COLONEL COTTON ON PUBLIC WORKS IN INDIA.* IN point of
literary character, there is much minuteness and some unnecessary repetition in this volume. The views of the author as regards his propositions or suggestions occasionally partake of the nature of sanguine speculation. The book, however, is a remarkable production ; valuable for the facts it collects, and the suggestions it offers for improving the material prosperity of the natives, and for securing or even increasing the much-loved " laud-tax " of Directors. It is also curious for the glimpses it gives of the neglectful rule of the Company ; perhaps more valu- able than all for the true opinions it advances on the philosophy of intercommunication, and the strong arguments it alleges against the immediate utility of railroads in India. The object of Colonel Cotton is to inculcate the profitable im- portance of public works for intercommunication and irrigation throughout India. Nearly two hundred years have elapsed since the Company became possessors of Bombay ; a century since the victory of Plassy gave them Bengal, and a territorial sovereignty, which they had de facto acquired at Madras some time before. Nearly two generations have passed since the Com- pany were real sovereigns. During the whole period of their rule, whether as traders, or Great Moguls, they have literally done no- thing to encourage the industry or to open up the resources of the country. What has been done has been accomplished by the energy of particular officers, or the tolerance or fancy of particular Governors, without the encouragement if not against the will of the Company. Yet where either roads have been made, or navi- gation has been improved, or works of irrigation have been con- structed, however unsystematically, the direct return in the way of revenue has repaid the cost in a few years, besides the indirect benefits to cultivation, trade, and prices. Tanjore, though the expenditure has been small and chiefly confined to works of irriga- tion, communications either by land or water having been ne- glected, has produced 'very remarkable results. "The district of Tanjore is taken care of, irrigated, protetted from floods, drained, and provided with common roads, (though not with better commu- Mcations,)` and the revenue steadily rises, till from SO it becomes 50 lacs a "Year ; the population increases from 7 or 8 hies to 15 lees ; and the land reaches a saleable value of at least four millions sterling, equal to 24 mil- lions in England. In the district of Guntoor all such works are utterly 'neglected ; ahd in one year a famine occurs which sweeps away 250,000 peo- ple out of 500,000, and causes a loss of revenue in the next ten or twelve years Of 80 lacs,-while not an acre of land is saleable. The sole cause which has made this difference between these two districts is the different degrees of attention given to public works. I challenge the most brilliant collector (let himbelong. to any class of revenue men you please, ryotwar, village settlement, semusdaree, or anything else) to show how he could have saved this unhappy district from these inconceivable horrors, and the treasury from this enormous loss; and on the other band, send the most indifferent man to Tanjore, and see if be could have prevented its progress, if only the public works bad been attended to. A difference he- might have made cer- tainly; but he would have found it hard to reduce the population to 300,000 and the revenue to 15 lace, and to have kept the land unsaleable. "And-whet would have been the progress of Tanjore, if, instead of the lniseMble petty expenditure that has been allowed it, (about 80,000 rupees a year, or oneekttieth dale revenue,) a really liberal expenditure, equal, sup- pose, to oneetenth of the revenue, had been reserved for this purpose? Pro- bably the district is at this moment paying at least 30 lacs a year for the .actual cost of transit, and losing much more in the value of things that can- -not be moved from where they are produced, to where they would be sale- able; so that at the very lowest estimate, it is paying a suns equal to the -whole revehue, or 50 lees a year, for want of proper communications."
The subject of new roads—or rather of roads at all, for except a few pet places note have been made—of improved river naviga- tion, and navigable canals -as well as works of irrigation—is pur- 'sued at great length. Tit importance to the industry of the country is dwelt upon; the large return they will directly yield to the outlay, shoWn by reference to such facts as exist, and by ela- borate calculations; together with the prospect—Colonel Cotton thinks the eertainty—of superseding American cotton, if there were
• but a cheap -means of bringing it to market. That the views may sometimes be sanguine, Is possible; but that any works, whether well or ill planned, do more than return a fair percentage on their outlay, seems clear. When we call to mind the panegyrics that have been bestowed upon the paternal and philanthropic govern- ment of the Leadenhall Street Directors, some better proofs of at- tention to one of the first duties of a civilized state might have been expected than is shown in this sample of Madras road-making.
