in
any quantity being brought down to us
from these plantations, and o
a
fine barter
trade springing up, save the obstruction alluded to __ The navigation
already
is
the
perfectly practicable at all seasons
of the year,
this side of Breaker Point;
every approach to the Colony,
north and south, has of late been most successfully cleared of the pirates which so long infested it, and we have here, all the
barter stuffs which the trade requires but
the one
great obstruction exists and is
an evil with which
I can deal _ I look upon
a serious local evil in a
trading community,
that one or two Houses
should have got such a start of all the
others
and
left them nowhere in the race;
that they should have risen into a
position which enables them to command the whole trade and to pull the destinies of
a British Colony __ but while I point
out the injury in question it is not to complain
of it __ These Houses appear to me to make
a legitimate use of their
capital, in keeping the trade in the channels that suit them best, and without refering to the effect upon any interests outside their
own.
I look upon this as the local obstruction to the trading progress
of the Colony — It is one
which time alone can remedy,
and which I am glad
to say it promises to remedy
at no very distant day-
The
monopoly which the capital of these two houses enabled them
to maintain for so long a time, has been greatly broken into of late years _There
are a dozen houses now,
in the trade,
where there were but one a
dozen years ago,
and the Consignments
from India
are very beneficially distributed —
Up to five years ago
the whole Communication
with British India, was in
the hands of
the two leading Firms, but the first application of Steam to the China seas