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NOTES ON INDIAN PROGRESS . Good accounts are given of the progress of the East Indian branch line 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 Kurrumnasa and Chunar will be much hastened . Messrs . Burn and Co . are the contractors . Complaints are made of the engineers of the Bombay , Baroda , and Central Railway Company , that the embankment on the Nerbudda has been ill cons tructed , so as to be much damaged by the floods , and several bridges haye been knocked down .
Great improvements are to be made in Bombay Green by the garrison engineer , so that it may bo really an ornament to the city . It . is to be moved northward bodily , so that its centre , instead of its upper limb , may bo opposite the portico of the Town Hall . It will be surrounded by a double row of trees , affording a broad shady walk within . Fountains will , it ia said , bo introduced , and new blocks of building be placed around the Green . A sloop-of-war is being built in the Mazagon dockyard for the Imuum of Muscat . She is of six hundred tons . The Commercial Bank o £ India has declared a dividend of G per cent , per annum . The opium crop has been much interfered with by the troubles in Slmhabad , -which yields 5000 to OOOQ niaunda : there will bo no crop , neither , In JJhangulporo , ' which yields- 1300 . Tho Bolrnr crop , it " supposed , will not'bo more than 18 , 000 ohests . Assam tea ia now soiling , la Dacca , Sorajgunge , lliunpore , Bnulonh , nnd rubnn , tho l ' okoo for 3 s . per lb ., and tho Congo for is . ( id ., and is at tueso
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INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS .
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Tins -is an economical Taw from which India is suffering , and from * which it can be relieved . Wl \ en we consider that there are parts of Bombay and Madras where the 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 liow 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 . Ona canal tkc rate will be ^ d . or less , where on the road it is 6 d . and Is ., and the time of transit , agreat economical clement , 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 , aud 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 for 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" depth of water for navigation , and a constant stream of water for irrigation by a dam here , a reservoir there , and in some places weirs , locks , or banks . "We-have-onl y ' to finish what nature has provided . We have seldom natural roads so far made , and railroads we must make mile by mile .
TRANSPORT AND IRRIGATION IN INDIA . Oxe of the great difficulties in understanding India arises from the simple fact that there is no such thins 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 1 « ranee , that we can get up a knowledge of by one course ot ot
study . Valueless as is the evidence on Europe a Jferi-ngliee at the Court , of Persia , of a Portuguese , for instance , or a Genoese , or a Gal way 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 thenown Presidency , and of those who have , the evidence is of 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 who is
best-instructed man in India , the one thoroughly at home in his own district , having a cultivated and idiomatic use of the local dialect , is a ibivl'Ciier everywhere else . He can get along by the help of Hhidostanee , 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 op port ulaity of investigation than one of our excursionists can in his scamncr through Switzerland .
tinguishes the-administrators ' of India will have greater scope . . " \ y referred to irrigation , upon which contradictory views have been announced , and the determination of the Government lias 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 , aud this is the case in some of the districts which are table-lands or approaching the hills , so that the-genius of a Cautley is directed to get rid
of swamps and morasses , and not to construct irrigation channels . In manv 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 mauy districts , the chief crops are dry crops . On the " western ghauts heavy rains fall , but in ted b
Madras the rains-having been intercep y 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 hind , 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 ineans of the great river systems ' of the Ganges and the Indus , boat navigation and even steam navigation are obtained . Hence , there is very liti le regard for navigable canals and little clamour for them ; and . indeed , the demand is for railways , which
It is not that the Indian is presumptuous , but m-c are ignorant and will , presume that the Bengal man must know Madras , or the Bombay man Bcn-ul , and hence we thrust upon them the delivery of opinions which are unsound , because , although true iii ¦ 'their application to one district , they are untrue when applied elsewhere . Hence the discordant opinions we get . There arc scores of first-rate Indian authorities who can be got to declare that there is no p lace in the hills fit for Englishmenand vet who have never been in the
Avill 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 , and they are loudly demanded , and there can be no doubt that canals will there be found , both for irrigation aud navigation , better applicable and more
, hills , or have only been the victims of some damp experiment at Chirra Ponjee . 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 pivfor other foreign languages , that irrigation is the iirsl want of India , that irrigation is of no good , that roads are of no good , that the zciniudwce tenure is the only good one , that the ryotwarcc tenure is the only good one , that the village system is tho only good one . Thus , there is inlinite danger lhal , no one will be allowed to know anything about
remunerative . "Where boats and steamboats , that is to say , mechanical power , can , with small use of animnl p ower , bo employed in the transport of produce , little attention is paid to the effect which must be produced in 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 tho country is applied to transport , local observers are very apt to deprecate
India except those who utterly disagree with regard to tt . It was worth Lord Stanley ' s while to go I o India to sec what he could know about it , mid 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 gut to loggerheads and upset him . The sects in Indian administration beat in variety the religious sects here , for besides the established churches of the several Presidencies , each with its catechisms and formulas , tho several collect o-
the adoption of roads , because , as transport is condueled by miserable means , it is supposed to be cheap , and because miserable brutes get over 1 lie country , it is supposed roads c : in be dispensed with . The real result upou the population ot Madras is , that nn immense proportion of power is withdrawn from agriculture and applied to transport , diminishing production twofold , first by the wont of power to produce , and next b y the discouragement of high rates of transport , which deprive the producer of a largo part of tho price , which is contributed to the sufior
rates , which aro many of them countries o ( distinct geographical and ethnographical character , furnish bcparato 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 do but to givo his - authorisation to it . Hence
carrier . Irrigation alone will not remedy the - ings of Madras , Upper Bombay , and Orissn , because , although it is true that , niore produce being raised , there will bo a greater provision for the maintenance of tho brinjarry and his beasts , the ovil ^ will remain unreilresscd , that a large proportion of tho prico goes to tho carrier and not to the producor . Wherever , as in Central Asia ami in South America , or , indeed , in any country where the appliances of civilisation aro not largely developed—and wo may even instanco Spain—the carrying ; trade engages much of the industry of the country ; then , as a great bulk of the produce- is eaten by the . beasts of burden , mid their attendants , tho condition of tho agricultural producer must bo ouo of depression .
the dilliculties tho railway system has had to undergo from the obstructive character of various administrative bodies , favourod in their rctardive force by tho double Government . Hence the small progress of works of irrigation . The abolition of I ho doublo Government , on tho other hand , is calculated , inoro especially in this department- of -pyibllo improvement ; , to givo a greater energy and simplicity to the notion of the administrative authorities , Technical objections will bo sooner mot , and that inherent zcul for improvement wlnou individually
dis-To provide by means of private enterprise or-bypublic grants such 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 .
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No . 4 W . October 16 , 185 . 8 . 1 T H E L E A P E R . 1103
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 16, 1858, page 1103, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2264/page/23/
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