SIKHIM AND BHUTAN
I finally persuaded them to allow a beginning to be made, and certain business firms were given permission to send prospectors into the country to take up mining concessions. Had my repeated representations on the subject been listened to in the earlier days, I have no doubt the mineral wealth of the country would by this time have been considerable, and that by their action Government has probably retarded the progress of the country by many years.
Iron, tin, zinc, aluminium, cobalt, arsenic, graphite, lead, gold, and silver, all have been found, while copper is known to exist in large quantities and has been worked by the natives for years past in a primitive fashion. It has been found in places in extremely rich deposits, but these, unfortunately, have proved scattered and small in extent, though there is no doubt that there is an enormous amount, and that if some method can be devised of concentrating and collecting the ore from the outlying seams without undue expense, a very large revenue should be derived from the royalties alone, and now that European capital has been allowed to undertake the task, I see no reason why it should not prove a success and be a means of placing the State on a more easy financial basis, though wealthy it never will and never can be.
Amongst the advantages of this new departure will be an increase of European residents in the country, with a consequent greater circulation of money, a new field for employment of labour, a greater demand for local supplies, with the probability of increased facilities of transport bringing new markets within reach for the produce, and greater still, though I fear not yet to be realised, the utilisation of the latent water-power with all its unforeseen possibilities.
After the signing of the Sikhim Treaty in 1890, the negotiations in respect of trade regulations continued to be carried on for some years, and it was 1894 before I went to Yatung to formally open the Trade Mart there. I crossed the Jey-lap-la in April in deep snow, and was met a little
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