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    ^0. ^ 7. 00X03^16,18580 THE LEADER. 1103

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    INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS.

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    TEANSPOET AND IRRIGATION IN INDIA. O. ve...

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    NOTES OX INDIAN PROGRESS. Good accounts ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    ^0. ^ 7. 00x03^16,18580 The Leader. 1103

    ^ 0 . ^ 7 . 00 X 03 ^ 16 , 18580 THE LEADER . 1103

    India And Indian Progress.

    INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS .

    Teanspoet And Irrigation In India. O. Ve...

    TEANSPOET AND IRRIGATION IN INDIA . O . of the great difficulties in understanding India arises from the simple fact that there is no such thing as India in the vulgar sense . There is India , as there is Europe , with great variety of soil , climate , and populations , but there is no India like Trance , that we can get up a knowledge of by one course ol * tudv Valueless as is the evidence on Europe of a

    rciiiio-hee at the Court of Persia , of a Portuguese , for instance , or . a Genoese , or a Galway man , is the evidence as to India of most of the residents who claim the privilege of a long residence . There are even few Indians who have seen more than their own Presidency , and of those who have , the evidence is o ! no more weight than that of an ordinary tourist in Europe who has made an excursion in the usual style up the Rhine and back again . The "be * - i -instructed man in India , the one who is

    ihuroughlv at-home in his own district , having a cultivated and idiomatic use of the local dialect , is a forei-uer everywhere else . He can get along by the Lclp of Hindostanee , as the educated Englishman who is not a polyglot does in Germany , Italy , Holland , , and Spain / by help of French , but he can hold no . direct intercourse with the mass of the populations through which he is borne , with less opportunity of investigation than one of our excursionists civ . i in his scamv > er through Switzerland .

    It is not that- the Indian is presumptuotis , but we arc ignorant and will presume that the Bengal liiau must know Madras , or the Bombay man Bengal , and hence we thrust upon them the delivery of . opinions which are unsound , because , although- true iii their application to one district , i Lev " arc untrue when applied elsewhere . Hence the discordant opinions we gel . There arc scores ¦ of first-rate Indian authorities who can be got to

    declare that there is no place in the hills fit for Englishmen , and yet who have never been in the lulls , or have only been the victims of some damp experiment at Chirm . Ponjec . Then we are told that cotton cannot be improved , that English children will degenerate in the hills , that natives will not bear the English language in their courts , but prefer other foreign languages , that irrigation is the first want of India , Unit irrigation is of no good , that roads are of no « oocl , that the zemindaree

    tenure is the only good one , that the ryotwarce tenure is the only good one , that the village system is the only good one . Thus , there is inlinit . e danger th . it no one will be allowed to know anything about India except those who utterly disagree with rearrml to it . It was worth Lord Stanley ' s while to go to India to see what he could know about it , and what was the value of the opinion of a Bengal man , a Madras man , and a Bombay man . "Without this , very likely his own Council might have got to loggerheads and upsol him . ' Tlio sects iu Indian administration beat in . variety tho religious sects here , for besides the established

    elunclios of the sovoral Presidencies , each wilh its catechisms and formulas , tho several collectorates , which are many of thorn countries of distinct geographical and ethnographical character , furnish separate forms of belief . Thus , whatever improvement , is suggested for India , there is always the danger of prepossessions and prejudices being raised against it ,, though it may bo so simple that a non-Indian would think Lord Stanley has nothing to iId but to give his authorisation to it . Honce the diflicultics the railway system has had to undergo from the obstructive character of various

    admiuistrai ivo bodies , favoured in tlioir rotardivo force by the double Government , llenco the small progress of works of irrigation . Tho abolition of the double Government , on tj » o other hand , is calculated , moro especially in this department of public improvement , to givo a greater cnorgy and simplicity to the notion of the administrative authorities . Technical objections will bo sooner mot , and that inherent zeal " for 'improvement ¦ which individually

    distinguishes the administrators ot India will have greater scope . T \ rc referred to irrigation , upon which contradictory views have been announced , and the determination of the Government has been by no means marked with due vigour . The subject , however , is to a great extent a matter of climate . In the damp regions of the hills a man will gain no experience of the value of irrigation , because drainage is wanted , and this is the case in some of the districts which are table-lands or approaching the hills , so tlinf-. tlm o-Piiius of a Cautlev is directed to ffet rid

    of swamps and morasses , and not to construct irrigation channels . In many parts of Northern India , near the "hills , rains fall which fertilise the crops , and numerous streams are found at convenient levels , and the water stratum is at many points within reach by short wells , so that the great demand for irrigation is only during two or three dry months , as an auxiliary to the crops , and , indeed , in many districts , the chief crops are dry crops . butin

