Excerpt from Central Asian Proceedings: Our Commercial Policy in the East In the summary of my paper I have referred to India as a future manufacturing base, and this matter might well form the subject for further discussion should the Council think fit but the outlook in this direction is most hopeful. In the blue-book upon the moral and material progress and condition of India published this year, the chapter which deals with mineral resources makes one realize possibilities in the further discovery of iron ore, of petroleum, coal, and last, not least, of gold. Already the independence of India in regard to military stores and material of all kinds is advancing so rapidly as fairly to astonish one. In a few years her arsenals will acquire an importance that will render her virtually independent of the British Isles, during the early stages of war at least, and Japan excepted, she will, in this respect, be without a rival in the East. The East Indian Railway Company have set up a steel plant and the manufacture of steel for projectiles and gun carriages has successfully been carried on in the Govern ment factory at Cossipore since 1891. Considering India as a whole, there are undoubted possibilities of a consider able growth in the iron and steel industries, but large capital is essential for success, as any enterprise must be on a large scale. It requires but little imagination to 'picture the con struction of ships in Indian dockyards from material obtained in India, and to think of her naval arsenals being(4) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.