'The following very interesting' extract is from the Vienna correspondence of the Economist If among Austrian business men there is one more looked up to, more sure of success in the belief of everybody than any other, it is Karl Wittgenstein, the Director General of the Prague Iron Industry Con pany, the Bohemian Mining Society, and other concerns, All these important undertaking rely so completely upon his management that Wittgenstein was anxious to try what would become of them if he ceased to care for every detail. He has therefore, undertaken a long voyage, which will keep him six months from Vienna. He has written down some of his observations on foreign parts for the Newe Freie Presse, and his last letter, written on board the Bengal between Singapore and Hongkong, is such a good account of the work of Englishmen in the colonies that 1 think it will interest your readers hear what this thorough man of business and successful manager has to say on their compatriots in the Far East. Karl Wittgenstein says:—" If the English have managed things well at home, they have surpassed themselves in their colonies. I spent some time in Ceylon, and have just loft Penang and Singapore, and what I write of Ceylon is the impression I received in all the English colonies wherever I went. 'A magnificent harbour in Colombo, docks with steam cranes, fine public and private buildings, model barracks, excellent roads, hotels, railways, corrected rivers, systems for watering broad districts all over the country, telegraphs, telephones, posts, schools, hospitals, aqueducts—in a word, everything that modern culture offers of material well-being, everything that is necessary to make a country fertile, and place it in a position to yield its riches and promote its commerce. Ceylon exports eighty million florins worth of tea, coffee, spice, rice, and graphite, and imports Wuropean products, chiefly materials, for a similar amount. "To bring about this result, and to keep up a model administration in all its branches, only 7,000 Englishmen, with 3,000,000 brown, half-naked Sing: alose, are necessary, and the Singalese ate not slaves, but free—the law is the same for Englishmen and natives. Of course such a feat can only be accomplished by a handful of strong, intelligent men, educated in the respect of order, all their energies and faculties are exclusively directed upon gain, and this with the English is the case to a degree that an Austrian will always fail to understand. When we see what the English have done~ in their colonies we cannot wonder that they are self-satisfied, for they have done a hundred times more in the way of spreading culture to far continents, and providing Europe with their treasures, than all the other nations put together. And to do them justice, it must be said that
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.