    On the western ghauts heavy rams , . Madras the rains having been intercepted by these ghauts , the raised table-lands are hot and dry for a long period , so that vegetation is greatly dependent on irrigation , and , indeed , many kinds of produce cannot be otherwise raised . Thus the revenue of Madras is to a very great degree dependent on irrigated land , though , throughout India , where there is no perpetual settlement of the land-tax , the distinction between irrigated and unirrigated land prevails , and the former is assessed by the Government at a higher rental . As there is such a-difference in'the condition of the districts , and the necessity of irrigation is more or less appreciated , so do we obtain discordant opinions . So , too , with regard to navigation . In Bengal , by means of the great river systems of the Ganges and the Indus , boat navigation and even steam navigation are obtained . . Hence , there is very little regard for navigable canals and little clamour for them ; and , indeed , the demand is for railways , which will carry the river passengers even faster than the steamers . In Central India , as the great rivers arc still shallower , as they have not been improved , nor has Mr . Bourne ' s system of steam trains been applied , the utility of canals of navigation as well as of irrigation is strongly felt , aud they arc loudly demanded , and there can bo no doubt that canals will there be found , both for irrigation and navigation , better applicable and more remunerative . Where boats and steamboats , that is to say , mechanical power , can , with small use of animal power , be employed iu tho transport of produce , little attention is paid to the effect which must be produced iu other districts , where men and draught cattle are largely employed in transport , and their power thereby withdrawn from agriculture . The latter is the case in Madras and part of Bombay , and the consequence is , that as so much of the power of the country is applied to transport , local observers arc very apt to deprecate the adoption of roads , because , as transport is conducted by miserable means , it' is supposed to be cheap , aiid because miserable brutes get over the country , it is supposed roads can be dispensed with . The real result upon the population of Madras is , that au immense proportion of power is withdrawn from agriculture and applied to transport , diminishing production twofold , first by the want of power to ' produce , and next by tho discouragement of high rates of transport , which deprive the producer of a large part of the price , which is contributed to tho carrier . Irrigation alone will not remedy the sufferings of Madras , Upper Bombay , aud Orissa , because , ali ' hough it is true that , moro produce being raised , there will bo a greater provision for the maintenance of the brinjarry and his beasts , the evil will remain unrcdrussed , that a large proportion of tho price- goes to the carrier and not , to the producer . Wherever , as iu Central Asia and iu South America , or , indeed , in any country where tho appliances of civilisation are not largel y developed—and wo may oven instance Spain—tho carrying trade engages muoh of tho industry of Iho country ; then , as a ' great bulk of the produce is eaten by tho beasts of burden and their attendants , tho condition of tho agricultural producer nniat bo ono ol' depression .

    This is an economical law from which India is suffering ,, and from which it can be relieved . When : we consider that there are parts of Bombay and Madras where tlie actual rates of . carriage approach Is . per ton per mile , and which , according to the relative cost of food , is equivalent to 10 s . per ton per mile in Europe , it may be conceived how serious is the drawback to the progress of the country that the existing state of affairs presents . The railway system , where there is an abundance of mineral or vegetable fuel on the spot , tends to a considerable extent to remedy the abstraction of animal power and vegetable produce ; but the canal

    as a route for traction effects the same object , and where irrigation is a necessity , canal navigation is the ready complement of a satisfactory system . On a canal the rate will be % d . or less , where on the road it is Gd . and Is ., and the time of transit , a great economical element , will likewise be quickened . Whatever , therefore , the necessities may be elsewhere , in the districts we have named—and we may include nearly all Madras—irrigation and navigation must go hand in hand , and the Government must at once take effective measures to carry this out . Railways are grand instruments for transit , but they are

    instruments for economising transport , and not lor stimulating production . The river system of a country , with a trunk and many feeders or branchee , presents a scheme of natural roads already laid down , and more than that , an apparatus of fsrtilisers . In most cases the great part of the machinery is already made by nature to our hands , and what we want is to keep in the channels a permanent dejith of water for navigation , aud a constant stream of water for irrigation by a dam here , a reservoir there , and in some places weirs , locks , or banks . We have only to finish what nature has provided . We have seldom natural roads so far made , and railroads we must make mile by mile . ,

    To provide by mcaus of private ' enterprise or by public grants sueli works is to increase the produce of the land , to economise transport , to give the producer a wider market and a better price by extending the area of export and consumption , and greatly to increase the revenues of the Government , and thereby its means of promoting education , physical improvement , and consequently civilisation .

    Notes Ox Indian Progress. Good Accounts ...

    NOTES OX INDIAN PROGRESS . Good accounts are given of the progress of the East Indian branch lino from Benares to Mogul Serai . All the brick and timber bridges are completed , and when the rails are laid , so that materials can be carried from the Ganges to the main line , the portion between the Kurramnasa and Chunar will be much hastened . Messrs . Burn and Co . are the contractors . Complaints are mailo of the engineers of the Bombay , Barodu , and Central Railway Company , that tho embankment on tha Nerbudda has been , ill eona tructcd , so as to be much damaged by the floods , and several bridges haye been knocked down .

    Great improvements aro to be made in Bombay Greon by tho garrison engineer , so that it may bo really au ornament to the city . It , is to bo moved northward bodily , so tliab its centre , instead of its upper limb , may l > e > opposite tho portico of tho Town Hall . It will bo surrounded by a double row of trees , affording a broad shady walk within . Fountains will , it is said , bo introduced , and new blocks of building be placed around tho Green . A sloop-of-war ia being built in tho Mazagon dockyard for tho Imaum of Muscat . She is of six hundred tons . The Commercial Ba . nk of India has declared a dividend of 0 per cent , per annum .

    The opium crop has been much interfered with by tho troubles in Sliahalmd , which yields 6000 to 0000 maunds : there will bo no crop , noither , in Blmugulporo , which yields 1200 . Tho tfchiir crop , it i * . supposod , will not tfo moro than 18 , 000 fchoats . Assam tea is now soiling la Wnaoo , ^ ysungo , Ramporo , , Bauleah , mid I ' ubnn , tho i ' okoo , lor _ d * per lb ., and tho Congo for is . od ., and is at thoao

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 16, 1858, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_16101858/page/23/