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94
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COAL.
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As Bengal has her own coal she imports less than| Bombay,* the returns being :—
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That
a certain amount of foreign coal will always be in the Indian market is
certain, since owners of outward-bound ships find it convenient to make
use of it as ballast, and carried in this way it is sometime sold at
very low prices; thus, on one occasion English coal was quoted in the
Calcutta market at sixteen shillings a ton, and it seldom, I believe,
rises to muc above £2 a ton. The trade in Indian coal between
Calcutta and Bombay by sea is not yet fully developed and it is
uncertain whether it will ever assume such dimensions as seriously to
affect the imports of foreign coal into Bombay.
In
conclusion, it may be said that the annual consumption of coal in
India, for sea-going and river steamers, railways, factories, domestic
and other purposes, amounts now to upwards of one million-and-a-half
tons, and that, in round figures, two-thirds of this amount is raised
in the country and the other imported.
* I have (pp. 70, 86 supra) pointed
out that there is a varying point on the railway where Bengal coal
meets coal imported into Bombay at equal prices, their relative value
as fuel being taken into consideration.
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