"A eketehof our first attempts at road-making in the Madras Presidency may be of great use as a guide, and a warning to us in our future proceed- ings. It was mouthed that all that was necessary to successfurnaking was, a given number of men with tools in their hands, headeChylin officer taken at random from the Line, and without any scientific qualifications whatever. Bodies of pioneers, thus equipped and commanded, were placed upon a line many hundreds of miles in length, and when it was found that but little impression could be made upon such a surface, the remedy was, to add thousands of coolies ; and thus, besides the cost of the pioneers, law of rupees were wasted in an attempt to do by mere labour what could only be effected successfully, by labour under the direction of science.
"The road from Masulipatam, on the coast 300 miles North of Madras, to Hyderabad, a distance of 220 miles, was one of those executed in this man- ner. When about eight lacs of rupees (80,0000 had been spent upon it, be- sides the pay of the pioneers, the Court of Directors put a stop to it; and as no metal of any kind was put on most of it, the road has never yet been practicable in the wet season ; and even in the dry season, the communication is very little better, if at all, than it was : only about 120 miles of the whole distance was 'meddled with: the money spent was therefore nearly 7000 ru- pees a mile, or twice as much as would make an excellent metalled road, and
• Public Works in India their Importance. With Suggestions for their Extension and Improvement. By Lieutenant-Colonel A. Cotton, Chief Engineer, Madras. Published by Allen and Co. quite as much as would have made a good horse railroad, (for there is not a single difficulty on the line,) which would have reduced the cost of transit to one-twelfth of what it was and still is. The road from Madras to Poona- malice, eleven miles, was a similar case ; and as in this ease the pioneer officer was able to communicate constantly with the authorities in person, he was not so restricted about expenditure as in the other case ; and accordiugly 4,50,000 rupees were spent on this line, or 60,000 rupees a mile. The Court of Directors now saw that it was necessary to apply a remedy ; and it was, to order that no more roads should be made. This was simple and effective."
It should be observed in fairness, however, that as the lease of the Company drew near its end, they turned their attention a little to good works. Road-making, indeed, the Directors do not seem to have thought about ; but they furnished the money to publish Colonel Dixon's account of the industrial and civilizing effects of works of irrigation in Mairwara, and sent Captain. Smith to examine the Italian system of irrigation, whose report they also published.
So far as the prosperity of the natives is in question, "public works in India" is the most immediately practical matter. The remarks on railroads in India strike us as having the largest in- terest, and possessing the most of the philosophy of locomotion. Colonel Cotton lays it down as a rule, that the necessity of speedy communications in a country depends upon the speed- paying power of the people, and that varies greatly according to their wealth and civilization. In England, there are numbers of persons whose time is so valuable that they will pay liberally to be carried swiftly ; and very many others, whose time may not be precious, but who are still able to pay. Hence the advantage of our system of railways, where passengers are the first consi- deration and goods only secondary ; though even in England (or in America and Canada, where the navigation is closed for many months in the year,) railways cannot supersede canals for many classes of heavy goods. In India, on- the contrary, the persons who want to travel qnickly, or at least who can pay for quick i travelling, are few n number ; and, few as they are, they can only be carried a small part of their journies by railway, for many years to come ; the great cost of a first-class line prevents a rapid progress with the road. By fixing the attention on these first- class railways, and neglecting common roads, canals, and the im- provement of navigable rivers, the result will be, that the mass of the people will be left just as they are in regard to their persons or commodities, while in favoured localities, a few will travel two or three hundred miles at a high rate of speed, and everywhere else at the foot-pace of the palanquin-bearers. "In thus aiming at a very high speed at once, we certainly delude our- selves completely, and lose the very thing we are aiming at. The advocates for high speed say, ' Let us have a thoroughly good speed at once' ; and then they proceed to attain their end by laying down in one corner of India a few miles of their grand railroad, along which you may travel year first stage at thirty miles an hour, and then continue along the remaining 1000 miles of your journey at three miles an hour, if the monsoon permits you to move at all. They have laid ten miles a year at Bombay ; so that ten years hence' if a gentleman wanted to go from thence to Calcutta, he might go the that 100 miles in three hours, and the remaining lee° in seventeen
• days, travelling night and 'day ; or hie average-speed would be 31 miles. The extent of the spaces for whioh we have to provide communications is totally lost sight of, and in consequence of this the whole system is without a foundation.
