The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-11 00:00:00

I MARcit 11, 1854. to take off the whole of the taxes of India, it would still he in a miserable state without irrigation, communication, ports, &c. And to increase its income by 25 millions sterling by means of these would be an incomparably greater benefit to it than to take off the present 25 millions of taxes. A complete system of communication through out India would undoubtedly increase the income of the country by far more than 25 millions a year. Let us take again the case of Tanjore ; suppose, instead of spending 40,000 rupees a year on improvements, the same amount of taxes had been remitted, it would have had 40,000 rupees a year less to pay, but it would have been without those works which have raised the value of its land 3 or 31 crores, indicating an increase of income of 1$ or 20 lace a year. Ask a sick man which he would rather a doctor would do for him, relieve him from a small part of his work, or restore him to his full health, so that his labour would be a pleasure to him ; can there be any question which he would prefer? The present debt of India is utterly insigni• flcant to a fertile country containing 100 millions of people in a state of perfect peace, if only they had the means of transit. It only amounts• to half a rupee per head per annum. The improvement in the revenue of Tanjore alone pays one•tenth of the interest, trifling as the works are that have been executed there, and the increase of private property there is equal to more than another tenth ; if five districts out of the ninety or one hundred were thus positively improved, it would be equal to the whole interest of the debt. The debt of India is nothing in itself—it is felt as a burden because of the weakness of the bearer. Relieve this weakness, and the load will cease to be a subject of complaint. Where a district is in arrears (often the case), the remedy is to spend money upon it, not to squeeze the inhabitants. The latter plan is, however, the only one in use—a collector being at full liberty to extort all he can by legal means from pauperised debtors, but not at liberty to employ the funds in his hands on reproductive enterprises. The first fact want ing to be impressed on the popular mind is this—that money invested is not expended, in the same sense as the Governor-General's salary is an expenditure of 25,0001. a year. The railroad, the bridge, the canal, are property, and very valuable property too, if, by a system of tolls, they he made to pay as much as they will yield without decrease of traffic from over charge. But a Government carrying out such works may remunerate itself better by indirect than direct means. The growth of revenue from untaxed trade is greater than the largest amount of tolls that can possibly be levied. In the case of irrigation, of course, an artificial productiveness being thus given to the soil, it is right that a corresponding increase of rent or land tax should follow. What are the real wants of India ? Taking her total territorial area at one and a quarter millions of square miles, we find that to open up this extent of country by main or high roads fifty miles apart would require fifty thousand miles of such roads. Connecting these with minor or byroads five miles apart, we should require of this inferior class of com munication half a million of miles. The actual means of transit are estimated as fol lows : Milan Sea navigation from mouths of Indus to those of Ganges 3,500 River navigation . ... Complete roads Imperfectly-made roads, say lO,OOO 17,500 This is of course a mere rough approxima tion ; and we must use the saine caution in accepting Colonel Cotton's estimate that the average cost of traffic is one shilling per ton per mile (allowing for difference in the value of money), while in England it is about one-penny-halfpenny, or one-eighth as much. But, remembering the immense distances of In dia as compared with those of this country—the large proportion which in Hindostan raw material of great bulk and small value bears to all other kinds of goods—and also the want of large dealers having capital to defray beforehand expenses of transit—the ad valorem tax on merchandise imposed by the badness of roads is not to be measured by this standard of comparison. Hypothetical statistics, founded only on inference, are worth little ; yet Colonel Cotton appears to have sound probable data when he assumes the cost of transit in India as equalling fifteen millions of pounds yearly, and when he computes that, with proper management, this sum mighi , be reduced by four-fifths, or a saving of twelve millions effected. This is but a small part of the total gain; for, besides the trade now carried on at heavy cost, and with profits thereby reduced THE PRESS. to the lowest point, a vast amount of traffic is actually prevented from taking place by the impossibility of making profits cover transit expenses. Here Colonel Cotton's work fails to supply the requisite evidence, though that evidence is not far to seek in India. A printed comparative statement of the prices of similar articles in various towns of India would do more to expose the utter want of internal communication than columns of figures and volumes of reasoning. From our own know ledge of the extraordinary diversities of price which prevail in a small tract of country, we join in Colonel Cotton's emphatic expression of opinion lam satisfied that the money "now paid for transit, and lost for want of " it, in India is equal to the whole amount of " taxation." But where is the remedy to be found? Not in railways—especially not in railways con structed after the European model, for heavy engines and high speed. Increase of speed without reduction of price is, in a commercial point of view, useless. " If India is to advance " in anything, she must have cheap transit, " really cheap transit, at rates one•tenth or " one-twentieth of those now prevailing." This may be done to a certain extent by cheap lines of rail ; but canals and improved river navigation are the chief points to look to. Hitherto they have been (except in the one instance of the Ganges Canal) neglected on behalf of more costly, more plausible, but pro bably less productive undertakings. They have in the East the double advantage, of im proving agriculture by irrigation, as well as trade by supplying the means of carriage. It is a fallacy to imagine that railroads and water carriage are mutually destructive. English canals continue to pay, notwithstanding the 7,000 miles of iron road we have laid down, and the 280 millions spent thereupon. In truth, they interfere with one another little, if at all. High-speed lines are too costly to carry most kinds of merchandise ; while canals are too slow for passengers and light traffic, where the value of the article conveyed greatly exceeds its bulk. But let us hear Colonel Cotton on this subject:— If, instead of taking hold of a little strip of the country, and setting ourselves to ascertain whether a railway will pay, we take the whole country