and the markets of the Western world, permitting the dealers and consumers of the latter to adjust to a nicety their supplies of commodities to varying demands, and with the reduction of the time of the voyage to thirty days or less, there was no longer any necessity of laying up great stores of Eastern commodities in Europe; and with the termination of this necessity, the India warehouse and distribution system of England, with all the labor and all the capital and banking incident to it, substantially passed away. Europe, and to some extent the United States, ceased to go to England for such supplies. If Austria wanted anything of Indian product, it stopped en route, by the Suez Canal, at Trieste; if Italy, at Venice or Genoa; if France, at Marseilles; if Spain, at Cadiz. As a rule, also, stocks of Indian produce are now kept, not only in the countries, but at the very localities of their production, and are there drawn upon as they are wanted for immediate consumption, with a greatly reduced employment of the former numerous and expensive intermediate agencies.[1] Thus, a Calcutta merchant or commission agent at any of the world's great centers of commerce contracts through a clerk and the telegraph with a manufacturer in any country—it may be half round the globe removed—to sell him jute, cotton, hides, spices, cutch, linseed, or other like India produce.[2] An inevitable steamer is sure to be in an Eastern port, ready to sail upon short notice; the merchandise wanted is bought by tele-
- ↑ In illustration of this curious point, attention is asked to the following extract from a review of the trade of British India, for the year 1886, from the "Times," of India, published at Bombay: "What the mercantile community"—i.e., of Bombay—"has suffered and is suffering from, is the very narrow margin which now exists between the producer and consumer. Twenty years ago the large importing houses held stocks, but nowadays nearly everything is sold to arrive, or bought in execution of native orders, and the bazaar dealers, instead of European importers, have become the holders of stocks. The cable and canal have to answer for the transformation; while the ease with which funds can be secured at home by individuals absolutely destitute of all knowledge of the trade, and minus the capital to work it, has resulted in the diminution of profits both to importers and to bazaar dealers."
- ↑ Familiar as are the public generally with the operations of the telegraph and the changes in trade and commerce consequent upon its submarine extension, the following incident of personal experience may present certain features with which they are not acquainted: In the winter of 1884 the writer journeyed from New York to Washington with an eminent Boston merchant engaged in the Calcutta trade. Calling upon the merchant the same evening, after arrival in Washington, he said: "Here is something, Mr. , that may interest you. Just before leaving State Street, in Boston, yesterday forenoon, I telegraphed to my agent in Calcutta, 'If you can buy hides and gunny-bags at—price, and find a vessel ready to charter, buy and ship.' When I arrived here (Washington), this afternoon (4 p. m.), I found awaiting me this telegram from my partner in Boston, covering another from Calcutta, received in answer to my dispatch of the previous day, which read as follows: ‘Hides and gunny-bags purchased, vessel chartered, and loading begun’"Here, then, as an every-day occurrence, was the record of a transaction on the other side of the globe, the correspondence in relation to which traveled a distance equivalent to the entire circumference of the globe, all completed in a space of little more than twenty-four hours!
