The commercial value of India to Great Britain is, we think, vastly exaggerated. India, in proportion to her population, has always been, and is likely long to be, a very poor country. The trade of Great Britain with India--exports and imports--is not much greater than that with France, considerably less than that with Germany, and far less than that with the United States; and we see no reason to suppose that it is perceptibly increased by the subjugation of India to the British crown. India sells to Great Britain what she can, and buys from her what she wants and can pay for, and would continue to do so in any case. Still, we do not imagine that the British government or people will ever be brought to take our view of the value of India to them. It will be held to the last extremity of the national power, and will only be abandoned under stress of the direst necessity. And for her secure possession of India it is absolutely essential, for reasons which have been stated, that whoever else may have Constantinople in the future, Russia shall not have it. England's interest in the question is a purely selfish one. She is content to have the Turks there because for the time being they keep the Russians out. Whatever worth may formerly have been in the sentimental averment that it is the duty of the European family of nations to see to it that no weak member of it is gravely wronged by a stronger one is past and gone. It is from no love for the Turks that Great Britain desires that the Sultan should continue to hold at least nominal sovereignty over Turkey in Europe, and the actual custody of the keys of the Black Sea. An able English writer says:[H] The position of the Turk at Constantinople is no choice of ours, nor any creation of our policy. We do not maintain him for any love of himself, nor because we rely on his strength to guard the post--though that is absurdly underrated. His corruption and weakness are at least as great an embarrassment to us as an injury to the nations of his empire. But the whole Eastern question hangs upon the fact that he is there, and has been there with a long prescriptive right which he is not likely to yield, or to have wrested from his grasp till after a frantic struggle of despair. Nor is any practical mode apparent by which he will be soon displaced, save that, after a convulsion which would involve all Europe, the Czar should be enthroned upon the Bosporus. To prevent that catastrophe, and to avert the horrors that must precede it, is our real Eastern policy. [Footnote H: "Quarterly Review;" October, 1876.]