from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, and consider what it requires, and how the greatest advantage may be obtained in the least time, there will be no sort of doubt as to the main point, that grand railways will not answer our purpose. No one is more sensible than I am that complete railways are the most perfect communications, and are invaluable in an advanced country where there is a vast number of people whose time is ex tremely valuable ; and to this we hope India will come in time ; but what is most wise in a rich man is utter ruin to a poor one; and to lay 100 miles of railway, and leave 10,0./0 miles of trunk lines unimproved, is beyond all pos sible reach of doubt as great a mistake as could be made. If we want fine railways as soon as possible, the best way to obtain them is to take the shortest eourse to throw open the country, in order to r remove the insufferable burden under which it now groans, and allow it to put forth its energies. Every mile of railway costa not only what is ex pended on it, but what is expended also on the cost of transit on the fifty miles of land transit for which as much river navigation might be substituted. Thus, if instead of spending 10 lass on the Godavery, the improvement of that line be delayed for twenty years, and ten miles of fine rail way executed instead, there would be a loss on only 50,000 tons carried by land from the basin of that river at 60 rupees a ton the 400 miles, of 30 lace a year for twenty years, or 600 lass. So that the actual cost of the railways, great as it is, is a mere trifle in comparison of the loss that it causes. And this calculation of 600 lacs in money is a trifle com pared with the full amount of loss to this vast tract that will thus remain closed against all the refreshing influences that a free communication through it would inevitably bring in. Who can form an estimate of the mischief thus done ? The moral of Colonel Cotton's teaching, in culcated again and again in every variety of form, is this—" Will you lavish vast sums in " producing the most perfect kind of commu " nication over a small space, at a rate of ex " penditure wholly unremunerative ; or will " you be content with improving existing " modes of travelling, and adding to them " where necessary, with the certainty of an " ample immediate return?" — The great difference between England and India in this respect has certainly not been considered in planning the railways. Both the proportion of wealthy people whose time is of considerable value is prodigiously less than in England, and also the average value of goods carried is very much lees. The fact is, that while a very high speed in a country so wealthy and so far advanced as England is of the \ cry greatest importance, it is in a poor country like India very secondary to cheapness. It is just the same with in dividuals. If.* poor man insists upon travelling tptickl7 before his circumatanoes admit of it, he may remain a poor man all his life ; but if he will be content to economise in this as well as other things at first, he may in time he able to travel as quick as Le likes. But this is comparatively a very insignificant part of the question. The main point is, that iu thus aiming at a very high speed at once we certainly delude ourselves oompletely, 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 your first stage at thirty miles an hour, and then continue along the remaining 1,000 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 gentle man wanted to go from thence to Calcutta, he might go the first 10 miles in three hours, and the remaining 1,200 in seventeen days, travelling night and day ; or his average speed would be 8} miles. The extent of the spaces for which we have to provide communications is totally lost sight of, and in consequence of this the whole system is without a foundation. A few of the axioms adduced by way of con clusion are worthy of being impressed on the memory of every Indian reformer. 1. The great point to be kept in view is, not to make the most perfect communication over a short distance, at heavy cost, leaving the rest of the country untouched ; but to adopt a system by which the principal part of the cost of transit will be saved throughout the whole country in the shortest possible time. 2. As a consequence of the above, high. speed railways are unsuited to the present state of India, and absorb money which might be more usefully expended elsewhere. 3. A great extent of river navigation may be improved and canals cut, so as to lessen cost of transit on such lines by nine-tenths, at a cost varying from 1001. to 3001. per mile. Be sides this, cheap lines of railway and good common roads ought to be largely under taken. 4. In England the probable coat of convey ance of goods is eight millions, or one-seventh the amount of public taxation. In India it is probably fifteen millions, or three-fifths the amount of taxation. a. The traffic of India is susceptible of al most unlimited increase and two-thirds of it would be effectually accommodated by the construction of 20,000 miles of road, railway (cheap) and canal, with improved river navi gation, at a cost of 350/. per mile, equal to 7.000,000/. 6. Whatever is done should be done quickly —done under effective superintendence, and with borrowed money, not waiting for a sur plus out of the current revenue. The invest ment is safe, the profit certain, the national benefit incalculable. Ticonderoga ; or, the Black Eagle. A Tale of Times not long Past. By G. P. R. James, Esq. London : Newby. WE have often been amused with the contrast iu an assize court between the inexperience of a clever young banister, with natural talents but little training, and the calm skill of a vete ran practitioner, whose knowledge of routine makes him more than a match for the undisci plined intellect of his more gifted and youth ful competitor. A similar contrast may be seen between that long-tried storyteller, Mr. James, and the throng of clever but crude writers who seek to encroach upon his prac tice in supplying a certain amount of fiction. The author of " Ticonderoga " has gone for twenty years the rounds of all the Eng lish libraries, and since his settlement in America he appears resolved to travel the " Far Western " circuit as a fictionist. He is still as able as ever in addressing his literary juries, states his romantic cases with the regu larity of an old practitioner, puts his charac ters into the witness-box in duo form, and now and again appeals to the feelings, in that matter-of-fact style of eloquence which, though' not classical, is often highly effective with "common juries." He succeeds, with his un tiring energy and sound professional know ledge, in ga►ning an approving verdict from his readers. He seems never to be baffled, like other novelists, by the difficulties of a plot. If it flags for want of incidents, he gets up a duel, wounds one of his heroes, and casts a heroine into an incipient consumption, of which she is cured at the end of the third vo lume by matrimony. If the plot has too ,AA4I