The Britivh Commission are going to fortify Herat with the permission of the Ameer of Afghanistan WITUDRAWAL FROM THE SOUDAN, The withdrawal of the British ex. peditionary force to the Soudan will take place at the end of May, a century the merchants of Singapore have founded & marine insurances eompany, which has, ao fur, proved success. fal, and, ononneaged thereby, they nee now establishing " Bre Insurance Offi after which it is, we have heard, quite likely that a local bank will be di. There is no ranson why a bank for the Straits should not prove very successful in Singnpore, and with the inerengo which is going on in the com. mrorce of the native Stntes us well us in its own trade, the thoughts of merchants will be turned towards providing. the menns of retaining among themselves the profile of banking, just as at length they have succeeded in keeping much of the profits of insurance ness of important ple crouser, and ug orientals become withandapprecinte foreign ways of bank. ing and other commercial enterprises, it may be expected that local financial establishments will displace the agencies of exotic institutions, In 1883 the value of the import trade of the colony amounted to nearly eighty millions of dollars, and the exports tu sixty-eight millions; and the population of the island wasahundredand forty-five thousand people in the sume year, The success which has almost invariably nttended companies for france and insure ance formed in Chinn, has been long in atinulating the Singapore merchants to emulation, probably because until
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