral industries of India. With the exception of saltpetre,
 which is easily manufactured in the Indian climate,
and has maintained its position as an article of export,
representing a value of half a million or more in the
export trade, the greatness of India’s national wealth in
mineral products is but a dream of the past. Before the
days of scientific training in the arts of mineral development,
 whilst men were yet gathering in what lay on the
surface ready to their hands, or, at most, but grubbing
a few yards underground with insufficient tools and no
knowledge of the natural causes which led to the effects
which interested them, India was doubtless far ahead of
her world’s geographical contemporaries in the amassing
of such barbaric wealth as was represented by lavish
display of ornament. Gold, silver, precious stones—these
were reckoned the staple of a country’s wealth and greatness
 long ere architectural art and the work of the loom
exercised men’s brains as well as their bodies ; and it is
consequently no matter of wonder that in a country
where climate and soil involved but little labour in the
production of food and clothing, we should find that from
the very earliest ages the surface of India has been riddled
with the superficial scratchings and delvings of gangs of
slaves, who were made to search for the precious metals
1 “Geology of India," part iii. p. 344.