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Lorsqua la documant aat trop grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul clichA, 11 ast f iimi A partir da I'angla supAriaur gaucha, da gaucha h droita, at da haut an baa, an pranant la nombre d'imagas n6cassaira. Las diagrammas suivants illustrant la m6thoda. 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 f ■ ^^l^-TI?!' f 'i' ^\TK|N, T?\p- Mr, ■iSH&. i*' !.A . Kr W yT' }■ ttJ^Y 9 1«2 L83310 «■« r«4-4(t'> ,■■* tx-r-i*. . irSJi 4 n _ jjO>n»^-.>yiii-; *KtiiiitMm* <* .X, ■iv^xiaiaaMBWnMnil ■MM n i V 'r fndia: -4 /^^«/ P^G^5 ABOUT IT. vr Sir EDWABD WILLIAM WATKIN, Bart., M.P. , . i • "^ . V - ; "TT-^ -./.'^ s\V^!,-r.,...,.o\ ;;/ Ifonbon: C. F. ROWORTH, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE. 1889 WM 9 W^2 -83310 These f CM fagca arc offered to the Most Honor able nm MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G., IIi:k XlAjnsrv's I'kimh Ministhk, Formerly Secretary of State for India, —in the hope that the vast resources of India may be fully, and soon, developed; that Indian Hallways may be extended and commercialised ; and thai a paternal Government may spare no efforts taivards strengthening the competitive powers of the cultivator and merchant of a ivonderful country ; so that Protection in America may be met by Production in India, E. W. W. NoKTUENDEN, yune, 1889. \ CONTENTS, Introductory and Personal - . . . " Visit India !" - - - - - My Route ill India - . . . Facts about India - - - - - Indian Railways and Indian Slppliks - Gauge - - - - - - Railway Extension .... Comparative Rates of Carriage, hy Railvav, in India and the United Siates - - - - Petroleum f'nding in India .... Indian "Private Enterprise," and the non-develop- ment OF Indian Resources - - - - Government Control of IMineral and oitikr De- velopment -----. The " National Congress" - - - - - Hindu Widows ...... Undetected Crime - - - - - Other Undetected Crime The Native Press and the Congress-Wallahs The Indian Government a Despotism Arming the Hindoo, &c. - - , . Libelling the Viceroy and the Government Opposing Frontier Defence - - - - " Official Statements" issued from the India Office Indian Statistics - . . . - Remarkable Progress - - - - PAGE ') 1 1 ' + '7 27 30 37 +3 5' 63 67 93 93 97 101 104. 105 107 "3 "S 116 122 INTRODUCTORY AND PERSONAL. -^^ft-ia^lfc<4S^S?— [f>|N the cvc of my leaving England for India in October lasl a high official was good enough to invite mc to suggest to him any notions which, in travelling about, might strike me — especially in reference to railway and industrial development. I complied with his wish from time to time ; and on my return I sent to him some time ago a copy of some notes I made on the voyage home. I now somewhat expand those notes for the use, primarily, of a few friends, and relatives, of my own. Having been a student of India, and in communication with people of all sorts interested in India, all my life, my visit to the country has pieced together the links of previous know- ledge and given me some better insight into questions, many of which it would require almost a lifetime to master. But I am not immodest enough to consider that much that I may in all good faith propose, is not capable of modification by larger experiences, if not of much correction. Therefore it is that in these pages I have confined myself, mainly, to matters which I understand, and I doubt if, therefore, I can be much mistaken, save as respects thi' adaptation of Indian agencies to western practice. The leaders in all industrial progress in India, as it seems to me, have been, are, and must be, as a rule, men of ( 'o ) British and European race. The white man rules in India, industrially, by reason not merely of his courage and force of character, but through the completeness of his experience. What can be a better illustration than the tea planting ? a new and modern industry in India. Three hundred thousand acres of Indian land are planted with tea, of which two hundred thousand arc in Assam. If the total were divided by the average size of the plantations, there would turn out to be probably about one thousand separate organizations for the growth and sale of lea ; and I doubt not tiiat almost the whole are ruled over by British people, and have been founded and worked by the agency of British capital.* The European merchant and government of India have between them developed the supply of jute and cotton, and so with everything else. British capital has made almost all the railways, docks, and other public works of India; and British men must and will lead where, in time, the Mussulman and the Hindoo may follow. In writing this I am not indifferent to the enterprise of the Parsecs, the Jews of India, as they arc called, or to the extra- ordinary push of the smaller native merchant, who follows a traveller about and noses out a possible customer wherever he may be — in bed, shaving, bathing, walking out, or sitting in his room ; or to the patient industry of the people who do the hand labour and art labour of the country. Succinctly, the suggestions I humbly venture to make as the result of my observation and enquiry are : — (i) The establish- ment of a powerful department of the Indian State, consisting of • ]ii iiassing, I may remind those who read these pages, that Ceylon is becoming a great tea-growing country, thanks, mainly, to the initiative of my friend, Mr. George Wall, of Colombo, and to the persistent efforts and thorough enterprise of English planters like Mr. Thring, and others. Tea, in Ceylon, is making up for tlie loss of the coffee crop. In past times the export of cofl'ee from Ceylon was valued at about seven millions sterling a year ; now, the fatal fungus, which has so widely ruined the crop, has brought the pro- duction down to a little more than a tenth of its old average value. And a comparatively small number of years ago, all the Cingalese consumption of tea was derived from China, and a little later from China and India. ( M ) practical men, which, provided with adequate means and with the fullest powers, shall develop thoroughly the undeveloped mineral and other resources of India, especially its coal and petroleum. (2) The extension of Indian railways and works, by the econo- mical credit and efficient organization of the Indian State. (3) The commercialisation of the Indian Railway system, giving business, rather than military, management. (4) A complete change in the storage and warehousing system. (5) The laying down of independent submarine cables by the State, and the provision of far cheaper means of passing to and fro between the United Kingdom and India. I shall endeavour to show by what the Indian State organiza- tion now does, that it can do more, and that the Indian civil servant — if given full responsibility and if freed from needless interference, cither from Downing Street, Calcutta, or Simla — is fully equal to any task placed on his shoulders in the interests of India. Let me, however, say that the military servant is, to my mind, an excellent public officer ; that where he has been allowed to construct and work, for instance, the railway system, in his own way, he has been equal to any, and every, difficult occasion. But the trouble comes from head-quarters, in the constant attempt to apply military rule to industrial distribution, and in delays and cross purposes by too much reference home of details. But I shall endeavour to show, further, by the many failures of most eiforts to substitute " private enterprise " for the action of the State, that the great, immediate, wide-spread develop- ment of the undeveloped riches of India can only be thoroughly accomplished, in our time, by the united and unsparing efforts of the Indian State itself. "VISIT INDIA!' I had all my life a desire to visit India. I once, a very long time ago, was nearly precipitated into an Indian career. I had taken much interest in the Indian railway system; in the ( 12 ) affiurs ol Ceylon; in the growth of cotton in India, and so on, for very many years.* * As an amusing incident, I may relate that, in early childhood, I narrowly escaped sudden death owing, remotely, to the modification of the Indian tea nionojioly. Tlie facts were these ; the date was about 1826 or 1828 ; the close monopoly of tlie sale of tea had led to "gunpowder" tea being considered cheap at a guinea a pound ; gunpowder and guinea made a good practical alliteration ; in trade, one was the efjuivalent of the other. The relaxation of the monopoly— I quite forget the form and extent of relaxation — enabled enterprising tea (kakrs largely to reduce prices, and the result was, that an enterprising lirm— "J[y escape from sudden death arose thus: — I was taken " a-shopping" by my mother, who had an eye to business, and quite under- stood that a guinea would, now, go as far as two would have gone before. .So we entered the shop of "Jones & Co.," of Market Street Lane, Man- Chester, witli a crowd of housewives, who, by their struggles to the counters, made " confusion worse confounded," and my poor little child-body was soon lost amidst the bombazine. I was crushed, smothered, warmed up to a high degree, and imbibed an odour of bombazine, &c., &c., which I can (as tlie Scotch put it as to smells) " feel" to this day ! How I got out I know not. In the dark and dismal surroundings— hot smelling, suffocating— I fancy I lost consciousness; fancied I was drowning; and striking out in the darkness frantically, did some injury- to a very fat woman, who thereon backed lesser women out, and I was restored to air and daylight. But at that time no tea was brought from India : it all came from China, and the East India Company had a close monopoly. Their old tea warehouses in Mint Street in the City are now the property of the London and North Western Railway Company. After my little story of suffering and miraculous escape, none of my friends will wonder at the great interest I have always taken in the tea question. Any way, I have suggested a way to more than .1 ( '3 ) I need not recall the sorrow which compelled mc, in se.irrh of forgetfulness, to go a long way from home somewhere. I had been thirty times across the Atlantic, the last voya,!,'(> haviiiLr been in 1887, and I therefore gravitated to India as a new field. My visit gave me incredible interest : and to all who want to sec the real British Empire, I cannot hesitate to recommend my own example : I say, emphatically, " Visit India ! " Tn all who wan! to observe how the moral force of a small body of our country- men prevails in keeping the peace amidst the most hostile creeds and races ; to watch the processes by which a most just, impartial, and capable government is furnished to over 200,000,000 of people — wh(; never knew real liberty, either civil or religious, until they obtained the blessing— the priceless blessing — of British paternal rule — to all these I say, " Visit India." To all who want to see grand rivers, stately mountains, and wondrous plains, I say again, "Visit India." It is a land of wonders all round. To the naturalist, the geologist, the scientist of every division, India is an infinite field of observation. There, too, you see, side by side, in- many places, almost every race of man the world contains. • I shall never forget the sight at Darjeeling : Chinese, Bur- mese, Tibetans, Nepaulese, Bhotans, Nagas, Hindoos, Mussul- mcn ; men the exact pattern of the red Indian of the Canadian Pacific route, and of the yellow Indian of British Columbia; English types, German types — every type almost. Every variety of man. Every species of animal, plant, flower, reptile. Every variety of custom, and of social life. Architecture of the most opposite ideality, but often massive and magnificent ; dress as varied as race. Agriculture so different from nurs ; but when studied found one Chancellor of the Exchequer, by which the duty on tea could be repealed without putting on any new tax. But my plan is too simple for official accept- ance. I certainly hope that every poor soul who has now to pay 2s. di. for a pound of what, at prime cost, grown in India, and delivered in England, only stands at 6Jrf., witt. soon be able to have three cups of tea for what is now the price of one. ( M ) to be simple, and therefore scientific — the most being made of the simplest and readiest means, 1^^ MY ROUTE IN INDIA. I left the Thames in the P. and O. ship, the "Arcadia," commanded by that veteran sailor. Captain Andrews. I landed at Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples, and Port Said. The ship stopped at Aden, and arrived at Bombay after a voyage with- out a breeze or a drop of rain. At Bombay the kindness of Messrs. Ralli, the great merchants of India, enabled me to see something of the industries and the commerce of that remarkable city. From Bombay, following the good advice of Sir Michael Biddulph, I went right away north and up the Khyber Pass till within view of Allah Musjid, stopping on the way at Ajmere, Jeypore, Delhi, Lahore, and Peshawur. Return- ing, I visited Rawul Pindi, Lahore again, the salt ranges at Kewrah, Umritscr, Agra, Cawnporc, Lucknow, Allahabad, and other centres, and then went down to Calcutta, where I had the happiness to be the guest of Mr. Henry Gladstone, in Clive Street. Then, after some days at this great port, I went by way of the Eastern Bengal Railway up to Darjeeling, in sight of the vast Himalayas, and back to Siligouri, from whence across country and across rivers to Dhubri, thence up the Brahmapootra to Dibrughar, and on to the farthest corner of Assam up to the Naga country, the limit of British territory to the north-east. Then returning to Calcutta, I had the diversion of a slight earth- quake, and after a Christmas dinner at Mr. Gladstone's, I left for Colombo in the " Rohilla," Captain Haslewood. Spent two days in Ceylon, going up to Kandy, and then on to Aden, Suez, Port Said, Marseilles, and home. Murray's Guide or Baedeker give better descriptions of places of interest and of scenery than I could, so I do not propose to attempt anything of that sort. But for all things archaeological, I refer every one to General Cunningham's excellent and inte- resting works on the monumental and other remains of India. ( '5 ) FACTS ABOUT INDIA. It is well to tabulate some leading facts about British India, and I have done so in a final chapter. Two Parliamentary Blue Books arc annually issued. I shall have a few words to write about the backward dates of much of the information given ; but they will throw no doubt upon the great value of the insight afforded. They are the " Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India," and the " Statistical Abstract relating to British India," which gives a decennial tabulation, and may compare with that afforded by the similar " Statistical Abstract" more especially affecting the United Kingdom. If some one would, to use a phrase of the late Mr. W. Newmarch, F.R.S., " boil down " these papers, and let them be sold for a few pence, a great national service would be performed. Our people would read India by the light of its progress, instead of seeing it in the disguises exhibited now and then by the Indian, or Russian, agents of discontent, some of whom live amongst us in apparent personal prosperity. These gentlemen would have us to believe that the Indian Government is an unenlightened tyrant, that the population of the country is on the wane, its wealth decreasing and misery augmenting. All this is untrue : nay, the very converse of the truth, as the facts and figures quoted in my concluding chapter demonstrate. ( «7 INDIAN RAILWAYS AND INDIAN SUPPLIES. I AM somewhat informod about Indian Raihvaj's and tlu'ir history. As early as the 17th July, 1857, I moved this Resolution in the House ot Commons : — " Jhat the slow progress of the East Indian Railways involves danger to the military occupation of India, and retards the development of the industrial resources of that country" ; and I concluded my speech with these words; — " India had, physically speaking, all that was neces- sary for a rapid and full development, except the means of transit. Cease to keep from her those means, and she would, in spite of mismanagement, and of internal disorders, rise in the industrial scale ; and the very mea- sures which promoted her prosperity would consolidate our power." I see nothing to correct in that declaration of nearly a generation ago. My personal observations of Indian Railways have greatly impressed me with admiration for those \vho have planned and executed, and especially for those who now work, them, under conditions of difficulty un- known at home. I do not think that I write, biassed by the extreme courtesy shown to me by every railway man I knew, and by numbers of others w hose acquaintance I made for the first time. These gentlemen aided me in every way to conquer the vast distances of India, and, by travelling at night in their comfortable ofRcers' car- B it ( i ( «« ) riatjt's, tliroui,'li wastcH and jungles, as well i cultivated lam!', to visit llu' places and scenes of great interest, (itlnrwisfi shut to me in a visit of under two months. Ti) ( oli.nel Campbell, the honoured agent of the Hast Indian; Major Uissett, of the Bombay and iJaroda ; Colonel Wallaee, of the North Western State, and Major I'.oui^-Iiey, oftlie luistern iiengal State,— Railways, I am specially debtor, for every form of kindness and facility to inspect the magnificent undertakings, happily, under their control. Having thus travelled over more than a third of the whole mileage of Indian railways, I return with unmixed respect for the works and the workers. I have travelled on tl>(> (iovernment gauge of 5 ft. Gin.; the "metre" gauge of thirty-nine inches; the 2 ft. 6 in. gauge; and tlif I ft. 1 1 in. gauge of the wonderful Darjeeling rail- Avay. Nowhere have I seen works more daring — often to the point of grandeur— and 1 have, specially, in my mind, while writing, the bridge over the Indus, below its junction with the Cabul river, at Attock; Sir Brad- ford Leslie's bridge over the llooghly, above Calcutta (the Jubilee Jkidge) ; and, I might add, the Cireat Indian Peninsular .Station at Bombay — these are many and varied Indian monuments of the art of our engineers and contractors, working in India in wider fields than home presents. I was disappointed in finding myself unable, owing to time used in visiting Assam, to see the Sukkur Bridge over the Indus, or to go up to Quetta — where I was most kindly invited by Sir R. Sandeman — to see the new (.Sind Pishin) railways there, and the petroleum .springs near Sibi. The story of the construction of these Quetta rail- way works reads like a romance, and excites admira- tion for the cour.-ige and resources of the engineers, proving them to be men who would not bo beaten. m ( U) ) The report on Indian Railways for 1886 says, "From the «th May, 1886, ami onwards, (rem m\h- 175 tho plate-layinjr was pushed forward uiuntMrupli-dly, and with ncj very licavy diviT->ions, 1 larn.ii b'-iiivT reached on tho ist July, 1886, and inilo 201 on iln- ist August, 1886. Tho heat throughout this whole time was terrific, and so trying, tliat, on many occa- sions, it seemed impossiljh' to go on witii llie work. Tho staff suffered terribly from fever; the plate-laying gangs were practically renewed every montli by fresh importations from India, as they melted away from fever, dysentery and scurvy. In tht; same way, tho gangs of girder-erectors dropped off, and during four months were twic»> replaced from India On the ist November, 1886, th-j rail-head had reached mile 22.\ (opposite the mouth of the Chuppcr Rift), passing over many diversions, where heavy girders were being erected and difficult foundations of bridges wore being taken out. Although the higher elevation reachcsd somewhat reduced the heat, the exceptional unhealthiness of the climate retarded the work, whole gangs of workmen being prostrated at one time by fever, dysentery and scurvy." I will only give one more extract, and then say, " All honour to our countrymen, who can trample on such difficulties! '' " 'Jhe lino vicx Ilarnai, from Sibi to Quetta (155 miles), was practically commenced as a railway only about ist July, 1884. It labours under the disadvantage of its lower half being so hot in summer, and its upper half so cold in Avinter, that on those sections, as far as jjrogress is concerned, about half tho year is lost. This section was opened for the engine as a permanently bridg(;d, metalled and tunnelled railway in 32^ months, giving a progress of little less than five miles of finished railway per month, in a moun- tainous country, where the engineering difficulties, though B 2 ■J M ( 20 i f ■ 1 \ formidable onoucfli in thomsolves, are not, perhaps, the greatest obstacle to rapid progress." The official "Statement," in dealing with the year 1887, slates that, as comjiared with 1886, while there had been an increase of 1,203 miles of railway, or 9'35 per cent., there was a decrease in the gross earnings of £2^\.\,r)5.