(London & China Express.)
A deputation, representing merchants and others interested in the province of Assam, waited upon Viscount Cranbrook, Secretary of State for India, on the 31st July, in order to urge upon him the importance of improving the means of contmunication between Calcutta and Assam, in order: remove the difficulty of obtaining cheap Labour from Bengal to the Assam tea plantations, and also of continuing the topographical survey of the hills bounding Assam and the Mishmi country, with the view of determining whether a trade route between Assam and the Western provinces of China might not be ultimately established. Mr. Forster, M.P., introduced the deputation, and Sir Rutherford Alcock and other gentlemen explained its objects. Sir Rutherford represented that in no province which had been so long in our possession had little been done to improve the means of communication. It was also urged that, if an ample supply of labour could be procured, enormous tracts of fertile country, with a lange and almost tin varying yearly rainfall, might be made available for supplying rice and other cereals to other dis-trices of India more liable to drought and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.