[[517]] On the navigation from Europe to India, a project has been entertained, the success of which will greatly facilitate the intercourse between Britain and her remote dependencies. I refer to the steam vessel just now (March 1825) on its departure, and which is expected to reach Calcutta in two months from the time of her quitting the shores of England.

Another project very lately proposed to the public, should it succeed as there is good reason to desire and expect, would tend in an incalculable degree to promote an improved and industrious cultivation of the soil of British India, by justly remunerating the free labourer, and securing the fair returns of honourable commerce. I refer to the Bengal Sugar Company, which proposes "to establish in the most suitable provinces, under the superintendence of persons acquainted with the [[518]] process adopted in the West Indies, factories, furnished with the most approved apparatus made use of there; and without interfering with the cultivation of the land, to encourage the growth of sugar by moderate cash advances to the natives, in anticipation of their crops."

The same result may be fairly expected from the operations of the Free Sugar Company, which is designed to encourage "the cultivators of sugar by free labour, in all parts of the world which are adapted to the growth of that article; to those in the West Indies and America, no less than to those in the East Indies and Africa, who shall exclusively employ free labour in its production."