[, in silver, or r3i per cent.; an increase of £i-/2,iio, in silver, or rQ3 per cent., in the working expenses, — and thus, that the total net earnings showed a decrease of ^417,064 (in silver), or no less than 4*27 per cent. This is a serious result ; and I have heard that, while failure of crops and a lesser carriage of rail- way material have contributed, the lowering of rates on some of the railways under State management has had a pernicious effect on net revenue. The total capital expended on Indian railways to the end of the year 1887 was £\f\-j,22i,52i, and the cost of the lines open averaged ^13,000 a mile ; the least costly opened line being the Jodhpore, ^1,843 — and the most costly, tlie East Indian line, ;^2 1,483, per mile. The gross earning of all lines was ;{Ji8,459,582 ; and the working expenses averaged 40 per cent.; the net revenue yielding a return of 5^ per cent, per annum on the capital cost. Still the State complains that it lost ^2,267,800 (in silver) in 1887-8. by two causes : first, that the two guaranteed railways were entitled to one-half the surplus profits on their lines above 5 per cent., or £()Sc),-o2 (Rx.) ; and second, because interest on gua- ranteed railway capital has to be paid in gold, while the earnings of the lines are realized in silver. If in early days the Indian State had boldly made these, now, guaranteed railways on their own credit, about 25 per cent, more railway would have existed in India for the same annual outgoing for interest. Clearly it is the interest of every such country to raise its capital 4 ( -'I ) for expenditure, on permanent works, at th(! clicaprst rate, which means on the best credit, which moans, again, its own. The Indian State began by guarantee at a high rate, and with division of profits over that high rate (of 5 per cent). In 1870 the policy of developing railways by tlio credit and under the charge of the State was inaugurat'jd. In 1 880- 1 a recurrence to the system of aiding " private enterprise " took jjlace : " assisted " railways. What the policy is now, I do not know. But it is obvious that the Indian State could raise railway loans in perpetuit}-, in gold, at 3, and on 99 years' terminal annuity at ;-,i per cent., or perhaps less. This is, at least, i, to 1 1, piT cent, less than would be demanded by "assisted" private enterprise ; and to adopt the former, means that the State gets for the same annual charge more than 5 miles of railway if it finds its own money, and less than 3 in the case of " assisted " private enterprise. I am told that guarantees, in gold, of 4 per cent, and a quarter of profits, of 4I per cent., in gold, and of 4 per cent., in gold, with an addition of one quarter of net profits, have been given. If that be so, the State gets, clearly, much less line for its guarantee than it does for its own money. Who will defend this waste and loss ? It will thus be seen that I am opposed to any more tinkering at private enterprise, and advocate the ex- tension of railways and other public works, also, in the most economical and efficient way, vi/., l)y cheap capital, founded on the undoubted credit, of the Slate; and through the agency cf the efficient and all-powerful and experienced executive of the State, rather than by the wasteful system of raising capital on indifferent credit, and by the weak and inefficient (in fact, totally inadequate) executives of the individuals and asso- ciations who pester the Indian State for concessions. ( 22 ) i i 1 I want to soo thn whole benefit of the capital and propi.Tty of th(> State going into the coffers of the State, which now, in many cases, gets a doubtful nibble, only, at its own cake. liut I feel it my duty, admiring as I do the Indian railway system, to express the opinion that in its working details it wants commercialising — if I may coin a word, to better express my meaning. The whole question of speed of trains wants reconsidering. In India the speed of trains is behind the age, and many of the regulations are too much like those of a military cantonment. I rode on the engine of one of the North Western lines, and going- down, at a crawl, an incline of a mile or two of I in 50, 1 asked the driver, why r " Xot allowed to go at more than ten miles an hour;" and, looking round, I saw a l)oard with that announcement on it — " By order." iVt the bottom of this incline came an ascending gra- dient of I in 50, which we had to mount dead from the bottom, instead of getting the benefit of some extra \elocity ; all of which would hav(! been left, in England or France, to the discretion of an experienced driver, such as was the man I rode with. This may be looked upon as a little matter of detail, but it is one of many straws which inclined me to think that there is too much military order about it all, and not enough individual authority. At a station, which I need not name, a carriage, full of natives and their manifold bundles, pots, pans, baskets, pipes, sticks, and so on, was taken off, to be sent on by another train, to start some hours later, I asked, why r " Regulation that we are only to send on ten." " Bad gradient to place where those people are going " f " No, nearly Hat." " Cannot the engine take the extra carriage r " " Oh ! yes ; but that is the regu- lation." i ^ mC ( 23 ) But before passing from such small thing-s to i4P.Mt, let me say, that I look upon India as a sourer of supply, making us less and less dependent upon llic protectionist United States. There is nothing in the United States — to which we at home pay ;^ 100,000,000 a-year for food and raw materials — which cannot, by proper organization, be produced better and cheaper in India — tobacco, sugar, cotton, petroleum, coal, wheat, maize, rice, raisins, all sorts of dried fruits, precious, and other, metals, and so on ; while, amongst many other things, may be mentioned tea, coffee, varied tropical fruits, and the useful article of jute, which are on the Indian list of productions and not on that of the United States. Again, India has the greatest advantage over the United States, in the abundant supply, and the cheap- ness and docility of its labour resources. But if India is, in the near future, to take some scores of the millions which are now paid to the protectionist United States, United States modes of cultivating the best quality of things, of rapid, through, transport, and of exchange, will have to be largely copied. Now, while from Chicago, or any other emporium in the United States portion of North America, or from Montreal, or from any other big town or village in Canada, you can get a through bill of lading to Liver- pool, London, or elsewhere, there is no such thing known in all India — save the recent experiment of Colonel Wallace from the port of Kurrachee, in connection with parts of the North AVestern State line, by an arrangement with the Hall, or Holt, line of steamers to Liverpool. To establish the United States system efficiently, the co-operation of all interests is essential, because the soul of the matter is a through rate : one single, mode- rate, and — in the case of such products as are sold to us r t' ( 24 ) by the United States— competing — charge throughout — combined with rapid transit and the best facilities for loading and discharge. I addressed the Secretary of State for India on this subject before I left England, and I have taken some pains to explain, in both railway and mercantile circles, the bearing of the through bill of lading on the competitions, and on the simple action and finance, of shipment and distribution. For such a pur- pose the whole railway system of India, in food and raw material districts, should be worked, for through rate purposes, as one. At present, I fear that system is, on the contrary, worked sectionally, if not, here and there, in antagonism. This is a great question. And now for another great question. Wherever I went all over India, I asked, where are your elevators ? and where are your public warehouses, in which every man, big or little, may deposit his grain, or his jute, or his rice, and take away an official receipt for his property r I found that there was not an elevator in all India ; ' and I could not trace the existence, at least, as a .system, of public depots. Every man his own " Godown," or warehouse. I should here explain that the American elevator is a pul)lic depot for grains, as well as a system of machinery by which grain can be " elevated " to floor levels, and shifted about with great rapidity, cheapness, and benefit to the grain itself As respects the grain trade, our American cousins have developed theirs into a perfect .system, and I never look at the vast, tall, wooden build- ings at Montreal, New York, Chicago : everywhere — even amongst the growing villages on the Canadian Pacific Railway, where, a few years ago, there was nothing but the buffalo and the wandering Indian— without recog- nizing one of the finest phases of industrial progress. To Indian State officials, I say, " Go and see." ii. ( 25 ) The elevator, I repeat, is not only machinery and a deposit warehouse, but, practically, a bank. The pro- cesses are various. The machinery — very much like a chain-pump, with small tin buckets on a band — takes up the grain from the trough, into which it is put out of bags, or from bulk, to the intended floor space, and then through a spout, which can be directed anywhere, it deposits the grain in the allotted space on the floor. If there is any fear of heating or mildew, the grain can be passed up and down, and the friction between grain and grain, in rapid passages, dries and brightens it, and at the same time gets rid of dust and rubbish. And when the grain is sent to market, the elevator machinery puts it into bags, or waggons, or anything, far better and more quickly than could be accomplished by manual labour. So far for the mechanical processes. Now, one great obstacle to cheap storage and distri- bution is varying quality and separate ownerships. At our great grain warehouse, with seven acres of floor, at Grimsby, you find numbers of separate heaps ; and often the wheat or barley heaps, laid side by side, are of exactly the same quality, though, because belonging to separate owners, kept apart. In the United States an independent State officer is appointed, whose duty it is to classify the grain into qualities. I forget the number of classes. I will assume it as six — it may be more or less. Well, you bring (say) i,ooo quarters of wheat to the great elevator of (say) Sturgis & Buckingham, at Chicago. The State officer certifies that it is of No. i — or 2 — or 3 — or 4 — or 5 — or 6 class ; and, accordingly, it is elevated to the floor, or portion of floor, containing the particular quality so numbered. Then you receive from Sturgis & Buckingham a small certificate, stating that you hr.ve deposited so much wheat, of such and such a number of quality. Thus, having put your property t! «i ( 26 ) in safe custody, and g-ot your receipt, you need take no further trouble. If you intend to keep it a while, paying a moderate monthly (I think) charge, and want money, any banker will lend you money on the deposit, or as- signment of your receipt. Gn the contrary, if you prefer to keep your property, you can, at any time, at any city you may be staying at, sell your receipt at any Corn Exchange, and get your money, and have done with it. I am not unmindful of objections in India to this mixing up your property with other people's. They had to be educated up to the common-sense of the matter, even in the United States, as since then they have been educated up to united dairies, and joint stock milk and cheese and butter factories. But assume that the pro- ducer is not ripe for so valuable, because so simple, a s^'^stem, the elevator can still go on. All that would bo needed would be more floor space. But I would point out the moral good of such a classification in leading to an emulation for improved quality, cleanness, &c. I am aware that the great merchants, who now make fortunes by buying locally the dirty grain, full of dust and stones, and sifting and cleaning it before bagging it for market, might object to through rates, elevators, and all ; but the system must prevail, nevertheless. What I have written above apiDlies to grain only. I may, however, "icrition that in many stations in America I have, in past times, seen husking machines for maize (Indian corn), at which any farmer could have his grain husked before transport ; and I see no reason why Indian railways should not provide that, and many other facilities for trade, to the cultivator, at a moderate fixed rate. I take it that what is wanted in India, especially, is — (i) more facilities for storage, transit, and loading and unloading ; (2) places of secure deposit ; (3) facilities for sifting, cleaning and drying ; (4) in connection with ,.l ( 27 ) the two latter, a system of certificates of deposit, on which the cultiva,tor, or the dealer, could borrow money at the lowest rate, or sell at his pleasure, without having more to do than stamp and indorse over his certificate to the purchaser. Now, if this system of deposit were adopted for grains, why not for jute, cotton, or any other product of India r And what is the objection, under a paternal Government, to the railways of India, the property of, or controlled by, the State, providing the warehouses, the machinery, and all the appliances required ? To begin with, it would pay handsomely to do it. Then it would tend largely to develope the resources of the land in competition with competing nations; and, above all — and I ask this ques- tion with grave interest — would it not tend to relieve the poor cultivator from the grasp and tyranny of the bunia, the schroff, and the petty dealer r Again, would it not help the merchant, by providing him with storage for his local purchases ; and might it not be made very useful in many districts, in time of scarcity or famine r for the tendency would always be to keep stocks of food, more or less, at each depot station. Here is my sugges- tion, then, for whatever it may be worth. J Gauge. Whoever proposed the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge for India, for Ceylon, for Canada, and the 5 ft. 3 in. for Ireland, or the 6 ft. gauge for the Erie Railway, was no friend to indus- trial mankind. Indian railways began amidst the smoke of the " War of Gauges" — the 7 ft. Great Western gauge of Brunei, as against the 4 ft. 8| in. of the elder Stephen- son : and I assume 5 ft. 6 in. was adopted in a spirit of compromise. It was certainly an experiment at the cost of the shareholders and the countries affected. The 7 ft. if V ''^ ( jR ) g.iugi; of BruiK.'l lias iH-cn largely obliterated on tho Great Western, save that, for the sake of ancient his- tory, it remains on a small portion of that noble railway, interwoven mostly with the 4 ft. 8^ in, in mixed gauge Avorking. The whole of the ,5 ft. 6 in. gauge lines have been taken up on the Grand Trunk lines in favour of 4 ft. 8J in., and thus the Great Canadian line has become I)art and parcel, without change or break, of the whole railway system of the North American Continent. The Erie 6 ft. gauge has long since disappeared : and, when Ireland is physically connected with Scotland by a tunnel of something over twenty miles — as it can be at a cost often millions sterling— the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge will disappear by the time the fir ^ ^rain runs through from Glasgow to Cork. I went over the Ceylon 5 ft. 6 in. railway from Colombo, as far as Kandy ; and my previous impressions of the absurdity of such a wide, expensive, and needless gauge were greatly strengthened. The line, too, winds about mountains, skirts their edges in a startling way — in one place you look down a perpendicular face of 1,500 feet upon the beautiful green of the young rice — and passes down to Kandy over a summit, — easily avoidable by using valleys full of industry, fertility, and traffic. But I re- member that my old friend, Mr. George Wall, who has done more for the progress of Ceylon than any other man now living (and, who, by the way, in the Jubilee distribution of honours was wholly passed over, probably for that very reason), combatted the railway proposals of the day; but the Governor and his nominated Council carried their own way, and Ceylon has got about a-fifth less railway than it might have had, for the money ex- pended, if using the world's gauge of 4 ft. 8| in. This extravagance has, in India, been the parent of the metre gauge, and of narrower gauges still; and the evil of li i ( -'9 ) change and breaking bulk can only be mitigated by completing the metre gauge connections, whore the length of metre gauge railway amounts to something like a system ; by enlarging the narrower gauges to the metre gauge (39 inches) here and there ; and, especially, by using, in dealing with important centres of traffic, the mixed gauge. The 5 ft. 6 in. gauge has certainly the advantage that a rail may be laid inside it, and thus the narrower vehicles may run through without impediment. This mixing of gauges would in Ceylon much cheapen future extensions, say, to Trincomalio, and other parts of the island now isolated for want of railway commu- nication. I may illustrate my meaning by giving one of my own experiences. The route between Darjeeling and Dhubri, on the Brahmaputra, is full of breaks. You travel on the Darjeeling line of 2 ft., or rather i ft. 11 in., gauge to Siligouri. From Siligouri to Parbatipur, and on to the Teista River, you have the " metre " gauge of 39 in. At the Teista you have to cross the river in a native boat to Darhla, from whence to Teista you have a 2 ft. 6 in. gauge. At Teista you go down and cross the river, again, in a native boat, to Darhla Ghat, whence again there is a 2 ft. 6 in. gauge ; and from Darhla Ghat to Dhubri, 60 miles, you have a Government stern-wheel steamer. Coming upwards from Calcutta, you have to cross the river in a steamer at Sara Ghat, and to change trains. Such breaks and transhipments, on what is the mail route for the Brahmaputra ports and towns, and to Northern Assam, is so obstructive to travelling and interchange, that it is to be hoped that the Indian Government will make the gauge from Siligouri to Darhla Ghat uniform, and will arrange to cross the trains, or vehicles, over the rivers by adequate boats, as was, and is, done in many countries, should they find ,' ( .^^ ) that tlio construction of bridj^os is too costly, or difTicult. where shiftinj^- strfams luive to be dealt with. T-ookinj^' to tli(! future, who will deny that boforo tlu; end of tlir next (juartor of a century India will bo con- nected with i^ni^dand and with Europe by railways on the world's g'auj^e? and, if so, it is not unreasonable to suppose that th(! uniformity introduced, at fjreat cost, in Hn,i,dand. in Canada, and in the United States, will force itself upon India, and that the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge will go "down among the dead men." Railway Extf.xsiox. When the present Secretary for India took oflRce, I took the liberty of long acquaintance to urge him to do a great work, which would redound alike to his credit and contribute in the most marked manner to the growth of Indian industries. At that time all articles of metal were at least ten per cent., all round, cheaper than they are at present. India wanted a fillip, and British indus- tries were in that condition of stagnation out of which things do not start again Avithout a push behind from some quarter or another. My advice was that he should prepare a project for his colleagues, under which the second stage of Indian Railway and other works should be accomplished in a joeriod of five years, taking advan- tage of the unusually favourable conditions of low prices, and also of low freights, — conditions which probably would yield ten to fifteen per cent, more length of Rail- way for a lakh of rupees than might ever be achieved again. For the purpose of the completion of this second stage of development, I proposed that a hundred millions sterling be raised at, or under, three per cent. ; and either on Imperial credit, with an Indian counter guarantee, or absolutely on Indian credit. I did not forget my often repeated advice, that such loans should be N i I ( 31 ) raised by way of terminable annuity, and not perpetual annuity, the term being the oUl-fashion(!(l iiiiRty-nine yours, whieh period meant the assumed duration of the three stories of life, always cxistint,'' toi^ctlu'r — tlie child, the parent, and the grand parnit. The noble Viscount had, I am convinced, the foresight and the courage of the occasion, but little was done. True, the Nagpore line — which op(Misout a good district, where grain has rotted for want of transpcjrt, while famine was decimating the people at no great distance from abundance — was commenced, and is now nearly completed for opening. This Railway will also give a .short route between Bombay and Calcutta. The line com- pleting the comrriunication throughout, as betwei^n th(; Port of Rangoon and Mandalay, in Burmah, has also been opened ; and the military lines on the North Western frontier, together v/ith important works, such as the great .Sukkur Bridge and others, have been proceeded with ; but no distinct mark has been made. One hundred millions sterling would make twenty thousand miles of new railway at five thousand pounds sterling a mile. In his most interesting address, recently delivered at the Society of Arts, .Sir Juland Danvers said, " There is no cause for boasting. ;More railways are reciuinjd ; and it is hoped that private enterprise will step in and provide what is wanted. Government has done much, but the taxes of the couiitry cannot stand a larger demand upon them than they at present bear," &c. But the answer is — (a) That private enterprise will not "step in," except on wasteful terms, leading, I repeat, to India acquiring three miles of railway where she ought to get five at the same annual interest charge ; (b) That if private enterprise did " step in," it would do so slowly, extravagantly, and on no single concentrated system ; and (c) That, as a rule, what is called "private 5 > U ,: ■y^ i>l' ( 3-' ) entorprisn " in India has bor-n, and always will bo, a failure as contrasted with the combinod action of the State, with its perfect credit and the tliorough organiza- tion of its executive. But, on tlie matter of taxation, to stop making rail- ways, to help the Indian IJudget, is simply suicidal. Sir Juland tells us that, while many linos wero in- complete, and many others had boon opened so recently tliat llii-y were undeveloped, still, on the; whole rail- way capital expenditure in 1887, a return of ;^5 : js. f^d. por cent, was realised. Thus the outlay is a profitable inv(!stmont. Assuminj^ the future railways, which have been to a larg-e extent planned and estimated for under the charge of the Indian (iovernment, to do as well, the profit on the capital outlay would be the difference between, not exceeding three per cent, as the cost of the capital, and over £^ per cent, as the profit on the invest- ment as such. But what would be the profit to India, to the Indian of every class, from the labourer upwards ? General Strachey has stated that the present Indian railways give a gain to the country of upwards of forty millions of pounds a-year. Colonel Conway Gordon, the able Director-General of Indian Railways, says : " The whole history of Indian Railways is one long and unsuccessful attempt to get railways constructed without a State guarantee." l"'nglish doctrinaire "fads" do not fit Indian necessities. The refusal to extend Indian Railways on the credit of the State is simply a refusal of a large profit on the investment itself, and a denial to the whole people of India of the far larger profit that investment would create and distribute. But let us mtike one or two comparisons. Canada, with little over five millions