"No doubt, this is greatly owing to the system having been planned
chiefly by men full of English ideas. There, by the time amen has laid fifty miles-of railroad from a port, he has -arrived et what may be nailed the traffic-shed of the country, the point from which he finds the traffic snoring to the opposite coast of the island ; but from Calcutta- to ',shore is 1300 miles, and even from Bombay to the centre of the peninsula is 400 Miles. In England there are 5000 miles of -railway, or about dne to twelve square miles. Taking the area of India at a million and-a quarterof -square miles, it would require in the same proportion 120,000 miles; and allowing only one-sixth of this, there will beet least 20,000 miles of Mill communication required to open India ; and 4000 will be required merely to connect Lahore, Cal- cutta, Bombay, and Madras, even without a line from Madras to Calcutta direct ; so that if railroads were commenced at all the four points at once, and carried on, as at Bombay, at the-rate of ten miles a year, it would take 100 years merely to lay these few lines ; whirl -would have a very small effect upon the whole traffic of India. But only two of these are yet began. In point of fact., as to really and effectually opening India, 'we are doing no- thing, and indeed worse than nothing. It is a mere delusion, because it makes people imagine that they are doing what has to be done and thus prevents them setting about anything in earnest. If the construction Of a few hundred miles of grand railroad in the course of twenty years so blinds people as to prevent anything effectual being done to open India, it will, in- stead of a blessing, be the greatest curse which in the present state of things the country could suffer."
Various calculations will be found to show -the increasing ratio of cost with increase of speed. As regards the raw, heavy, bulky goods of India, Colonel Cotton holds that if the railways were completed over the country, they 'could not carry sufficient quan- tities. Even in prospectuses the railways do not profess to carry at a rate that will compete with the present charge on water-car- riage, where there is -any; while the effect of the great distances in India compared with England seems to be lost sight of. These remarks on the Indian railway question in general, and in particu- lars, are well worth consideration.
".0f the superficial way in which the question has been considered hitherto, even taking it in its narrowest view, and thinking only of the point, whether a railroad on a certain line will pay, we have a curious instance in the Cal- cutta Railway. The traffic is there, and it-is proposed to construct the rail- way, and calculations are given to show that such a -traffic on such a railway will pay such interest; but whether the railway, when it is ready, can carry the traffic, has not been considered. The traffic is lk million tons a year, or 5000 tons a day, on an average of the whole line and of the year ; which, of course, implies, that at the busy time of the year, and near Calcutta, there will be at least 10,000 tons a day, besides 1600 passengers. Can a double railway carry 10,000 tons a day besides 1600 passengers? The busiest pas- senger railroad in England only carries 700 tons a day on an average, accord- inito Lardner, or one-seventh of the quantity upon which these calculations are based. We have no data as to what amount of goods a railway worked at high speed for passengers can carry, but we know certainly that it could ma ti In thegg461ft , iipmetiting_likett_skiec,,imuirsAut, : catt.de Ors .lailia,..and therewere no other means by which something could j A • when he . _s The text of this notice with the extracts will Convey an idea of clay, excellent for pipes, and whieh'the.Dutek wont( l prize. Colonel Cotton's ,VOltinie; but it will give little , idea of the num- ,
bar of subordinate .topics,, or the thorough elaboration of 1 their occaaional.allowrinee for a sanguine disposition... It should be .
tionz its. :present publication .appears to be the work . of . the W as a set-O
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