of people, has over three-fourths as many miles of railway opened as the whole mileage of India and Burmah ; and Canada, having tried private ( a ) enterprise, has found the absol-ito necessity of State aid, in addition. The United Sta s df Amorici, with sixty millions of people, or a littlo over .i-fiftli of the popula- tion of India and Hurmali, possessed, at tln' end of 1888, one hundred and forty-six tliousand miles of railway. In America, thirteen thousand and eif^dity miles of rail- way were made and opened in the single year, 1887 ; as against the total of fourteen thousand eijjfht hundred and ninety miles, which it has taken forty solid years in India to construct. Is it surprising, then, that America has supplied the Mother Country and some of the Colonies with the corn, the meat, and the cotton which India, to the enrichment of her people, might have furnished ! I always expect to find " old womanism" in all ndmi- nistration of human affairs ; simply because there is a class which "cannot dig, and to beg is ashamed" — who must, under the exigencies of party politics, be put into posi- tions they are unfit to occupy ; and while, as I honestly believe, the disease is not so bad in India as in Great Britain, it may bo bad enough. I have on my table many papers about railway extensions from the Port of Kurrachee — which is four hundred miles nearer England than Bombay — and from the neglected port of Chitta- gong, leading into Upper Assam and Upper Burmah, and, in the future, to connect with China. Well, a Minute of the Government of India — dated Simla, August 25, 1887 — strongly recommends the construction of a new system of railways from Chittagong to Badar- pur, 253^ miles; Laksham, Chandpur branch, 32 miles; Badarpur to Lumding, 115I miles; J.umding to Makum, 2 1 3| miles; Gonhatti branch, i loj miles; Pilchar branch, 18 miles: total, 742 miles. And there can be no doubt that the construction of this system of lines, at a cost of c I i di- }k ( 34 ) .1^6,505,000 (Rs. x), would h(> profitable as an invest- ment, made with cheap Government credit and cash, and would brini,'' to the State and people development, security, and peace. No doubt whatever. " But," the Government jMinute goes on, "fully as the Government of India recognizes the importance of ojiening up by railway the tracts of Eastern Bengal and Assam, now in question, they are not in a financial position which Avould justify the offer of a guarantee /or a pircly com- mercial railway, and must, therefore, adhere to the deci- sion of January, 1883 Sjunv lui-Mrn six and seven years ago, with nothing (toni\ by which the project was classed in Schedule B., and can receive no aid from the State beyond such as is comi^riscd in a concession under what are known as Bengal and North Western terms." Now, what is the pith and the arithmetic of cdl this ? It is ad- mitted that this system of railways is most essential. But it is stated that the (xovernment is "not in a finan- cial position which would justify the offer of a guarantee for a purely commercial railway." The " purely com- mercial" railway pays : the purely military railway does not. Therefore Government is in a financial position to construct the latter, but not the former. Iroing back and applying the figures preceding, the arithmetic Avould be this : had the Indian Government gone ahead over six years ago and done the work with their own 3 per cent, capital, they might have made a profit of over 2 per cent, on ;^6,505,ooo =in six years to nearly a million : and the people, apjilying the figures stated of the profit in development and general benefit, would have received, all round (as ;£40,ooo,ooo is to an outlay of ^182, 879,655) = about ;£7, 500,000, on an outlay of /;6,505,ooo for (sc^y) six years, plus compound profit. I give the figures as I have received them. I see little to .\ ( 35 ) object to in them ; but if they are approximate in tlio slightest degree what are we to say about th(^ Simla Minute r I question the entire exactness of the division of "military," and "purely commercial" railways. Tt is, no doubt, a question of degree ; but, in principle, every railway must sen'e all purposes, more or less. But the " commercial " railway is assumed to be eminently remunerative, while the military is not. Thus the Simla Minute assumes that " private enterprise " is to do what will pay, and the State what will not pay. It will be observed that the rough estimates above assume that six years of benefit have been wiped out, and tend to show the loss by the delay. The, undeniable, advance of the wages of labour, is no small portion of this profit to the people, of ^40,000,000 annually. If the reader will consult the Appendix to the " Final Report of the Royal Commission on Gold and Silver," he will find a table showing the average wages of agri- cultural and skilled labour in selected districts of India and Burmah. Excluding Burmah and sea-ports — where wages are abnormally high — the average wages where the country has been opened up are, for common labourers 59 rupees per annum, and for skilled labourers 152 rupees per annum, as compared with the calculation of INIr. Bar- bour, the Financial Secretary, in 1882, of 27 rupees per annum. Note. — Five years ago, when India had less than 11,000 miles of railway, General Strachey, the highest authority, probably, when asked whelhcr the construction of railways in India had increased the value of land so far as to enable the people to more easily contribute the taxes they have to pay, rcjilied : ' ' Certainly. The relief to the countiy is immense. The saving to the [icople of India is, probably, twice the gross income received by the railway companies. c 2 1 f 'I ] :«' !i ( 36 ) U is a very lnif;c sum iiidrcd ; it amounts to ^^30,000,000 or /■40,ooo,ooo, priihalily, (7h;/;/(;//i'." 'llnis, in lS.''8-9, with nearly 15,000 miles of railway, against 1 1,000, the people's gain must be over thc/'40,ooo,ooo I have assumed, above. But, at the Society of Arts, Sir Charles Bernard, now Revenue Secretary at the India Olhce, said : " The Government of India is often t.uiiileil willi haviiij,' directly lost forty millions sterling on the whole railway account in the last thirty years. I do not hesitate to .say that the people of India have benefited, every year, to that extent by the introduction of railways in that country." ( 37 ) COMPARATIVE RATES of Carriage, by Railway, in INDIA and the UNITED STATES. ■|i It is very difficult to contrast the rates and fares on United States and on Indian railways. There is the difference of currency, the difference of weights and measures ; and the drawbacks, transit combinations and rings in America ; dollars and cents are one thing ; rupees, annas and pies, quite another. Then there is the "maund" in India, and the loo lbs. with 2,000 lbs. to a ton — and not 2,240 lbs. as in England— in the United States. Then the circumstances of the people, as regards passenger travelling, in the two cantries are totally dissimilar. Thus, I should have been in despair in trying to make even an approximate contrast, if my kind friend and old acquaintance, Mr. T. W. Wood, of the Bombay and Baroda Railway, had not given the following information : — 45, FiNsnuRY Circus, London, E.C. 6//; April, lUq. My Dear Sir Edward, I have pleasure in enclosing two Statements, prepared on the same basis, giving some selected long distance actual rates for railway carriage of main descriptions of produce or manufacture now in force in India. The one marked (A) relates to this Company's system ; the other, marked (B), relating to the East Indian Railway, and furnished to me for i ^^ - jH I 4} ( 38 ) I a/ fu I t n I I i comimiiiication to you by my I'ricmJ, Mr. Dunstan, the Secre- tary of that Company. Tlicsc SUitcmenls will, I hope, supply you with t' t information you wish for, as rcf,Mr(ls India, in an authentic shape. I wish I couUl give you similarly authentic particulars as regards American rates, but I have no reliable or sufficient ilctails. Poor's Manual for ib86 stales, iiowcver, that for the year 1SS5 the averages on 123,110 miles operated by American (U.S.) Railroad Companies were as follows, viz.: — rents Per passciigir per mile 2* 1 98 Per ton (2,000 lbs.) of goods per mile '"oS? Now, Conway Gordon's Report on Indian Railways for 1 887 iiulicak's (see para. 12, Chap. VIII., page 98, Part I.), dividing receipts by mileages of units, that ihe average receipts on 13,578 miles worked were as follows, viz. : — pies Per passenger per mile 2-50 Per ton of goods (2,240 lbs.) per mile 7* 17 These average rates represent, taking the rupee as = \s. ^d. sterling, and the dollar as = 4^. sterling — !o'23 pence, or ©•48 cents, this being little more than one-fifth of the average American charge — For goods, an average receipt per ton of(°"57 pcnce, 2,000 lbs., of, say, per mile | ,. j^ zQXi\.<,, this being about izj per cent, more than the average American chargi;. The Statements I enclose show that main staples of Indian agricultural produce are carried at much lower rates than the averages (luoted. Believe me. My dear Sir Fdward, Sincerely yours, T. W. WOOD. Sir E. W. Watkin, Bart., M.P. -•i i ( 39 ) ;i (A) BOMBAY, BARODA, AWD CENTRAL INDIA RAILWAY (includes the Rajputana State Railway, tlic Iloikar State Railway, the Sindia-Necmiich State Railway, the Riioari- Fcrozcporc State Railway, and the Cawnpore-Achnera State Railway). Long Distance Rates. March, 1889. Exchange, \s, $(1. the rupee ; one Ion = 2,000 lbs. T.S. means transhipment at Sabarmati from one gauge to another. WmcAT. Delhi to Bombay, T.S. 888 miles. iQxis. 9/>. per maund == Rs.lb : $tis. 3/. per ton. . =j^i : 3J. lijd. per ton, or 'jiJi/. per ton mile. Cawitjiuie to Bombay, T.S. 1,071 miles. Rs.'') : 2as. SJ>. per 100 maunds — A'.j-. 1 9 ; ^ns. 10/. per ton. —jC^ '• "•''■ 3''- P'^f ^o") "r 'jOSi/. per ton mile. I'ooi) Grains (other tliau wheat, including rice). Dcl/ii to Bombay, T.S. 888 miles. I las. per niaund = Rs. 16 : I las. 4/. per ton. ^£1 ■■ 3^. 8(/. per ton, or •3191/. per ton mile. Cawnpore io Bombay, T.S. 1,071 miles. Rs.'i): llfW.pcr loomaunds = /?J.i9 : ^as. iij>. per Ion. =£1 : 7j. Sj. perloomaunds=/?.f.i8 : las. 5/. per ton. =£1 : is, 'Id. per ton, or •3751'. per ton niile. Kharaghoda to Agra, T.S. 594 miles. loas. Sp. per maund = Rs.is : lias. 2p. per ton. = £1 : 2s, S. per ton. (for 800 miles) = £^ '■ 'S'f- 'oW. per ton, or 'Hid. per ton mile. i Cotton. (1) Full-pressed, i.e., more than 24 lbs, per cubic foot. Broach to Bomboy, 202 miles. 401. I/. pi.r maunJ = Rs.b : 3«j. 3/. per ton. = 8j. Qf/. per ton, or •'•)\^d. per ton mile. U'udwan to Bombay, 377 miles. Sas. lop. per maund = Jis.i^ : 6as. Hp. per ton. = igs. per ton, or '604^. per ton mile, (2) Half-pressed, i.e., d to w lbs. per cubic foot. Broach to Bombay, 202 miles. las. \p. per maund = Rs.xo \ \zas. 2/. per ton. = lis. 3rf. per ton, or -ryoid. per ton mile. Wudwan to Bombay, %11 miles. was. c)p. per maund = i?j'.i7 : 130^. lp. per ton. = £1 '■ S-f- 2i2^- P'-'' *°ni o"" "SoSi/. per ton mile. (3) Three-quarter pressed, i.e., between 11 a//(/ 24 /is. /<.r cubic foot, carried at approximately proportionate intermediate rates. Piece Goods, yam and twist (in bales). Bombay to Agra, T.S. 847 miles. Rs.2 : 2,as. \p. per maund =i?j'.53 : i,as. Sp. per ton. =£3 '■ 'S-f- 6'A per ton, or i-oCcjd. per ton mile. Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. Rs.z : Cas. 'ip. per maund= A'.y.s8 : <)as. c)p. per ton. =£\ : 3^. o\d. per ton, or v\2\d. per ton mile. Bombay to Ca'.i'npore, T.S. 1,0/1 miles. Rs.222 ; i\as. per 100 mounds =/i?j'.54 : oas. 3^. per ton. =£y. i6j.C;}rf. perton,or-8s7rf.per ton mile. Coal. Bombay to Wudinan, 377 miles. Saj. Up. per maundi-i./fj-.S : 153^. lop. per ton. = ^0 : 12^. 9(/. per ton, or -405 per ton mile. Iron and Steel. Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. 140^. 8/1. per maund = .ffx.22 : i^as, 6/. per ton. = £1 : us. did, per ton, or •426 ) TiMHER (unwroufjht;. Bombay to IVudiuan, yil miles. ^ai. per maund = ^j-.io: icias. \p, per ton. =^0: \%s. o\d. per ton, or •47O"'. per ton mile. Kerosine Oil. Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. Rs.i : yis. dp. per maund = lis.zr) : (yas. 1 1/>. per ton. = £2: IS. nil/, per ton, or '5071/. per ton mile. T. W. W. 45, FiN.sBURY Circus, E.G., bih April, 1889. lii (B) EAST INDIAN RAILWAY. Long Distance Rates. February, 1889. Exchange, is, sd, the rtpee; one ion =: 2,000 lbs. Wheat, Edible Grains, Seeds, &c. Delhi to Howrah, 954 miles. ./?j.S3per ioomaunds = .^i'.i2 : \\as. i/>. perton. = i8j. T)d. per ton, or •22()d. per ton mile. Cotton and Wool (from .Sahamnpur and beyond). Ghaziabad to Howrah, 941 miles. /?j.4 : oas. 9/. per bale of 300 lbs. v =^ .^^.26 : l^as. 8/, per ton. (pressed to not less than 43 lbs. | =^£i ■ iSs.2\d. per ton, or •487(/. per ton per c. foot). / mile. Coal. Gerideh to Delhi, 795 miles. Rs.l% per 100 maunds = Rs.ii^ : las. dp. per ton. = 19J. ii\d. per ton, or 'loid. per ton mile. Salt. Howrah to Cawnpore, 684 miles. .^f.4S per 100 maunds ==.^J. 10: ijaj. o/>. per ton. := I5.f. bd. per ton, or •272^. per ton mile. !,.i I ( 4i ) I'U'.CK Gooi)>. J/ou'iah to viii jubbul/>i>n, 71X4 miles. A'j.165 per 100 maunds = /i'j.40 : \as. 7/. per ton. =;f2 : 16^. 9J1/. per ton, or •i'jd. per Ion mile. Ikon, .SiKri-, .Siki.tf.k, anu Zinc. llowiah lo Delhi, 954 miles. A'.).8o jjcr loo mauiuls = A'j-.ifj : ;as. i/>. per ton. = £\ : 's, bd. per ton, or •34Grf. per ton mile. Kerosine (for Saharunpur and beyond). Jlowrah to rid Ghaziabad, 941 miles. A'j.79 : 4M>«HniHMH ( 45 ) work. But a steam cngino and considorabli* i)lanl is already in the field at Rawal Piiuli, and in view nl' tlic many and good shows which mark the rocks at the sur- face, after climbing through, perhaps, hundnjds contractor has selected, in the manner here- after in tliis article provided, fivt^ blocks of land in tin- area and for tiie purposes in this article descritjed, whichever may first happen," that " the contractor (Noble) shall enjoy the exclusive rij^ht of prospecting for earth oil throni^-hout the whole of the Punjaub as now existing, north and west of a line drawn from the town of Jammu to the town of Sialcot, lhenc(! following the line of the railway viA Wa/irabad, Lala Musa, Pind Dadan Khan, and Kundian to Khoawar, and from the last-named place due west to the Western frontier of the Punjaub." A reference to the map will show tin- excessive area of this •' exclusive right" of prospecting. Then the "blocks" may "be less than, but shall not exceed, five in number," and they " shall bo square, with sides each four miles long, each block amounting to 16 square miles in total area." That is, the contractor has the "exclusive right" to find out the best and richest sites, and then may select 80 square miles of such best sites. The acreage is 51,200 acres. Clause 4 stipulates that the contractor " shall imme- diately after the execution of this agreement proceed to Canada, and shall bring out with all despatch to the area specified in Article I. . . . machinery, tools, skilled mechanics, and all other necessary machinery and appliances, sufiicient for the purpose of effectively pro- secuting his search for earth oil with all due diligence and despatch, and shall put doAvn, to a depth of 500 feet each, not less than 10 wells in the area specified in Article i before the expiration of the period referred to in the said article." ( vl < !' 1 Pi ( 48 ) T cannot find that Mr. Noble has complied with this clause, so far — but he may be doing so. Then by Clause 7 : " The Government agrees .... to buy from the contractor during a term of five years, at a fixed rate of 1 1 Rs. 4a. 3p. per cwt., whatever quantity of lubricating oil may from time to time be required l)y the North Western Railway, and not in any case less than 804 tons per annum. The said oil to be delivered in bulk by the contractor into tank-wagons of the said railway, &c." The price named is ;£2 2 : los. a ton, in silver, or ;^ 1 8,000 per annum, minimum, or a total purchase by the Indian Government equal to ;^90,45o, in silver, in the five years. The price deserves criticism. Then, " The Government agrees to transport, during a period of five years, over all Indian railways worked by the State, any quantity of earth oil extracted from wells sunk under this agreement, and of products manu- factured b)'' the contractor .... at the uniform rate of one quarter pie per maund {%2 lbs.) per mile in the case of consignments of full wagon-loads." No land taxes are to be levied on the contractor. Clause 1 1 stipulates that the royalty receivable by the Government, "by way of land revenue or rent," shall be "the value of one-twentieth part (calculated at the rate of three rupees for every 3 1 5 pounds weight of crude earth oil)," &c. Clause 16 stipulates that "The contractor shall not nor will assign, sub-let, or otherwise transfer or dispose of the rights and privileges conferred by this agreement, save with the written consent of the Government first had and obtained." Clause 5 is peculiar : " For every well up to, but not exceeding, a maximum of ten in all, sunk by the contractor for the purpose of ( 49 ) prospecting only, and previously to the selection by him of the blocks of land hereinbefore in Article i of this agreement referred to, to the depth of five hundred feet or more, below the level of the ground, which does not produce earth oil in remunerative quantities, and is, con- sequently, abandoned by him, the Government will (but subject always to the proviso hereinafter in this article contained) pay to him the sum of Rs. 2,500 on account of each such well so abandoned : Prmndcd always, that nothing shall be payable by the Government to the con- tractor on account of any such well, unless and until he shall have filled up such, and shall have removed any obstructions which he may have placed in, on, or near the same ; and the contractor hereby binds himself to fill up all such wells so abandoned, and to remove all such obstructions in, on, or near the same." Now, I simply ask what the Government has got, or can get, by thus giving a monopoly of discovery to Mr. Noble ? I may be told that Mr. Noble's " blocks " are "alternate;" so that a spare block will always be between his blocks. I have little doubt that this agree- ment was made in the despair of the Indian Executive of getting any better means sanctioned under the shadow of "private enterprise." We must try to change all this. \n % 11 l^vil [III f< v\ I 1 ( V ) INDIAN «' PRIVATE ENTERPRISE," AND THE NON-DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN RE- SOURCES. I NEVER like to be knocked down by such phrases as "individual efFc*:," "private enterprise," and so on. The individual, t,'"' ■:o-operation of individuals, have functions, no dot . "^n i great ones. But they do not possess the vast powers of the State. And thus, when State work is handed over to " private enterprise " — usually with some job at the back of it — there is a muddle and a mess. So it will alwa3's be. Private enterprise — meaning the action of individuals, or the association of indiv-iduals unassisted by guarantees, special privileges, or adequate grants in aid — has, it seems to me, been a costly failure in India. It has been a mistake — as respects irrigation works, railways, docks, and harbours, the getting and working of minerals, and so on — to rely upon it. It is true that spinning and weaving companies in cotton, and in jute, cotton press companies, and other such organizations, employing the cheap and sharp labour of the country, have done fairly well. It is true that one or two manufacturers have left England and set up mills in India, and have made fortunes, free from hostile legislation and trade- unions. Cawnpore may be cited as a good example ; and its boot and shoe factory, where little children take D 2 ■■J i1 •II m ( 52 ) Rtitchinj:^ and othor piece-work, and employ as subs lesser children at small pittances, to aid them — is very iiitereslini^ proof of the attraction of regular work with rejiCular money wages to all child-kind in India. Such industries are local and domestic : no doubt they will spread, there is plenty of room ; and freedom from factory inspectors and strikes for wages — at least at present — are valuable. People in England often forget that the Government of India is paternal : and that when it ceases to be so, it will cease altogether— so far as the Sovereign and people of England are concerned. How the Statesmen of such a Government can, even now, call out for "private enterprise" to come into their parlour and make great public works — as, for example, the rail- ways of 720 miles, needed to open out Assam by the Chittagong, Cachar and Dibrughar, and the Goalunda routes, with any expectation of present or future success (except by paying through the nose), — is past my understanding. They know well that they never have, and never will, to the world's end, raise money on bad credit as well as on good. They know that the Govern- ment credit always brings the cheapest money, and the largest native investments. They forget the deterring effect on the confidence of capital of these annual meet- ings of delegates, where combination and treason-talk is l^ermitted, and the day of native rule over English people, and their property, predicted. They ought to know that almost everything within the range above defined, hitherto committed to " private enterprise," has either had to be bought back again, or is now languishing in the little- ness of its results. And what is the consequence ? why, that enlargement of the means of transport, and extension of irrigation, and docks and harbours, go on at snails- paces ; and that the " development of the vast mineral resources " of India has no existence whatever — while ( 0,1 ) the Indian Government is waiting for the moon to come to bed to them. Fifty years ago it was known to the Indian Govern- ment that wonderful deposits of coal existed in Assam : notably, around and south of Makum, in the cxtn>me north-east of the English boundary, — as well as in other districts, such as Shillong, for instance. Some eight or nine years ago "private enterprise," in the persons of a Calcutta firm of merchants (since in dissolution, I hear, got a "concession" from the Indian Government of 30 square miles of coal land, and of the coal and petroleum in it, in the north-east of Assam. This " private enter- prise" sold its rights for a "consideration" to a London Company : that London Company has spent ;^720,ooo on 87 miles of railway and in opening up the coal, and has parted with a few hundreds to refine the petroleum found in 1863 by Mr. Metcalf — who had to abandon his efforts for want of capital and of transport, — and in poking about in two other places. This company — " private enterprise " — after raising money in all sorts of ways, and being put to great straits, earns about i per cent, on its capital, to which must be added an annual " Lakh," as subsidy from India, now reduced to £'j,2oo in gold in London, by reason of the depreciation in silver (almost all of which is absorbed in paying high interest upon its debenture debts). The " royalty" paid by the company on coal sent to market is three annas a ton, in silver, or fourpence half-penny in silver, or about threepence in gold. The largest get of coal, according to the company's last report, for the year 1887, was 87,000 tons, on which the royalty in silver would be ;£i,630, as against the subsidy of a lakh, or ;^ 1 0,000 in silver. So much for the profit and loss account, as between the Indian Government and "• pri- vate enterprise" in Assam. The account would be more i n » Hi '^K Pi I V f ( 54 ) unsatisfactory still if past years', greater, losses were totall(,'d up. Hut the account as between the industrial unci other interests of India and " private enterprise" is summed up thus : the Indian taxpayer has been paying thousands a year in subsidies, yet the coal — existing in abundance and most easily worked — has not been got out of the ground and sent to market in any adequate quantity, When I was at Dibrughar, I saw about 50,000 tons of this really fine coal lying in stacks on the sandy, muddy shore — the " private enterprise " directors in London having forbidden its sale to a steamship com- pany trading up there who wanted it, because of some quarrel between that steamship company and another steamshiji company — each controlled by a leading Scotchman — into which quarrel "private enterprise" had foolishly, and needlessly been thrown. Then, as to petroleum, which, so far as the Govern- ment agent's practical opinion goes, lies up there in boundless quantity — not a physic-bottleful has been sent to market after all these years under this " private enter- prise." The date of the original concession was May, 1880. There are plenty of parallels. In the above case, "private enterprise" has fought against great odds and vast difficulties. It has opened a highway into a wilderness. ^Maybe, in time, it will get its money back. But the great purpose of quickly and thoroughly develop- ing the production of coal and petroleum in the wonder- ful district of North Assam is too big for " private enter- prise ;" and " private enterprise" has merely kept out the energy of the State. The " Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India during the year 1886-7, 23rd number" — ordered by the House of Commons to be printed loth August, 1888 — throws a deal of light on > I ( 55 ) this " private enterprise" business, though it liides a good deal. For instance, no statement of the royalties paid, and services done, by " private enterprise" is given, under any " head." Under the head of "Mines and Mineral Resources" (p. 2107), it is therein recorded: — "Out of 105 collieries, there were 69 at work during the year. They em- ployed 24,794 hands, as compared with 22,745 in the previous year : and the total output of coal rose from 1,294,221 tons to 1,388,487 tons. The total imports of coal from Europe and Australia during the year were 765,668 tons." Now, as the East India and other Railways are the owners and workers of coal-mines for their large and increasing working consumption, I can understand where the increase over 1884-5 ^i-^^ come from. Certainly, where " private enterprise," in the main, has got concessions for 105 collieries, and only works 6g of them, development cannot be going on very fast. But it must be remembered that coal has been mined and carried along the great rivers and railways of India for, certainly, a generation ; and yet the total output is less than one-eightieth of the output of the coal areas of England, Wales, and Scotland. So much for coal. Now for iron. This Blue Book says : — " Iron is worked to a limited extent, after native methods, in all provinces, and in many districts. The Barrakur Ironworks, which have, within a radius of five miles, excellent coal, iron, and lime, did not pay any- thing during the year : the stock of pig-iron rose from 677 tons to 3,683 tons, and there were few buyers." Now this iron-works was "private cnterjirise," which failed ; and then the Government took it in hand, and, apparently, has made a mess of it, for want of a proper ■V. iii w !H ff iV If •i; ; I, j ■| i ' f \ ■ II r 1 ( 56 ) practical staff, and by prudging the capital necessary to enable a trade to be conducted large enough to pay. But I return to petroleum. This Blue Book says: — " The companies working petroleum on the Arakan coast have failed, and earth oil, there, is raised only by native workers on a limited scale. The Upper Burma oil-field, near Tenangyoung, is being prospected, and the old oil wells are being worked under the same system as under the Burmese rule. The oil is brought down to Rangoon, to a refinery. It yields a comparatively small proportion of burning oil, and the industry is not at present flourishing. At the end of the year (1887) the Khatun oil-field in Baluchistan was still being investigated ; and it is hoped that it may pay to burn this oil in locomotives on the Quetta Railway." So much for a product, of which there is probably more in the various regions of India than in all the United States or Russia. But I will return to this (Sibi) oil-find hereafter. Now for copper. The Blue Book says : " Though copper ore is found in many parts of India, and was worked in old times, and though some little copper is .still worked in Rajputana, nearly all the copper used in India comes now from Europe, China, and Australia." Then as to lead, " Lead is found in great quantities : but the company joined to work the rich lead mines of Tenasserim was at a standstill, and the only lead work- ings, of which report was made during 1886-7, were the mines in the Shan States, some of which were visited by an officer of the Geological Survey." The next quotation is as to tin : "Tin is produced by Chinese miners in the south of the province of Tenas- serim ; but the Mergui mines are not nearly so productive as tin mines further down the Malay peninsula." , i ( 57 ) I give next (p. io8) all that affects British India as to gold : — " No gold sources, except river sand, yielding a very poor out-turn, as with gold workings in Continental India, have yet been discovered in Upper Burma." The report says of the Mysore State: — "Altogether five mines are returned as having been worked in Mysore and the Madras Presidency. Only one corfipany is siiid to be in a flourishing condition, and the ^lysore Govern- ment report the output of that company to be about 2,000 ounces a month. Though extensive areas have been granted for gold mining in Mysore, actual mining operations have been carried on only in a very small and insignificant proportion of the areas taken up ; and in no case has the work been carried on by the applicants for the grant themselves." So much for " private enter- prise" and gold grants. Then as to silver : " The only silver mining of which report has been made is the extraction of silver from lead works in the Shan Hills. !Many silver mines are reported to exist in the Shan Hills ; but, as yet, only one or two sites on the western edge of the Shan States have been visited." " Visited " by whom ? I regret I cannot find, so far, anywhere, reports as to the perennial visits and the doings of the " officers of the Geological Survey." I was told that one of them said of a place, where coal has since been found in abundance, that " if ever coal were found there he would eat it." Has he done so r What is wanted is the experienced miner, and deep borings systematically made, and not mere theorists in geology. A system of rewards for native "findings" would operate well. The Russian Government at Bakou are developing their vast petroleum supplies, and already they are com- petitors of growing importance with the United States |i m I ^4! UJ M V f ■; i J ( 5H ) and Caiuuhi, cvon in the Indian markets; and had Uio Indian Governmont shown a titbo of the onorjjfy dis- played by Russia, Indian petroleum might l)y this time have shared the whole trade, with a fair prospect of pro- vidiniif the l)ulk of Indian supply, hereafter. An interesting article, the work of a Russian engineer, appeared in the ** Revue dcs deux. Mondes," last October. I recommend it to the perusal of all who care about the subject, and I translate the following short extract. I may premise by stating that tht; production of petro- leum in the United States and Canada, in 1884. was 3,023,253 tons ; and it was probably 4,000,000 tons in 1 888, a quantity which, at the price per ton agreed to be paid by the Indian Government to Mr. Noble, as shown on page 48, would be worth ^90,000,000, in silver. " In comparing the Russian oflicial reports with those of the United States, the annual production of the hitter would be about double that of Russia. The propor- tion would even be greater — approaching three-fold — in favour of the United States, if we admit the approximate estimates of M. Hue, who brings the annual production of the United States up to 5,376 millions, and those of Russia up to 1,954 millions, of kilogrammes. (Bakou, 1,932,000,000; Caucasia, 6,720,000; and Transcaucasia, 15,624,000, kilogrammes.) It would result from this that Bakou supplies very nearly the total of the annual pro- duction, since tVs Jigtire quantity is more than 80 times above that of all the other Russian localities put together. But the district of Bakou, even including all the peninsula of Apcheron, has only an area of 1,828 kilometres square, of which a portion only has been worked ; it will be seen, therefore, how the producing power of the United States is inferior to that of Bakou in the light of the proportion between the product and the extent of territory which furnishes it. In fact, thfit of ( 59 ) the Unitod States being 92 1,355 kilonnitrrs square, or five hundred times the oxti'nt of tho peninsula of A pi heron, the United States ought to produce, not merely two or three times, but five hundred times, more than Russia. This important fact proves that the richness of the supply of Bakou amply compensates for what it wants in extent of area. In fact, we have seen that the wells of Bakou give, daily, iibout three times as much as those of the United States. Besides that, the enormous height to which the jets of petroleum at Bakou are thrown upwards, constitutes a further proof in favour of the power of the mass which evicts those jets, of which the height at Bakou attains to 84 metres, as ag;iinst 19 metres in the United States. In a word, the richness of Bakou is such, that IMarvin has been able to state, without exag- geration, what the most fa\'ourcd American miners could imagine: miners obliged to sink to great depths before finding the stores below, which in Russia are not far distant from the surface of the soil ; the masses which are plunged in its bowels being reserved for the future." The importation of petroleum into the United King- dom — coming from everywhere except India — was 16,613,000 gallons in 1874, and 77,390,435 gallons in 1887. So there is a vast market at home. I want specially to contrast the energetic action of Russia with thu non-understandible inaction of India. I go on to quote the report as to the ruby mines of Burma. The report says : " The Burma ruby mines, the only source of first-class rubies in the world, arc not yet scientifically worked .... Rubies exist, and arc worked from the layers of gravel and earth below the surface, and also from clefts in the magnesian limestone, which is the matrix of the gems .... The working is, however, at present, clumsj', unscientific, and wasteful. It is ex- pected that when machinery and experience are brought i n I !•! ( ^o ) to l)rar (in llu' ruby sr)urce.s, a much larger output of rubies will he socurcd." Tht'ii as to diamonds : " .... no satisfactory results were j^faiiu-d l)y jirospoctors for diamonds, who visited a part of thi' Deccan, which is reported to have yielded diamonds several centuries ago." One great difldculty in ruby and other mines is the avoidance of theft. While I was in Calcutta I gave ijioo to a well-known merchant to buy, when occasion offered, a ruby for my dear daughter. In course of discussion this gentleman told me a story he had heard from a lead- ing native dealer in precious stones. It illustrates my meaning : A Burmese got illicit possession of a splendid ruby at the mines ; he had a hole cut in a non-dangerous part of the inside of his leg; he put the ruby inside, and waited till the wo'ind had healed up ; and he then started for Calcutta, where he cut his leg open again, and sold the ruby for ^2,000. Now, where it is as easy to steal, or buy from the stealer, as it is to secrete precious stones — plain men would say, that the strongest power of watch, of search, and of punishment, was essential. That strongest power must ever rest with the Executive Government. "Private enterprise " is nowhere in such a case. Yet the Govern- ment of India has handed over " cue only source of first- class rubies in the world " to an enterprising and adver- tising firm of jewellers in London. Robbing them will be robbing the " poor taxpayer of India" (always quoted when uncovcnanted servants are to be cheated out of sterling pensions), and robbed they will be. " Private enterprise " again ! How do the Indian Government propose to account with " private enterprise " in such a case ! Now, let us look at " private enterprise " and the vital work of irrigation. I will only quote one sentence from •I ! ( 6, ) "this samo" Rluo Book, p. i p — " Tho irrijjfatinn works of the Cauvery, Kistna, and Godavory dfltas, and of Sind, yield net returns of nion- than in per rent, on the capital outlay; and the ^reat canals of Upper India will yield about 5 per cent, when complete. jUit llit; irri- ffation account is burdened with Rx. 8,812,423 capital expended on tho Orissa, Kurnool, Sono, and Deccan Canals, of which tho Orissa and Kurnool Canals were taken over from private companies, and none of which yield any appreciable dividend." Let it be remembered that, excepting a few embarrass- ing concessions dotted over tho land, the granting of such things being always, however unjustly, open to sus- picion — concessions which merely stop the way, owing to the weakness of the concessionaire — all the minerals — gold, silver, iron, cojipcr, tin, lead, precious .stones, coal, petroleum, fire-chiy, and so on, — are the property of the British Empire, the rulers and best friends of India. It is not as in England, where private owners possess the underground treasures of the land, and levy heavy royalties. The vital importance of the development of the mineral resources of India may be regarded in several serious lights: (i) as the way to redress — by the production and sale of minerals on a large scale — the gold and silver Indian Government difficulty. India has to pay ;^ 14,000,000 annually in gold in England; and it loses about a third of that sum by having to realize in silver. If it could pay this ;^ 14,000,000 by the sale of its mineral and other resources, the difficulty would dis- appear. Again, (_') as a means of effecting thereby i large reduction of the taxation of the people, 01 us a means of promoting needful and profitable public works. Again, (3) as affecting enormously the employment and — the same thing in a better shape — the comfort, and .IM \ f' ( 62 ) quietude of the people. Attain, (4) as rendering India and Kngland less dependent on the great protectionist United States : and, (5) last of all, as giving a powerful, imni(;diate, and healthy push along to the whole industry, commerce, and wealth of India. Let me return once more to the petroleum question. Thi>re is hardly a town or village in India, from the Kyber Pass, and Sadija, in the extreme east of Assam, to Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, where the American petroleum is not used and sold — superseding mustard oil, cotton-seed oil, and other native lubricants and illumi- nants. One sees everywhere the inevitable Yankee soldered tin can, bearing the inscription, "Warranted to contain 65 pounds net of the pure kcTosene oil, from the celebrated Sun Refinery of Yankeedoodledum, U. S." The empty cans are used for water carrying, and for all conceivable purposes, all over India. Certainly it does " rile " one to know that where our monopolist cousins are driving a roaring trade — free of import duty— all over India, there are stores of petroleum far exceeding, as I believe, all that exists between the Canadian boun- dary and the Gulf of Mexico : and, still, not one drop of Indian petroleum has yet found its way into the great markets of the world. But, alas ! this applies of many other Indian things besides petroleum. ( 63 ) GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF MINERAL AND OTHER DEVELOPMENT. 'IP I ADVOCATE the establishment of a State department for the development of the great mineral resources of India. Those resources, now, are all but lying dormant and neglected. If objection be taken to the devotion of the .State Executive to the development of the State's property, or to the capacity of that Executive for so serious a duty, reference should be made to what the State and its Executive undertakes now. By the " .State " I mean, of course, the Government of India in its dual condition, of the Viceroy and his Council, in India, and the Secretary of State for India and his Council, in England. To begin with (taking the year ended 31st December, 1887), the State has made, or taken over, and is working and managing, 8,816 miles of railway ; and is supervising, and will probably take over, in whole or in part, 3,902 miles of railway, which have been constructed under its guarantee. It has reserved power to take over the 595 miles of "assisted railway"; while, also, it keeps a watch, and practically controls, 753 miles of "Native State" rail- ways. I find in the " Summary" of the " Statement" I am using, that, "on the 31st March, 1888, there were 14,338 miles of open railway in India, of which 988 miles were opened during the previous twelve months ; 'rlt >.' ii I 'I \ ■ , r ( 64 ) 2,487 miles more wore under construction." But no doubt the State's participation in construction, working and control, was the same as in the year ended 31st December, 1887. Therefore, it is fair to state that, substantially, the railways in India are the charges of the State. So are the telegraphs ; and the Indian Government make submarine cables at their establish- ment beyond Kurrachee. As respects agriculture, the " Summary " reports, "There is now an Agricultural Department, with a selected officer for its director, in every large province of India. One of the chief objects to which this officer gives attention is, the maintenance and improvement of the village field map and record of rights, which ought to be corrected and re-written yearly for every village in the Empire." Then there is a " Forest Department," " manned by European officers," specially trained, which conserves, cuts down, and sells timber, plants new forests, and establishes " fire protection." But the great " Land Revenue" Department manages the whole State property with its millions of tenants, and which yields a revenue " proper" of;^22,50o,ooo, in silver, thus : " permanently settled estates, ;^4,3 11,000; temporary settled estates, held by proprietary brotherhoods or large proprietors, ^10,399,000; held by pett)'' proprietors on what is called Ryotwaree tenure, ,^7,790,000," or in total ;^22, 500,000, in silver. Then, further, a department of the State Executive manages, under the title of " Wards' Estates," the estates of minors and incapa le persons and encum- bered estates, of which, in 1886-7, there were 999, with a revenue of ,^1,849,000, in silver (Rx.). Coming to great sources of revenue, the State plants, buys, manufactures, packs, sells, and generally manages the great opium revenue. This revenue in 1886 was ;^8,942,976 gross, and ;^6,2 14,000 net, in silver (Rx.). The State, again, I , ( 65 ) manufactures 48 per cent., and mines 22 per cent., of ah the salt consumed in India, only 30 per cent, coming in, on duty, from abroad. The gross salt revenue nas _;^6,657,644, in silver, in 1886-7. Beside all this, the State is sole postman, sole tele- graph constructor, worker, and manager; carries out and manages the great irrigation works, and all civil and military works. It charges itself with the botanical and other gardens, exchanging, through its able officers, such as Dr. King, of Calcutta, and others, seeds and plants with all the world. Under the State, chinchona and other valuable drugs are grown upon "3,052 acres of Government plantation in Sikkim and the Nilgiri hills, and 11,417 acres of private plantations. The yield of the Sikkim plantation was 225,631 lbs. of dry bark, worked up into 6,790 lbs. of febrifuge or quinine, of which 5,885 were consumed by Government hospitals and dispensaries, or by the public ; the Nilgiri harvest, of 124,333 lbs. dry bark, was mostly sold in open market. The yield of private plantations is returned at 626, 146 lbs." The report concludes : — " The Sikkim plantations more than covered their expenses by the yield of febrifuge and quinine; and the benefit to the people of India from the cheapness of the drug was great." Then we find State farms. State exhibitions of agricultural imple- ments, State officers engaged on silkworm enquiries. State stallions and brood mares — both horse and donkey, and State bulls. I think the above recital shows that the State in India is capable of developing the great, untouched, mineral resources belonging to the State; and that it either possesses, or knows where to get, the men of experience and energy needful in order to make its underground and overground mineral riches valuable, in increasing volume to India and to the world. 1 1 n H h; W ( 66 ) A great executive department, created for such a great purpose, should not only contain men personally expe- rienced in mines and minerals, but railway men, con- versant with the duties of the carrier, and men of the merrliant class. Let me express the belief that such a department, organized on the fitness of its proposed members, chosen without favouritism or patronage, would, within a very few years of exploration, experi- ment, and organization, send to market, in India and abroad, " every year," twenty millions' worth of wealth, now lying useless below and upon the surface of India. I may be told that this is all a dream. Time will show. If it could be realized, who would not approve ? Is it not, at least, worth the thoughtful consideration of our Indian statesmen r tii V f ? ( 67 ) THE "NATIONAL CONGRESS." While at Allahabad, last December, I had the curiosity to go, with a resident friend, to see the building in which the Baboos, who thus entitle their annual assembly, in- tended to meet this year. It was large and oblong, the walls of well-moulded mud, made ornamental by round pillars and simple capitals in some places, both inside and out. The size was 120 feet by 80: a good-sized room, which would seat 2,000 people. The roof, of rough bam- boos, had been put on, but was waiting for the matting and canvas, which would cover its nakedness. ^My friend and I found a number of the organizers on the ground ; and they, rather volubly, explained their arrangements about the building. The contract price of the building was 3,coo rupees, or ;£20o in gold. The building was to be removed as soon as the proceedings had concluded. The leading personage present, of the committee, was a rich Baboo, one of a family of money lenders and owners of property, to whom a good deal of that quarter of the town belonged. He was also the owner of my friend's house — for which he charged a big rent ; but was always, I heard, greatly exercised in his mind when any little repairs were needed and demanded. The cost of a broken window hurt his feelings ; but any heavy work was tor- ture in the extreme. This gentleman, in brown turban and plain dress, a E 2 1i !!(' J. ii ni '% ill 1l' n't , M] ( 68 ) 'iinall, thin, grey moustache on his upper lip, carried a liritish sovereign, with the Queen's effigy upon it, suspended by a thin gold chain from his neck. This was to show his loyalty, I suppose. Perhaps, also, his gratitude for being allowed to live in peace and usury, oppressing the poor by excessive exaction of interests and prices, — without having his throat cut. All which was, no doubt, also, quite consistent with his present attitude as a stirrer-up of sedition, and abuse of English officials in general, and now and then of English women in particular, lie was very proud of a meeting with Lord Dufferin last year, after the Congress at Madras. He said, he and six others met the Viceroy, who said they might each ask a question, and he would answer. It came to the turn of this gentleman last ; and his account was, that he asked the Viceroy " if the income tax would be taken off?" and the Viceroy replied, "I don't think it will ; but I don't think it will be increased." Whether this rich, sleek, and sly old Bunia paid as little income tax as he could help, may be probable, A noteworthy fact appears in the " Statement " of the progress of India, under the head of " Income Tax," as follows : (p. 83) : "About 30 per cent, of the amount (of in- come tax) collected was charged on salaries and pensions (three-fourths of those paying in this sche- dule being Government servants). There were 774 companies, paying an average of 964 rupees, whose contributions were less than 6 per cent, of the total proceeds ; from interest on securities, rather more than 5 per cent, was derived ; and the remaining 59 per cent, was obtained from other sources of income ; one-third of those assessed in this schedule being money-lenders, faying about 24 rupees each on the average ; and nine- tenths of the whole number being assessed on incomes of 2,000 rupees or less." I wonder if my anti-income-tax ( 60 ) friend, of the Congress Hall, is oiif of those who, "briny money lenders," pay "about 24 rupees each on the aver- age." I ask Mr. "Bonargee of the 'Arcadia,' " to answer the question. On board the "Arcadia," in which, noble, ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Company I left the Thames on the 20th October, was a Hindu j,'-entli'- man named Bonargee, a very pleasant, intelligent, man. The names of Bengalee Brahmans generally end in "gee" or "gi"; and there is another Bonargee in Calcutta (Surendronath), a leading congress- wallah, now editor of a paper, established to abuse English rule and rulers, who was educated at an English university, and was at one time in an important and lucrative office under the Indian Government. Why he was parted, or parted, from that office, I know not. But he has the repute of being an earnest and laborious agitator. While both Bonargees are, or were, Government em- ployes — Bonargee of the "Arcadia" being a Govern- ment counsel, holding, even now, an important office, and Bonargee of Calcutta, having still, I hear, an allow- ance or pension from Government — they, nevertheless, deem it proper and consistent to join in the Congress howl. A Mr. Hume, who predicted (according to the admirable speech of the late Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, at the St. Andrew's Dinner at Calcutta) mutiny and reljel- liftn, if his notions were not soon realized, and I believe other leading wallahs, are pensioners of the State. All round it is a queer position. Clearly discipline is not maintained ; and it is time to call attention to these men and their doings. Now, on board the "Arcadia" there was an esteemed merchant of London, Manchester, and Calcutta — ]\Ir. Yule. He is a thoughtful and very able man. Ho «H , LI 1 1 If 4 ( ) ' - 1 i» f '. can play two games at chess at once, and usually boats his two opponents. At Calcutta I learned, with surprise, that Mr. Yule had agreed to preside at the Allahabad Congress; but I think, now, I may guess the reason — in one word, Bonargce of the "Arcadia:" lionargec was the tempter ; Yule bit the apple, and was lost. IJut in justice to Mr. Yule, I must say that his views, as explained, by him, to me — before he went to preside at the mud temple at Allahabad, by-the-bye — are moderate ; but I fear they merely serve as the purpose of the sugar with which our doctors hide the interior nasti- ness of their pills. I think Mr. Yule has been simply made use of. How could such an astute Scotch- man have been thus taken in r Mr. Yule says that he merely asks that, whereas the Viceroy's Council is now a nominated, it should become, as regards half its members, an elected body. But the qualification of the candidates, and the suffrage of the electors, he leaves to the State Government ; and I think he wishes, also, to leave a veto, always, in the power of the Viceroy. At present, the Viceroy and his advisers give to the com- mercial interests of India, and to the natives of India, distinct representation ; and I have not heard any com- plaint of the selection, for instance, of Mr. Steel, of Cal- cutta, or of the native gentlemen picked out from a great body of, no doubt eligible, candidates. Though Mr. Yule's plan would, practically, substitute for a careful selection of the best of the eligible men, the heat and fury of an election contest, would that be a gain to thoughtful and enlightened government? In fine, would better men be chosen r It must be remembered that we are dealing with a Government whose great function is that of being standing arbitrator between hostile, and hating, races, creeds, and customs. We do not choose high arbitrators by popular election. But, would Mr. Yule's proposal hi ( 71 ) satisfy the Bonargecs r I will put that question in tlic light of facts, and I will appeal to more experienced opinions than my own. First of all, the Congress is, to all intents and pur- poses, a convention : as close an imitation of a distinct representative body as the artful and clever agitators can make it. Its members are chosen under the cloak, more or less a disguise, of popular election in open meeting. Its aspirations are the substitution of a Hindu majority government for the government of the Viceroy and his Council : while, for the purjaose of the moment, great loyalty to the Queen is loudly shouted out — the tongues of many of these patriotic Baboos being in their cheeks all the while. Far be it from me to say that there are not gentlemen learned and honest amongst those who have attended the Congresses already held. But no one of those learned and honest men will contradict me when I say there is no pretence for calling these meetings " National." It is a false pretence. These gentlemen will not contra- dict me when I say that the whole action is in opposi- tion to British rule — political action. But that not one attempt has been made to improve the social condition of the people of India. What about the miserable Hindu widow ? What about the profane and grovelling super- stitions, endowed as they are with immense properties — as Juggernaut, for instance — swarming with priests and degrading sacrifices r Where is the rebuke of the " gom- been" men of India, who fatten upon the ruin of the poorest of the poor ? Where is the censure of the zemin- dar, who, as middleman, too often grinds the faces of the cultivators r Where do we find any denunciation of the exactions, the tyranny, the torture, the licentiousness of Native Rule ? No The whole is an attack upon the best Government India ever had. tl ( ) 1' . ' h I > : Then; arc men at tho bottom of it all who seek to parody David, and create a Cave of Adullam : "And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gath(-'n(l themselves unto him : and he became a captain over them," I lay it down as undeniable, that a majority Govern- ment in India would of absolute consequence be a des- potism ; and I say that the Hindus have done nothing for their own social regeneration : while we English have done all the little that could be done to raise them up. My attention was called, by a Mahommedan gentle- man of groat learning and influence — who, I should state, is, as a representative of his religion and his class, strongly opposed to these Congresses (which are no more "National" than were the "Three tailors of Tooley- street "), as the beginning of mischief, and as, especially, tending to revive buried antagonisms of religion and of race— to a series of strictures on the Congress by Pro- fessor Beck, a learned Englishman, now President of the College at AUighur. The gentleman I allude to assured mc that Professor Beck's views represented the general convictions of the great Mahommedan bodies in India. In a paper entitled " In what will it End," Professor Beck says : — " As it is my belief that the agitation, of which the National Congress is the visible head, will, if unchecked, sooner or later end in a mutiny, with its accompanying horrors and massacres, followed by a terrible retaliation on the part of the British Govern- ment, bringing absolute ruin for the ^Mussulman, the Rajputs, and other brave races, and resulting in the retardation of all progress, I wish to place before my countrymen the reasons which have led me to form this opinion, and to invite a refutation of the arguments ( 73 ) adduced. We had a shari) If-i^on in i8,s7 about tin- inadvisability of not study injf the under-currfiit^ of thought in India, and I fear that if we let the Hrnkrali press and the Congress agitation go on for anoth jiormitted to modify it ! " And t(j show tlu; extent of the demands, hidden behind " loyalty to th(; Queen," but peeping out now and then, Mr. liock quotes a speech of a Mr. Eardly Norton — whether, also, a Government employe or pensioner, is not stated* — thus : — " The day will come when an infinitely larger and truer freedom will be yours, when the great question of taxa- tion will be within your grasp ; when you will, in truth, realize that you have got something more than mere potential power; when you shall place you hand upon the purse-strings of the country and the Government. (Loud and continued applause.) Money is power, whether it be in the hands of an individual or of a government. He who has the dispensing of money is he who has con- trol of all ultimate authority. (Cheers.)' Once you control the finance, you will taste the true meaning of power and freedom." (Cheers.) When wc read "we" and " you," let us ask, who are the "we" and "you" of the present? — A band of Bengal lawyers and editors, aided by the flies they have lured into their web. The "we" and "you" of the in- tended future are the great Hindu majority of popula- tion — for there can be no popular rule save that of the majority ; and here the majority is formed of the most ignorant and helpless of the whole people — a majority steejied in the grossest and most degrading superstitions ; I • Note. — I Icani tli.it this Mr. Norton is .1 Madras barrister. He used to get so much per month from Government as coroner for Madras. The office was abolished in 1888. I ( 75 ) inon who bcliovo in Jugtjfornaut and tlio Sutlou still, ami whoso priests would restore both to-morrow if they had the power; men who at this day preserve the cruel, the horrible, Hindu widow system as one of the sacred articles of their religion : a system so revolting that all humanity should cry out against it. But I wish to allow Professor Deck — whose eminent father is known in all scientific circles, and who himself has had a distinguished university carei-r — tc spi.-ak for himself. I .shall, therefore, quote a few extracts from his various " Indian Papers," and ask my friends thought- fully to read them. In answer to a book by a Mr. Cotton, who Is now one of the Secretaries of the Government of Bengal — a Government whose returns are wanting in the Statistical Abstract — the Professor says : — " The first obvious mistake in the book -i i very common one — an cxag^gerated importance attached to Calcutta — a belief that Calcutta sways the rest of India, and hence a ' 'Ucring assumption that by studying Calcutta we may read tiic minds of the people of other parts of India. Mr. Cotton writes : — ' The public opinion is moulded in the Metropolis, and takes its lone almost entirely from the cducalid community which centres in the chief towns. No one can ijrctend to possess any knowledge of native feeling who docs not keep his finger on the pulse of public opinion in the Presidency Towns. The people of India cannot but act and think as that section of the com- munity which monopolises the knowledge of politics and administration, may instruct them. Tiie educated classes are the voice and brain of the country. The Bengali Babu now rules public opinion from Peshawar to Chittagong.' It may be concluded from these remarks that Mr. Cotton is not well acquainted with Upper India or with the Mahomcdan com- munity of any part of the continent. To begin with, it is a very erroneous assumption to sujjpose tiiat the only educated people in India are the people who have learnt English. This is certainly most untrue of the Mahomcdan community, for )♦ ( "6 ) l.i I .It' learning lias been the heritage of Islam for ages ; anil aithou{,h Mahoincdan civilization has fallen much into decay, there are still to be found in India thousands of men well versed in the literature of Persia and Arabia, who would be recognised in any society as educated and cultivated men. It is a mistake to suj)posc that these men have no knowledge of politics and .'idniinistration, thai they never think about these subjects, and that they exert no influence on their countrymen. On the contrary, in logical thought and sound sense, their opinions often contrast very favourably with the utterances of those who arc the apostles of the new school. Being the descendants of men who have governed a mighty empire, they have very distinct traditions as to the best principles of government, and the best means of captivating the affections of an Oriental people ; and they criticise English measures from a very diflerent point of view from that of Young Bengal. They have been largely utilised by the British Government in the administration of Upper India, and many of them liold important positions in the Native States. Their political thought resembles the old Tory school of England far more than the Radical, and they are by no means so enthusiastic for democratic measures as is commonly supposed by Englishmen. For example, most of them dislike the freedom of the Press, and think that it is calculated to fan the numerous race animosities of which India is a hot bed. On the other hand, they have their own grievances which find inadequate public utterance. Their first demand is for sympathy from tiicir rulers, and that they should not be looketl upon as an inferior race. They v.ould prefer the Army to the Civil Service, and they feel it as a stain on the national honour that none of them are allowed high rank in that, to them the most honourable, profession. But in thmight and feeling they are eminently conservative. And they are the real leaders of their communities, and command their liearts and their swords. " In estimating the jiolitical situation in India, it should be remembered that questions of Indian politics affect more nearly the fundamental basis of society than questions of English politics ; and the first essential for a sound appreciation of them is to keep clearly before the mind the great physical forces which lie quiescent under the calm surface of Indian life, and which are the most important, and in the event of a disturbance, I ■ i H 1 I ( 77 ) woiikl be the only important factors to be reckoned witli. Now the control of these latent forces is not, as far at least as tlio Bengal Presidency is concerned, vested in CaKutta. If the English left the country, the ]\[ahoincdans, Sikhs, Rajputs, nnd Jats would choose as their leaders men whose existence Mr. Cotton ignores in his book, anil these people might liegin to make things very unpleasant for the tlisciples of the new school of thought. To overlook this is to overlook one of the most essential facts of the political situation in India; in A'i7C India we may say, if by ' New India ' we mean not tin; visionary India of the future, but the actual India of to-day, the India we see about us with our eyes — sweet and beautiful, full of attractive sights and of quaint old customs, and the home at once of two great Oriental civilizations, Islam and Hinduism inextricably mixed. But the term 'New India' has an ambiguity which, unless noticed, is fruitful of error. For it may mean those political and social forces which owe their existence to English influence, and which at present form so small a proportion of the whole ; or it may mean the India of to-day : and it is very easy by starting an argument in which the first premise pre- supposes the former meaning, and the conclusion the latter, to arrive at very fallacious, though often neat and pleasing, results. " The next subject I would deal with is the thesis of Chapter I., that a common Indian nationality is showing itself all over India. English education, as the author points out, tends to bring the different peoples of India nearer together by giving them a common language and a common culture. That this is a cause which ought in time to produce some assimilation of the different peoples of India, few will deny. But when he says that an actual spirit of common nationality is fast growing up, he is, it seems to me, going far ahead of the facts, and will certainly give English readers a wrong impression. The facts adduced to shew the existence of this sentiment arc the common feeling among the peoples of India on the llbert Bill, raised by Anglo-Indian opposition, the ovation given to Lord Rijjon, the protestations of loyalt)' at the tim(! of the Russian crisis, and last of all, the mourning stated to have been general on the death of Keshub Chunder Sen. With regard to the last fact, he makes the following remarkable assertion : — ' The natives of all parts of India, whatever their religion may have been, united with one voice in the expression of sorrow at his loss, and pride in him as I I i ^ H ( 7B ) a member of one commrn nation.' So far was this from being tlie ease that many well cultivated and very influential men of Upper India do not even know his name. What ignorance I People may I'xclaim to whom the name of the leader of the I3rahmo Somaj is familiar. But the ignorance is no greater probably Mian that of ihc learned Brahmo's countrymen of, let lis say, Shah Abdul Aziz, the ' Sun of India.' These facts must strike one with surprise until one realises that not less than the physical difference between the burning plains of Mecca and the snowy heights of the Himalaya is the difference in thought and feeling between the Mahomedan and Hindu worlds." Then, in dealing with the idea of a common Indian nationality, composed of all races, religions, and customs, the Professor says : — " In connection with this idea of a common Indian nationality, some interesting questions arise. In the first place, is it desirable .'' This is very often assumed, but it requires some proof, for nobody wants to make Europe one nation. Then suppose it be desirable, and highly desirable, so that it is an object worth working for, what are the necessary conditions of accomplishing it ? It is quite clear that if there is to be a real approximation, every community in India must be prepared to sacrifice some cherished customs. Are people prepared to make the necessary sacrifices ? We believe not one man in ten thousand is, and among tlic ten thousand must be reckoned Mr. Cotton. For what is a nation ? The word nation implies that the people who compose it have some marked i)oints of resemblance which differentiate them from other people. In a nation like England we find a body of men united by race, country, government, religion, language, manners and customs, and culture. In Europe it is considered essential that the people to be of one nation sliould be of one race, but in India we are obliged to make an exception to this in the case of the Mahomedans, who, if not a nation in the strictest sense of the term, are united by a feeling very like national feeling, and derived from the religious and social bond. Therefore to produce a nation in India of the European type, it would be necessary that for some generations there should be free intermarriage between all communities, a proposal which in the East would stagger the boldest man ; )'il 11! ( 79 ) while a nation of the Mahomodan type would require community of religion, manners and customs, and culture. In either case the people of India must be made n^ally to resemble one another ; and, to begin with, the Hindus must give up their caste system, which is indeed a barrier to a thorough-going national feeling in their own body." 'i The great usury question, in combination with a plan for removing populations in India, for greater union of race and religion, brings this, pungent, paragraph : — " I do not know in what part of the country the natural tendency alluded to is observed. In the North-West Provinces the prevailing natural tendency seems to be for the unwar- likc usurers — the banias — to buy up and cheat out the noble old martial raceSj Hindu and Mahomedan alike, and to oust them from their lands. And this tendency, far from offering any basis for political reconstruction, is one of the least hopeful signs of the future, for the banias are about as popular as their brethren the Jews in Germany and Russia, and arc absolutel}- without powers of self-defence. But as for the British Govern- ment, or, to speak more accurately, ' the party of foreign occupiers' assisting this movement, bodily clearing off all the Mahomcdans of wealth and good family, and importing Hindu grandees to occupy their estates and step into their social position, the suggestion is worthj' of Mahomed Tughlak.* And when Mahomedan nobility have been replanted, how can we prevent the banias from baying them up again .-' Like that of the land, the settlement cannot be a permanent one, but a fresh sorting out will frequently be required as after a com- munists' redistribution of money. Mr. Cotton's great complaint of the ' foreign occupiers ' is that they have interfered too much ; that they have played too paternal a part ; that their railways have been too great a shock for the instincts of a conservative people ; but all that they have done would be child's play compared with what he now calls on them to do. The aristocrats are to be driven from the associations of homo * A Mahomedan Emperor wli inarched off the whole city of Delhi by force to the Deccan, and thereby caused infinite suffering and misery. His other acts were equally interesting and mad. 'U iM ( 8o ) ,, ., I i and from tlic lands their ancestors have held for centuries. And who are the aristocrats ? By no means only the rich classes ; for many a ]ioor man has a far higher social position than his rich neighbours. Hut if the charge can be brought home to any man that he is a genuine aristocrat, he must be hunted out like a French prince and transported. Mr. Cotton is a humane man, and would no doubt not like to sec this done ; hut it is the logical outcome of his solitary proposal for dealing with the most obvious and greatest difliculty that besets his scheme. Like many other Indian reformers, he does not think out carefully enough the results of his proposed re- forms. Although he shows in one part of his book that he has observed some of the salient facts of Indian politics, yet when he evolves his plans of reform he practically ignores them." M' "11' i I" i I And he concludes the reply to Mr. Cotton in these words : — "And inasmuch as the discontent has a social origin, it is perfectly clear that if a healthy state of things is to be produced, it must be through the medium of the English who come in con- tact with the people, i.e., Anglo-Indians, and not by trying to ride roughshod over them by means of the English in England. The great result to be attained is that Englishmen, Hindus, and Mahomedans, may all alike feel they are component parts, and have a share in the glory of a magnificent and enlightened lunpire. This mysterious union of East and West should be beneficial not to the former only. In estimating the value of India to England, most people dwell only on the material side. They point to the amount of British trade with India. But India might have a much higher value for the English if we knew as a nation how to appreciate her — a moral and intellectual value. It is the narrowest opinion of Western prejudice to suppose that all beautiful ideals, all noble and profound thoughts on life, all graces of civilization, have been collected in Europe alone. The East, which has given birth to every religion which dominates mankind, has yet, 1 believe, something to teach the West. In this ;ige of violent industrial competition, of socialism, of com- munism, and of nihilism ; of the decay of old faiths and the pessimistic wails of philosophers and poets, it may act as a i ( 8« ) soothing and peace-giving influence on many a mind oppressed by the fever heat of modern intellectual life to go to India, to live among its people, and to breathe in the gentle influence of ideals of life that belong to a far earlier but a simpler and fresher period of the world's existence. England need fear no impoverishment of her intellectual life by her closer union with India. It is the ardent aspiration of many Natives of India and of many Anglo-Indians that this union may become every day a closer one, and that the Asiatic and Britisli subjects of Her Majesty may be united by growing tics of aficction and respect." Writing, specially, under the head of " The National Congress," the writer says : — "The two 'National Congresses' hitherto held have pro- claimed as the chief upshot of their proceedings a verdict in favour of the introduction of representative institutions into India, and it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the aj)- proaching meeting at Madras will endorse their opinion. In fact, in the public mind, the National Congress has become identified with this political scheme, to a criticism of which the following lines arn devoted. Now to many men this task may appear superfluous. The notion of violating all historic con- tinuity ; of expecting a people saturated through the centuries cf its long life with the traditions of autocratic rule to shake oft' ai once its old feelings and habits, and transform itself into a modern democracy; of assuming that institutions which work not without friction in those nations which are most homogeneous and have been longest trained in their exercise could be adapted to a population five times as great as the largest in which they have hitherto been tried, and as varied and heterogeneous as the diverse peoples of Europe, seems to many thoughtful men, both English and Native, so preposterous as to need no refutation. Nevertheless, it would be optimistic to assume that unwise opinions have no effect in determining the course of events ; nor should we trust too much to the wisdom of our rulers in England." And again : "Tbete are, it seems to me, at least four insurmountable obstaclts to the success of representative institutions in India: I: h>l ill 9; ( 82 ) to wit, the ignorance of the peasantry, the absence of a class from which to select capable statesmen and legislators, the inability of a parliament to control the army, and the mixture of ualionalilics. First let us consider the ignorance of the peasantry. The essence of parliamentary government is that it is popular government ; it is a device by which the millions of common men in a country control the action of the State ; the will of the people is the paramount power. They effect it by keeping a check on their representatives, and so effective is that check that the eyes of members of parliament are ever fi.\ed on their constituencies, and the actions of English statesmen are curbed by the effect they are likely to produce on the popular mind. Tlie virtues of popular government are : — First, the great stability of the constitution, due to its being backed up by more than half the people ; secoudly, that the poor classes have a means of checking the natural tendency to selfish legislation in the governors. Does any one imagine that the people of India are capable of performing this political feat } jMore than 90 per cent, of the population are peasants. Real representative government means government subject to the control of the peasantry. The Indian peasant is unable to protect himself from the exaction of his zemindar or the extortions of the police- man. Has he the independence or the wisdom to direct the affairs of this great Empire ? The ryot is a man not without a certain culture of mind and of feeling: he has a wonderful knowledge of old ballads and of the mythology of his religion ; but his ignorance of politics is abysmal. Clearly he could, through his representative, exercise no control over the supreme legislature. And if he could, would it be desirable ? What would he do ? Perhaps forbid cow-killing, and spend the national income on temple-building and religious celebrations. Certainly his government would be a government of ignorance and of superstition. It is, I contend, neither possible nor desir- able that the peasant should govern India. And unlejs he exercise real control over the government, there can be no true representative government in India." Further on : "The government, therefore, would be neither popular as the ^t^ a^ ( 83 ) English, nor bureaucratic as the Indian, but wouUl be a species of oligarchy, giving complete political suprcmacj- to a class forming a minute percentage of the population. Now the pseudo-representative government would lack the two gnat virtues of popular government whicli are generally held U> balance its defects — its stability and its impartiality — while il would not secure us the cfTiciency of our present method. "First, as regards stability and strength, a prime requisite in an Indian government, it is to be observed that the Knglish educated class does not at present hold in its hands the keys of the magazines of physical force in this country. They have no control over the native ami)', nor over those classes of war- like peasantry which form the inflammable material of the country. There are two ways in which a government may command the dllegiance of the masses. The one is by appealing to them directly, as in England ; the other is by reaching tliem through their leaders. The former of these methods is im- possible in India, on account of the ignorance of the people. There is, I suppose, no doubt that although Government may protect the ryots against the oppression of the taluqdar, yet in a time of civil war they would join his standard rather than that of the Government. They are, as they were at the time of the Mutiny, completely under the influence of their hereditary chiefb, who are Conservatives of a palteozoic type ; and in some cases, such as the wahabis, of their fanatical religious teachers. This is a fact which our political globe-trotters rarely recognize. Familiarity with modern political notions, though ultimately a great assistance, acts at first rather as an impediment in coming to a true knowledge of the East, as it leads the mind off on wrong tracks, and makes it jump by analogy to false conclusions. But our visitors think otherwise. Flattering themselves that their training in Western politics gives them a vast superiority over residents of the country in appreciating the importance of popular sentiment, estimated by them by the cheap method of reading newspapers and talking in their own language to casual men they meet, they ofl'er the Indian statesman many prudential truisms about the danger of resisting national aspirations, which, as they cannot look below the surface, they comi)leteIy misunderstand, identifying them with such sentiments as arc expressed at the National Congress." V 2 K} fl ■ I li'i i^ is n I ! ( «4 ) And " To tliis consideration must 1)C attributed the anxiety fi'lt by men who otherwise show but little sympathy towards that nation to induce the Mahomcdans to take a part in this annual demon- stration, and thereby increase the effect on the mind of the untutored politician. Even as it is the National Congress (lazzh's the travelling,' M. P., who at once thinks that he has the whole moral dynamite of India bottled up in a room. As I said, this is not the case. But so often is it stated to be by the Native Press and by IMr. Hume, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Lai Mohun Ghose and others, that I will give a concrete example taken from British India, which, in the si)read of modern ideas, is far ahead of the Native States. The fighting,' men in the district of Aligarh, containing a jiopulation of about a million, are under the control of the following families : — The Sherwani Afghans, who settled here in the time of the Pathan Emperors ; the Syeds of Jelali, a noble Shia family which has supplied many good officers, civil and military, to Government ; the Lalkhani Pathans, convicted Rajputs, one of whom was prime minister of a large Native State ; the unconverted Rajputs, and the great Jat taluqdars. The chiefs of these clans, numbering, we will say, about two dozen, fine strong men, fonder of horses and guns than of newspapers and congresses, are all ignorant of English, and some of them are bitterly opposed to its teaching, which they think destructive of the faith and customs of their ancestors. Of their children a small minority are learning. Probably the next generation will send their sons to school, and in two generations, or some sixty years, the district of Aligarh may have a landed gentry speaking English, if they have not been by then eaten up by the banias. To satisfy the aspirations of these men, one of which is for a military career, nothing is done, so much is our attention taken up with the attempt to conciliate irreconcilable journalists, mistaking those that wear the lion's skin for the royal beast himself. " The claim, therefore, of the National Congress to represent the voice of India we may dismiss as unfounded. We have shown that our pseudo-representative or mock-popular system would not possess the first merit of popular government — its stability : it remains to investigate how far it would possess its freedom from partialit)-. Now, the fact that the cry that one ( «5 ) class should liavo absolute powxT begins and iiids with thai t las>, is no proof that it is less disinterested than other classes. All classes and most individuals love power, sometimes for itself, sometimes as a means of beneficence ; ami who appreciate it better or enjoy it more than we Anglo-Inilians ? ]\Iy opponents may say that now India is governed I'V one class, what loss of impartiality if it be governed by another ? To this two answers are oj)cn. Either it may be saitl that one of these classes is more disinterested than the other ; or, the bureaucratic system in vogue may be pronounced more impartial than a representative oligarchy. The first of these answers involves a thesis as invidious as it is difficult to prove : it is better to assume that in any class self-interest is the rule and self-sacrifice the exception. But the second position is real and tangible ; and I hold that if government by a class is unavoidable, the present bureaucratic system is more free from gross partiality than a rcj)resentative one would be. Sujjpose India were governed by a parliament composed of, and elected by, the Anglo-Indian population ; would it not be tenfold less impartial than the present government ? Our Anglo-Indian statesmen, actuated by deep policy or by a genuine desire for the progress of the people who have been so mysteriously entrusted to the care of England, represent a policy far in advance of any that could be distilled out of Anglo-India by universal suffrage. How many native high court judges would there have been if it had depended on this vote } Or how many statutory civilians, deputy collectors and subordinate judges ? Would the income-tax — that most just of taxes — have been imposed if either of the classes in cjuestion had formed the electorate .'' The absurd agitation over the Ilbert Bill showed how much bile could be stirred up both in English and native communities by applying popular methods to India. The first essential of the Indian Government is that, based on a true knowledge of popular sentiment and on an impartial regard of the interests of all classes, it should possess a strength that can afford to neglect alike the prejudiced suggestions of Defence Associations and the interested proposals of the Native Press. We have indications enough that the class that supports the latter is not without the human failing of partiality. Its ever reiterated cry is to open all civil appoint- ments to competitive examination, i.e., to take them all to itself. Any regard for classes less advanced is stigmatised as iniquitous. ?f ii ( 86 ) ■'f And as to wlicthcr it is plionomcnally anxious to do justice to the (J(jvernmcnt tiiat has called it into existence, let those who read the papers judge. " Wc must abandon, therefore, the hope of securing by the propo-iud system the impartiality of a jjopular government. Wc have now to consider its probable cfliciency, and this brings us to our seconil difficulty : where are the members of parliament, the capable legislators and statesmen, to come from ? No organisation, no institution however perfect, can be a success unl'ss the human units composing it be each adequately equipped for the task assigned him. And for the government of an Empire, many men provided with technical knowledge of varied description, endowed with the highest practical faculties, and trained by long experience, are needed. Some people think the government of a country a task not beyond the capabilities of an average intellect. It is admitted that the engineer who lias to construct a bridge, the lawjer who must master an intricate case, the doctor who heals ihe diseases of the body, all require a long special training; but any fool is supposed capable of constructing a State, of dealing with foreign diplomacy, and of prescribing for the diseases of the body politic. This idea is as prevalent in England as here, — pt^rhaps more so ; but luckily there is a large body of men of incljpendcnt means who have been trained since youth in the art of government, and into whose hands the actual business falls : there is our aristocracy, which always produces a crop of good statesmen and able diplomatists : and there is our enormous highly-educated and affluent middle class, which is the political backbone of the nation. Has India any such resources ? Her aristocracy is, from want of training, obviously incompetent for the work, and she has no middle class like (>urs. Her ablest men are either in government service or in the legal profes.sion. As these two classes depend for their livelihood on their work, '.Ley cannot afford to give their lives to legislation. Only when they retire would it be possible. But parliamentary government requires men to devote to it the best years of their manhood. A house composed of illiterate ignoramuses, with a leaven of super- annuated Government servants and briefless barristers, could not supply the requisite brain-power for dealing with such matters as foreign policy, the land laws, the currency questions and fiscal matters, which tax to their full the powers of the ; ;t ( 87 ) human intollcct. The difncully of sclcctinp; a wry few cuinpdcnt men for the Legislative Councils is a sufikiciU illustration. In a country like India, where highly-trained ability is very scarce, the State must make the most economical usi; of the materials at hand. And that is done at i)resent by attempting to select the best men whi u young, training them for a long pi'rioil of yeiirs in administration, and from these choosing out tiie most dis- tinguished for the great ofliccs of State, rarenthetically one may remark that there can be no greater cause for anxiety as to tlie future than the doubt whether the present melhoil of recruit- ing in England for the Civil Service is furnishing us with the best material available for the manufacture of statesmen. From tin; facts stated above, there is every reason to believe tiiat the lirsl breakdown of a representative system in India would arise from the inelTiciency of the governing bod)-, lUit this diflkulty, while at present the most serious, will, if the British rule lasts, be the first to disappear. In two generations time it is not Inconceiv- able that there may be an educated aristocracy, and an inlluential middle class grown out of the development of industry and commerce. And it will no doubt be the aim of wise statesman- ship to devise some method of giving these classes, which will have the greatest stake in the country antl be the best possible conservative force and guarantee of order, a part in i)olilical life without imperilling the interests of other classes, thereby satisfy- ing their just aspirations to a greater share in the glory and prestige of the British Empire. " When we come to consider the powers of the proposed supreme parliament, and ask what its relations are tf) be to the British Crown and the English I'arlianienl — whether it is to be entrusted with the direction of foreign policy or confined in its action to domestic affairs ; if the annual budget is to he jjlaced before it ; what powers, if any, it is to possess over the Army and the Civil Service — whether, in fact, it is to have any executive authority or be only a legislative machine, a fresh croj) of difficulties arise, one of which, the connection between the parliament and the army, is singled out for discussion." I conclude my extracts from this Paper by quoting its concluding, and noble, words : " The conclusion of the whole matter is that the representa- ^, .i^^^^ ^;^ ^^^0^ ^A< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ,v^ z, n 1.0 I.I 1^ iil 1^ 112:0 1.8 — 6" L25 IIIIII.4 IIIIII.6 n V] vl Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 i/.x ^ 1 <\ \U H ij- li J ?. t ,1 ( 88 ) tive system proposed by the National Congress would not be true popular government, but government by a class ; would be neither stable nor impartial ; would be in the hands of incom- petent men ; be helpless before the army ; and offer no solution of the problem how the different nations scattered throughout India are to live at peace with one another ; but would fan race prejudice and provoke civil war. The idea is an importation from Europe, and has not arisen, as a natural solution of the problems before us, from a study of the facts of the country. If we are to copy anything from the West, we must compare India with the whole of Europe and not with a small homogeneous nation like England. Now, a parliament for the whole of Europe is an obvious impossibility. And the present political state of Europe, with all the nations armed to the teeth against one another, and engaged every now and then in tremendous wars which become more terrible every decade, is not the most attractive ideal to put before India. Rather let us have patience, work slowly and surely towards absorbing a larger element of the diverse native races into the administration, give time for the development of the splendid latent capacity of human intel- lect to which every generation in India gives abortive birth, and for the great industrial future which will raise India to such a state of material prosperity as she has never before enjoyed, and cast to the winds these ill-digested and illusory schemes, the realization of which would be the triumph of anarchy." In a further Paper, headed, " In what will it end," there are grave sentences. I merely give three : — "Real loyalty tries to strengthen the Government and breathes a spirit of gratitude. The other loyalty is identical in its effects with the disloyalty of a wily enemy. We judge of men by their deeds and not by their words, and we judge of their loyalty by whether their actions tend to remove the soreness from the hearts of men or to aggravate it. "Coming now to the means adopted in this Congress agitation, the essential feature is that they do not confine their action to the educated classes, but make every effort to extend it to the ignorant. Thistomfoolery about delegates necessitates it. Mass meetings are held and addressed by fiery orators ; and inflam- matory literature is circulated in the vernacular. Only the man ( 80 ) who believes in the infinite gullil)ility of the Kn,L?lishman can dare state that the masses in India can understand the (iiieslion of the reform of the Legislative Councils, of which they have never even heard the name. As easily could a company of English rustics comprehend the philosophy of Kant. To uniler- stand how the Hindu is to govern India under the cloak of the British name by means of a representative system imi)orted from England, the English with their swords standing by as the willing slaves of their rulers, is a conception sufficiently diflicult to ta.\ the intellectual resources of even a Calcutta graduate. One broad issue arises at once to the popular mind. British rule or Native rule ? And when the English are abused and the griev- ances of the people are dwelt on, can there be any doubt on which side they will decide ? To illustrate this by an example: — At a certain town a meeting was held, and as usual they secured as chairman (by what means I will not specify) a IMahomedan, so as to keep up the deceitful farce that the Mahomedans are with them. He was an uneducated nobleman, with nothing but the primitive ideas of rule in his head prevalent in the savage land from which he hails. They stood up and abused the English before him, one man calling English Assistant Collec- tors monkeys. What will be the effect on the mind of that w ild and ignorant chief .' I know of an unlettered Thakur Baron in a Native State who asks of his friends when the next mutiny is coming, being quite indifferent which side he takes, but longing for something to relieve the monotony of his dull life. I will not give his address lest the Congresswallahs should invite him to be chairman of a meeting in his country, or should send him a copy of the pamphlet to which I shall allude further on, when I shall bring more specific charges of disloyalty. " In the first part of this discussion I pointed out that the very constitution of the National Congress was such that it was bound to foster a spirit of discontent and mutiny in the people ; that a Grievance Hall, as a permanent institution, would be like a running sore bringing all kinds of aches and pains to the body politic ; and that the delegate system, based as it was on popular support and popular discontent, was bound to encourage a kind of public speaking and literature, the object of which would be to picture in glowing colours the injustice of Government. And thus, however strong and however loyal the hands that controlled the movement, however much they might wish not to I ■j ■* H ( 90 ) inflame discontent among the ignorant, it would be practically impossible to prevent the National Congress and its ramifica- tions from becoming a deadly engine of sedition. " What, then, will be its effect when the leaders of this Congress, tlic authorised official heads, publish in their autho- rised oflicial volumes, and throw broadcast over the land, as an example to their followers in every district, literature of an actively incendiary nature ? At the end of the report of the National Congress is printed a pamphlet which, I am told, has been largely circulated in the vernacular, in which case a certain number of potential mutineers has probably been already created by it. I shall make some extracts from this poisonous tract, but I can, in so short a space, give no adequate notion of the amount of venom hidden in it. I request all who take an interest in public affairs, and in the future of this glorious country and of its gifted peoples, to purchase a copy of the report and study the tract for themselves." And again : " Now what docs this mean, and what will it lead to .'' It means — if Government allows this sort of propaganda to go on — it means the massacre of Englishmen and their wives and children. For on what material is this seditious trash thrown ? Not on the educated and cultured. Not on those who owe their means of livelihood to British rule, and who would be swept away at once if it went. Not on men who are afraid of fighting. The people of these Provinces are not cowards; they love a fight as well almost as an Englishman. We had examples at Delhi and Etawah. And some classes of these people, notably the ]\Iahomcdan and the Thakur, the most spirited and pugnacious, have lost terribly by the turn in the political kaleidoscope. Religious fanaticism is not yet dead. And the poverty of the whole ]\Iahomedan community and of the noble families is so distressing, and their backwardness in English education is so great, that only a Government which was the slave of noise or doctrinaire theories would frame measures in disregard of it. Now if they are urged to dwell on their sorrows, which are in- variably laid to the British Government, instead of trying to improve themselves by trade and education, the result will be that disloyalty will take its seat in their hearts. Do you think they will stop at reform of the Legislative Councils .'' And do ( 91 ) you think the Congress people who have stirred up these pas- sions can allay them ? They would be blown away as butterflies in a hurricane. " The worst sufferers by a mutiny wouUl be Mahomedans. As far as savagery goes both sides would have a good fling. At such a period men become fiends, and the innocent and the guilty, the strong and the defenceless, share the same fate. The English nation, on whose benevolence at home the Congress- wallahs lay such stress, would forget all about constitutions and elective councils, and cry only for vengeance. But England would not lose her national existence, while the Mahomcdan would be irretrievably ruined. This is why the Mahomedan leaders wish to keep their people from the whirlpool of political agitation. My revered chief. Sir Syed Ahmed, whose humble disciple in matters political I boast myself, has pointed this out clearly. No one has even grappled with his arguments, but in place of reason a shower of mud and abuse has been hurled at him ever since. He has been called selfish, foolish, childish and a flatterer. But the fact is people in other Provinces and of other nations can in no way understand the circumstances and feelings of the people here." And lastly : " In the two previous discussions I laid down the proposition that popular political agitation — which has now for the first time manifested itself in India on a large scale — will, unless checked, presently throw the country into a most terrible state of anarchy, and deliver it a prey to murder and rapine. And that as re- gards this particular agitation of the National Congress, the methods employed arc so noxious, characterised by a spirit of incendiarism so rash and so reckless (more especially in the English agitators), that it has become imperatively necessary to grapple with the evil in good earnest, and to apply radical remedies for this dangerous disease." In conclusion, I sincerely wish that the English press would publish in full the speech of Lord Dufferin at the St. Andrew's Dinner, in Calcutta, last December; and also these admirable literary articles, which I have quoted, by Professor Beck. ( 93 ) HINDU WIDOWS. Mr. Reid, now Transhipment Inspector on the postal route to Assam, has sent to mc the followinj*- patjes ; and, as, I think, they disclose a terrible condition of affairs, I print them on his authority. I\Ir. Reid was Chief of the Detective Police Department of (.'alcutta for many years, and was attached to the retinue on the occasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India : UNDETECTED CRIME. Bv R. Reid. Late Superintendent Calcutta Detective Department. Ignore it as wc may — for the reflection is by no means comfor- ting or agreeable — there is, in truth, no serious crime commiUed in this country which can be committed with greater safety and impunity than the crime of murder. A Hindoo widow yields to the tem.ptation of " love unlawful," the intrigue continues until the secret of the frail fair one becomes too prominent for conceal- ment ; then her family and friends awake to the bitter and humiliating position. They beat their heads after the Oriental fashion (Europeans would beat the head of some one else, in true British fashion — under similar circumstances), and curse the English Government for abolishing suttee ! Yet the matter is kept a profound secret, and every possible precaution is adopted to prevent the scandal getting abroad. The offending widow is sent on a " pilgrimage," or goes into " retreat " (I must apologise to my Roman Catholic friends for using the word " retreat"' in a u il. n I I.. M hi F I '•I ( 94 ) new sense) ; and if she is fortunate enough to survive the course of ircatmcnt usually prescribed, by way of penance, for such , transgressions, reappears, absolved of the burden of hor sin. But how few survive the ordeal ? For the Dai is but a clumsy operator, and more succumb to her treatment than survive it. But oh ! liow much more unfortunate still is the luckless widow whose case will not yield to the manipulations of the native midwife ? and woe be lo her if she belongs to a respectable orthodox Hindoo family. Then they get up a ceremony in her honour, which is called a co/J sullee ; they ply her with sweet intoxicants, and cap her last supper on earth with a cordial that covers her shame more effectually than the uncertain manipu- lations of the Dai. The widow is soon a cold sullee, and is hurried off to the burning ghat before the breath is out of her body. (It would be a religious crime, involving the loss of caste, for the pious Hindoo to permit even his dearest and nearest relation to die in his house.) This '^ cold sullee" means a double murder. But the most distressing part of the business is when the victim suspects foul play in the midst of these nocturnal festivities got up in her honour, and manifests a disinclination to partake of the "cup" intended to drown her shame and sorrow in everlasting forgetfulness. Turning piteously to her mother, she wails, " Mercy, mother, save me I " but is urged in reply, " Drink, daughter, drink, to save thy mother's honour and keep thy father's abru ! " With regard to the crime of infanti- cide, pure and simple, it is too common, and the circumstances under which it is practised too well understood, to require much explanation. A high caste widow gives birth to a child. The new comer's mouth is immediately stuffed with hot kitchen ashes. Thus, " religiously disposed of," it is thrust into a basket of rubbish, and deposited by its loving grandmother in the nearest river! The immorality responsible for this phase of crime prevails to an extent few Englishmen would believe pos- sible in a country where the social seclusion of women is the rule, and liberty the exception; and the criminals are assured a certain amount of immunity because the religion and time- honoured customs of the people virtually sanction the heinous and revolting practice. It can be no secret to any one acquainted with the inner life of the Hindoo, as to what takes place behind the purdah ! yet how few, even of the men who pose as social reformers, have the moral courage to expose the evil ! And the ( 95 ) district officer deems it safer to blink the delicate question than to grapple with it. As for the village policeman, he is too stupid, as a rule, to W, of any use — and where he is less slni)i(l than his hrdtlKT, lie makes up by that low cunning and (iuplicity, which make him dangerous to the community. He is oi)uu to corruption in any form, and where caste conflicts with duty, he is to be least trusted. He bullies the weak and the helpless. With the powerful and well-to-do the policeman is always complaisant. ]5ut what can the policeman do even where he is intelligent as well as honest ? The lapse of a widow is no offence in the law ; the magistrate receives anonymous letters ; many of these he does not attend to, but when the communication ajjpears //owuyjf/d', the magistrate forwards it on to the police authorities. But even such a case is not regarded as a pressing one, and, all things considered, I think wisely. Delays being frequent, the police are unable to prove five cases of abortion out of five hundred. I have only touched the fringe of this subject ; the details would make your flesh creep and your blood run cold I There are, I admit, in this, as in every other country in the world, social evils which no government can grapple with ; but here, at all events, something might be done to remedy the wrongs of the unfortunate widows of India. Legalise re-marriage, and deprive caste of the power of excommunicating the man who has the courage to unite him- self to a widow, and see the result. This far the Government might safely go, but no further. No sane statesman would attempt to plunge direct to the root of the evil, and abolish infant marriage, whatever that small 'iit noisy section of advanced Hindoos may say to the coni-. ;y This reform must be left in the people themselves. I m. ■ be told that Government already sanctions the re- marriage of widows. Yes ; but caste opposes it. What a position for the Government of an empire ! It is all very well for English officials to say that the widow and her friends ought to defy caste. They do not know the terrible effects of the JMahajatCs curse. The widow and her husband, and very often her and his families, are shunned like poison. Thus, some forty or fifty people may suffer for the courage of two. They suffer in life and in death. No caste-man joins them in any domestic ceremony ; none of them can take part in the social affairs of any caste-man. So cruelly rigid is the discipline, that it drew tears of u I in\,i \i ( 9^ ) anguish from the most patient Hindoo martyr, Karsandas Mulgi. lie used to cry helplessly when his wife would ask iiim when her family would be re-admitted into caste. Knglish men and women can have no idea of the bitterness of this social seclusion — it is worse than the bitterness of death. One result of the jiersecution is that few re-married couples live happily together. They arc hunted out of their profession, and even out of their inheritance, if they have anv. And not being sufficiently educated to take to new modes of life, husband and wife pine away in despair, accuse each other of folly, and, under a sense of injury, they sometimes take to evil courses. What a triumph for caste ! That the widow- marriage movement in India is making head in spite of such crushing oppositions, is a proof of its necessity and ultimate success. If the Government would only rule that caste has no right to prevent re-marriage, and instruct the Public Prose- cutor to institute proceedings against the Mahajan for putting a re-married widow out of caste, the reform would have an easy victory. It may be asked. What are the conditions which render so great an outrage on human liberty possible ? The answer is ready at hand. The Hindoo marriage law is based — or presumed to be based — upon their sacred books, which have been received and acted upon by millions of people for untold centuries. The Hindoo religion inculcates that every Hindoo girl must be married. For a father to have an unmarried daughter in his house, is not only to become an outcast, and to forfeit every social position, but even worse. It is regarded as a religious crime, involving not merely degradation in this world, but eternal punishment in the next. Every Hindoo girl, therefore, must be married, to a suitable person, of course, if possible ; but — suitable or unsuitable — she must be married to someone, as in the case of Lubskmebai I On this subject I will just quote a short passage from the published account of the Decennial Missionary Conference held at Calcutta in 1882-83. That noble Englishwoman, Mrs. Etherington, is speaking : — " The last Government census brought to light the startling, the fearfully significant, fact, that there are more than twenty-one millions of widows in India. Have we seriously considered what this really means .'' There is, in India, a widow for about every five males of the entire population, including even the youngest male child. Am I wrong in believing that more than half of these millions are widows who never were wives in any r\ ( 97 ) true sense : mere children, whoso hoy hiishaml'*, in lliousaniN of cases, were never known, S(ari<'ly cvir seen li\ tlum - ( )nly those of us wlio have free access to lh< m ami tlnir homos — if a Hindoo widow can he said to have ;i homi — c an at all nndoo ) this task tlic police inspector addressed himself with commend- able energy, though, unfortunately, not with equal intelligence. ]'"v(Ty tank in the neighbourhood was drawn, and the jungles for miles round diligently searched, but without success. A piece of ground about fifty yards from the residence of the accused appeared to have been recently disturbed; this was dug up, and the police came across the carcase of a horse, which they partly uncovered, but went no further ; had they done so they would have found the corpse of the murdered man : it was sewn up in the body of the horse, which had been disemboweled to receive it. The jackals in this case proved better detectives than the police, for they brought the crime to light after the guardians of life and property had given the matter up as hopeless and left the neighbourhood in despair. Now, considering the investi- gating officer was a native, one would scarcely bc'.ieve it possible that he could have been deceived by a ruse of this nature. Such an unusual occurrence as a native voluntarily undertaking the trouble to bury a dead animal would at once excite suspicion in the mind of any man possessing the slightest knowledge of the country and people. Iti V I |l.' ( lO! ) THE NATIVE PRESS AND THE CONGRESS- WALLAHS. The Native Press, with several honourable exceptions, supports the Congress-Wallahs : as the Congress- Wallahs support their supporters in the Native Press : as always tne bad, organised, over-shout the good, unorganised. People at home should study a little more closely the question of the sources from whence the agitation-money comes. It has been denied by one of the chief paid agents, now in London, that Russian money has found its way into the Congress pockets ; but he, at the same time in a letter, very improperly sent— by way of solici- tation to vote— to Members of Parliament, very naively declares that any Russian money, stirring, is us.xl against the objects of the Congress. 1 have known cases where the special advocacy of disappointed, dis- honest, and tyrannical native rulers has been entrusted to English agents in England. There was the case of the King of Oude. There have been others. More recently there was the Berar agitation, more or less to bring English public opinion to justify handing back the government of the Province of Berar to the tender mercies of a native rule, which had been distinguished l1' I .\ \ ( '02 ) by gross mismanagGment,* and as gross injustice and venality. These sins compelled the Indian Government to take over the control ; and the Indian Government made a thorough reform : and, as regards the Finances, changed a constant deficit into an annual surplus of some ^150,000 a-year, which they handed over to the native ruler. Agitation, through English agents, suc- ceeded in the case of Gwalior, where ;^7,ooo,ooo, in silver t h I V' * Note. — My attention has just been called to tliis instance of what may occur under Native rule : — " Rkvoi.ting Cruelty in the Deccan.— Nothing more terrible in the history of superstition-tragedies has happened for many years than that which the local jiapcrs report having taken place recently in the Deccan. In a small \illagc in tlic Chcnnar taluka, in the Nizam's dominions, were several shep- herds,- wlio for some unknown, or at any rate unstated, reason were looked upon by the natives with a suspicious eye. It was held that there was some- thing uncanny .ibout them, and a bachcha falling sick after being 'looked at' by one of tlie unhappy Strephons, it began to be whispered that the man had dealings in wilclicraft. Like most isolated villagers, the people were super- stitious to a degree, and when an outbreak of cholera took place they natur.illy attributed the epidemic to the evil influence of the shepherds. The pco]ile murmmed at them when they met, and threatened them with sticks, and eventually, when the cholera had carried off fifteen or sixteen of their number, the survivors assembled in a body, and went out to seize the evil ones. They were successful in finding only two of them, and these they brouglit down to the village-well, where they were solemnly tried by &punch- ayat fur witclicraft. They were found guilty, of course, and sentenced to dcalli liy torture. Tliey were first carried to an open space on the outskirts of the village, and there, in the presence of all the i>cople who had escaped the epidemic, their teeth were drawn with pincers and their heads sliaved. ' Water in which leather had been well soaked ' was then given them, and they were compelled to drink liberally of it. While all this was going on, two narrow pits were being dug in the sandy soil, and, when tlicse were ready, the miserable victims of superstition — alive, but m desjierate agony — were buried in them up to their necks. Then, as a crowning horror, wood was piled round the living heads, a fire was lighted, and the skulls of tlie unhappy men were roasted into powder. It is a melancholy kind of satisfaction to learn llial some twenty-eight or thirty of the villagers who took part in this ghastly tragedy have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment varj'ing from seven to fourteen years, and we understand that Colonel Ludlow, the British Resident, is moving to have this punishment increased. There is, observes the Times c/I/iiiiii, which gives the details, evidently a great Held for missionary effort in the Nizam's territory." ( '03 ) rupees, was found buried for trea-^onable u.se in the future. There are other, habitual, cases where large hoards have been made, and are makiny. All this justifies the suspicion that there are sources of supi)ly which demand inquiry. Parliament ought to know where the agitation-money comes from ; and the Indian Government should insist on having officially audited accounts ; and should enact that anyone paying or re- ceiving any such moneys, except through such iiudiled accounts, should be held in penal consequenc(>s. The special rancour of the British agents of the Congress- Wallahs can only be attributed to the venality coming from good pay, past disappointment, or the class of mind which makes the spy, the frocunur, the black- mailer, and creates the sort of " patriotism " which Dr. Johnson described as " the last refuge of a scoun- drel." " Parliament ought to know the names, the careers, and the varied pay and pensions of each of these indi- vidual agitators. The "Report on the administration of the Bombay Presidency for the year 1887-8," referring to the native newspapers of this Presidency, states : — " Out of the 63 newspapers started in 1885, 18S6, and 1887,— 2.(, or over 40 per cent., were edited by men either dismissed from the Government service, or con- victed of theft, breach of trust, and similar offences, or notorious for loose character, or of unknown social status, and limited education, or by school boys, reli- gious mendicants, and the like." A Native paper, com- menting on this, says, this " requires to be seriously considered by all the Native Newspapers in the Bombay Presidency"; that instead of making such a vague asser- tion, the Government ought to have published the names of the newspapers whose editors were convicted of the specified offences, and that the sooner the newspapers in the hands of such persons arc stopped by Government I u I' ,' I II I 1 ''^ I'l ( lo., ) the belter; and earnestly calls upon the Government to publish the names of these papers, so that the respectable portion of the Press may sever all connection with them. The Giigcrat Mitrd, of the 20th January last, says : •' These, and some of the older papers of the lower grade, have by their writings brought shame on the Native Press, which ought to establish a Newspaper Associa- tion, composed of the older and respectable members of the Press, under such rules as would serve to keep up the high position of the vernacular portion of the fourth estate." The Hikchchhu of Ahmedabad, of the 24th January last, echoes these, healthy, sentiments. I have thought it desirable to make some extracts from Native newspapers, published about the time *" my stay in India. They are, I hear, samples of the general style of the Congress Press. Their objects are — to describe England as selfish, despotic, and cruel : to stir up opposi- tion to the protection of our frontier, and, especially, to the war of protection on the frontier of Thibet ; and to the punishment of murderers by the Black Mountain expedition : to libel the Viceroy : and to advocate the arming of the Hindoo; and the equal authority of Native and English officering of regiments and armies. No man can shoot a partridge in Great Britain without a licence, and anyone having a gun must pay an annual tax. The people of India are in pretty much the same condition ; and, so far as I know, no one in any class of life who could show his good character, and the need for arms to defend him from robbers, wild beasts, or snakes, would have difficulty in obtaining a licence to carry arms. THE INDIAN GOVERNiMENT A DESPOTISM. The Hindu : — The Anglo-Indian Government has been, on the whole, more humane and just than were the native govern- ( >o5 ) th nicnts that preceded it ; and it is no special credit to Hritisli rulers that it has been so. For they never jirolessi'd lo he guided by the examples of Asiatic rulers ; i)iit have declared tlie European principles of fjovcrnment to be their sole guide. And judged by this standard, the Anglo-Indian despotism has not shown greater justification for its jterjietualiun than the despotism of Louis the XIV. or Frederick the (jreat. li betrays the same selfishness, the same arrogance, and the same jealousy of popular advancement, which gave birth to the hideous monster of the Revolution wiiich swept away all European despotisms. lUit in one essential respect the Indian despotism betrays the worst evil of its foreign character ; whereas in European countries in times of great crises the Governments depended upon the loyalty and co-operation of the people, in whom they encouraged a spirit of liberty and moral elevation, in India all efibrts in this direction arc misrepresented and opposed in all the narrow and jealous spirit worthy of a ruling caste con- sisting of foreigners. The Chdnivdrld, of the 14th January, says that though the work of administration is being carried on with considerable vigour under the British rule, and evidences of material power meet the eye everywhere in the shape of powder and shot, and though Government is raising a large revenue, still the jieople of India are far from being happy. There are not wanting moans which conduce to material prosperity. There is no lack of Colleges, Schools and Tiithsalas, of Railways, Post Ofiices and Law Courts. And there is the police stationed everywh.ere to preserve the peace. The people, nevertheless, ari' not happy. Not only are the rulers indifierent in the matter of promoting popular prosperity : they do not even hesitate to throw obstacles in the way of such prosperity. 4 1 ARMING THE HINDOO, &c. The .S'rt/wf/wV, of the 5th December, says: Thenecessityof open- ing a military school in India, of ollicering the native army with the descendants of the ancient Indian nobility and gentry, and of teaching the science of war to the oflicers of the native arm}-, is then dwelt on. As the affectionate understanding which formerly existed between the sepoys and their English officers is now u if ( '06 ) ceasing to exist, with the result that English ofTiccrs cannot now inspire enthusiasm in the sepoy, and as education is infusing the sentiment of patriotism into the minds of many of the sepoys, the changes above indicated seem to be required for the main- tenance ol' efTiciency and martial ardour in the native army. Tlie A'(i//>ii/a)u, in its issue of the loth February, says that India is under a foreign rule and has been reduced to poverty, not because the pcoj)le have no courage or intelligence, but because there is no unity among them ; that a reference to history will show that imder the leadership of Shivaji the illiterate Mdvlas performed great exploits and overthrew the Moghal empire simply by the force of unity, and that it is therefore necessary for the people of India to regain the unity which once existed among them, and for want of which the native rulers have lost their kingdoms and have had to wander all over the country. Dealing with English opinion, another paper says: — They cannot or will not understand that a remarkable change has been effected by time and education among the people of this country, and they therefore oppose every necessary or season- able reform which is proposed for the benefit of the Indians. Alarmed at the success of the Bombay Cotton Mills, whose outturn is fast driving IManchestcr, not only out of India, but also out of Burmah, China, and Japan, the Manchester mer- chants are calling for the extension of the English Factory Law to India. These selfish and self-seeking Englishmen are pur- suing, with obloquy and hatred, all natives who are devoting themselves to the welfare of their country, as well as noble- hearted Englishmen like Ripon, Hume, and Caine, who favour native movements for securing political rights for the people of India. These people showed all the frenzy of hydrophobia in their attacks upon Lord Ripon, and they that, on that occasion, insisted upon their right to exercise their privileges tis British- born subjects on every soil, and in every country, are now denying to Mr. Hume the right of exercising in India his British privilege of free political agitation. The Samaja, of the 7th December, thanks Lord Duflferin for his order on the subject of training the soldiers of the native chiefs with a view of utilizing them for imperial purposes, and ( 107 ) says that if this order is carried out, Government will j^^et some 30,000 soldiers gratis. It is, thcrcrore, timo for Government to consider win tlier the 30,000 men recently added to tlic British army in India should not be discharged. Such a reduction will set free two cron'S of rupees from the army expenditure, and enable (iovernment to complete the works of public utility wiiich have had to lie stopped for want of funds. It is hoped that Lord Duflerin will advise Lord Lansdowne to this cfTect. 4 LIBELLING THE VICEROY AND THE GOVERNMENT. The Biicca Gazelle, of the lolh December, says that those who did not know Lord Dufferin before will be able to see him in his true character in his speech at St. Andrew's Dinner. Lord Duflferin is a clever diplomat, but he is a heartless man. The same paper of the same date makes the following ob- servations on Lord DulTerin's administration : — Lord Duflerin, on his arrival at Bombay, declared that he would foster the system of Local Self-Government inaugurated by his illustrious predecessor Lord Ripon. But his Lordship has done nothing in that direction. He has, on the contrary, given his assent to the obnoxious Calcutta Municipal Act, and vetoed the proposal of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal to extend the right of election to mofussil municipalities, and reduce the number of nominated Commissioners in these municipalities. His Lordship has not carried out a single recommendation of the Education Commission. The Finance Committee has cost Government a lot of money, but no retrenchment worthy the name has been effected. The Public Service Commission has yet done no good to the natives, and very little is expected from it. Lord Dufferin has drained the resources of the country in wasteful and unpro- fitable wars. He has exhausted the imperial treasury by annexing Burma and by waging the Sikkim and Black Mountain wars. He has oppressed the weak. He has, in all his acts, been guided by the principle, might is right. He might have averted unnecessary bloodshed, loss of life and waste of money, if he had shown some patience and moderation. On the occasion of the Jubilee, Lord Dufferin held out to the people of this country the hope that they would get reconstituted Legislative Councils But he has done nothing in this way. ( io8 ) Tlir Xina7li authorities are blind though they have eyes. Favouritism and inlhience are rampant. This is India's misfortune. Hind, how much shall we mourn for you .'' Our heart breaks, we are pained at heart and die without cause I Alas I The Navavibhdkar Sdcihdraui, of the 12th November, says: — Sir Auckland says that the English (Jovernment's highest glory consists in its having taught Indians for the first time "that the end and aim of rule is the welfare of the people and not the personal aggrandisement of the Sovereign." If India had been always governed on this high principle, she would have had few sorrows. But she has been not only not governed on this principle ; she has not been governed even on the principle of the personal aggrandisement of the Sovereign. Government, on the principle of the personal aggrandisement of the Sovereign, does far less injury than government on the principle of the personal aggrandisement of the whole dominant race. And it is the cardinal principle of British rule in Imlia to I i ( H^ ) soriirc llio porsonal affj^raiuliscmciit T i\\o wliolc I'.iij^li^li nation at the expense of tlie Indian people. It is this principle alone that can give n meaning to the ahoiitlon of llie import ilnties, to the monopoly of salt, to tin' lar^e salaries of the Knglish otiicials, to the niainteiianee of Cooper's Hill t'ollege, ami to the roservinfir of all the posts in the Foreign Department for Knglishmen. It is government on this principle that is grailually iniitoverishing hnlia. Referring to T.ord Duflerin's speech at St. Andrew's Dinner, till- Stirabhi and PaUikii observes as follows : — It is no wonilor that the educatetl classes of this country should by their severe criticism of Lord DufTerin's administrative measures have incurred His Kxcellency's sjjecial displeasure. It was for this reason that, before leaving India for good, His Excellency wcs looking for an opportunity of revenging himself upon the educated classes. And iie did find an opportunity at the last St. Andrew's Dinner. His speech at that dinner is conceived in a spirit of bitter hostility towards the educated ciasscri and the Congress movement which the educated classes have inaugurated. Indeed, so bitter is that spirit of hostility that not all the resources of his splendid oratory could enable His Excellency to hide it. His speech consists of two parts, one of which is devoted to extoll- ing his own administration, and the other to abusing educated Indians and the Congress movement. If His Excellency can derive any real satisfaction from a boastful enumeration by him- self of his own good qualities, and from himself characterising his own administration as a faultless one, by all means let him have that cheap pleasure. lint the future historian of India, it is certain, will not readily accept his own verdict, and will condemn his administration as one of a very dark description. I f depriving the Burmese of their independence with the view of finding a new market for IJrilish goods, if kindling the flames of war for nothing in Tibet and sacrificing innumerable lives and large sums of money in those flames, and if making the poor Indian's mouthful of rice uneatable by robbing it of its customary pinch of salt, be acts worthy of a Governor-General of India, then it must be admitted that His Excellency has done his woik exceed- ingly well. If, however, it be dacoity to annex other people's country, foolishness to unnecessarily sacrifice men anil money, and oppressii 11 to unnecessarily increase the burdens of a people. ( »•» ^ thon it will l)c Tor llio fiilun 'istorian to sav lliit I.opI DiinVrin has bcfn K"'l'y '*! ^'•'''y kt-ivi" rrifO'^ Tho Fliinf^ithiisl, of tile lytli N'ovcinlu'r, s.iys iii;it, in iiis n-ply to the address prusiMitcd to liiin l)y tlir I.ahoro >riini''ipaiily, I-ord DiilTfrin lias praisi'd liimscif and Iiis admiiiistralion, His Kxcellcncy has said that tiic pcoplo of India will dcrivr in- estimablo brni'fits from the I'lililic SiTviii- Coniniission. 'I'lio writer docs not know what view the I'nnjal)is have lakcii of liiis assurance of His Kxrrlienry; Iml the p('i)|)le of Ilcni^al an- not so foolish as to he thrown into ((stacics hy any assurainc of this kind. It is very nunh to hi" doiihti il whrthrr the rrconi- niendations of the Commission will lie accepted by llic Home authorities. And even if they are accepted, the Indians will certainly derive no such hicssinjj; therefrom as can make them dance in Joy. The F-nj^lish art- a p(>ople who will not ;,'r;mt any rights to the peo|)le of this country unless and until they arc absolutely ccmpellcd to do so. OPPOSING FRONTIER DEFKNCK. 'Vhc Dainik and Samdchdr Chandrikd, of the i2tli December, blames Lord DulTerin for waging war against Sikkim, and 1 1 is Lordship will incur greater blame if he is found to have given his sanction to the annexation of that State. The war against Sikkim was a most unrighteous one, and has been condemneil from its commencement. Government vindicated its action in the Sikkim affair iiy saying that its object was to rescue the people of Sikkim from Tibetan oppression. But evcryboily knows that its real object was to open a new market for English traders. And this strengthens the suspicion that Government will not only annex Sikkim, but also carry war into Tibet. The Sanjivanl, of the 26th January, says that it is iiol a desire to revenge the deaths of the English officers killed by a I.ushai youth, but a desire to annex the countries of the Liishais and the Cochins — independent States lying between the British territories in India and Upper Burma respectively — which is the real cause of the wars with those tribes. The same paper says that no one has been able to show that native soldiers have ever been guilty of such disgraceful be- haviour as that of which the 9th Lancers, according to the late H ( "4 ) Sir Charles Macgrcgor, were guilty during the Afghan W.ir of 1878, and wliicli is recorded of other Englisli regiments on the pages of Cunningham and Thornton. And yet native sepoys have to serve on small salaries under young and inexperienced English officers. The Baiigahdsl, of November i ylh, says : — But the per- sistent instigation of the British merchants, and a love of money, which is so marked a characteristic of the English people, led Lord Dufferin to alter this decision in spite of the strong pro- tests of the Vernacular Press. As for the plea that war with Tibet became necessary because the Tibetan troops at Lingtu were a menace and source of irritation to the peaceful in- habitants of Sikkim and Darjeeling, who that has seen the English Government looking calmly on while hundreds of thousands of its subjects are dying of starvation, will believe that the spectacle of a mere handful of men in Sikkim and Darjeeling, sufl'ering a little annoyance, moved it so deeply as to plunge it into a costh' war ? i % i; r ■; ( 115 ) "OFFICIAL STATEMENTS" ISSUED FROM THE INDIA OFFICE. It is unfortunate that ofiRcial papers with statistics aro often behind the time. It is so at home with the Board of Trade ; it is so at the India Office. The paper I hav<^ much to quote affects the year 18S6-7, mainly, and it was not "ordered to bo printed" till th(> i8lh Aui^ust, 1888. Obviously, all statistics quoted an^ from returns regularly made to date. All other information comes from reports, which follow on the heel of events. Thus, why we should never be allowed to follow the current as it flows, is a mystery of government. I remember, well, how the old quidnuncs of English railways derided my proposals for issuing accounts, in careful estimate, of expenses and net profit, fortnightly or four-weekly. Still, the plan has been found to be easy and economical, and, where I have had control, has gone on for a generation, and is going on still. The whole process is based on doing the work of the day in the day, and not next day or next week. lUit I think if I were INIr. J. A. Godley, Under-Secretary of State for India, I should be ashamed to send forth a statement for the year 1886-7, dated from the " India Office, September, 1 888." Much later, and consecutive, information must be in an office presided over by Viscount Cross, who is a man who will always demand the last fact, to reason upon. It 2 th I- ■X / I ^!i ' I ( "6 ) At all evonts, Parliament might have been favoured with a resume, in brief, of what had happened since the year 1886-7. Just think of the "last information" as to the petroleum finds, near Sibi, being given under date " India Office, September, 1888 " : — " At the end of the year, the Khatum oil-field in Beluchistan was still being investigated, and it is hoped that it may pay to burn this oil in locomotives on the Quetta Railway." ]\Iucli of the information, possessing the greatest interest, is merely to the end of 1886. In fact, for current purposes, Mr. Godley's paper, most valuable, undoubtedly, is of small use. Here are sample entries in this " Statement" from the "India Office, September, 1888." "The latest Madras report upon land revenue affairs pertains to the year (July to June) 1885-6." " In Ajmere the rainfall of 1886 was below the average, water in some of the tanks failed, and the out-turn of the crops was deficient." " The rainfall of 1 886 was full and seasonable in the Brahmaputra Valley, and was excessive in the Surma, especially in the Sylhet district, where the rice crop was the shortest known for many years, and prices ruled high for a short time." Why should the IMadras Land Report be two or three years behind ? INDIAN STATISTICS. However, here is an epitome of some of the informa- tion which it is well to bear in mind when the question of Indian development is being considered : — The total population of India in the " British Territory *' and the "Native States" was, according to the census of 1881, 253,891,821. The estimated total population in March, 1887, was 268,137,044. The difference is accounted for by(i) that \\ , ( 117 ) "the estimated poimlatiDii of Caslimeiv, in iSyjiwas 1,500,000; of Upper Burma in 1SS6, 3,000,000; and 01 ilie Jiurmosu Siian States, 2,000.000 ;" and (2) by the fact that "the yearly increment to the population is at least one half per cent." Dealing with this increment alone, tutally apart from any pos-ible additions of territory, the population of India in 1897 will be 281,543,851 (i per cent, per annum for 10 years=5 per c(Mit.=to an increase of 13,406,807) (plus compound increase) ; and by the end n| Uie century it will be not far short of three hundred millions of souls. So much for the alleged decrease of population. The "distribution of population of India accordin.i,' to re- ligion"—" as shown in the census of 18S1 " (Statistical Abstract) — was stated to be : — Hindus 1^7,937,438 Mahomcdans So, '21,505 Aboriginals (>,42"i3" Buddhists 3,4' f^-'^^OS Christians 1,862,626 Sikhs i,f<53.4-(^ Tains 1,221,885 Parsccs "■""J-'' Jews '^'«"' Others __?l!f^ Total ::S3,'^9',82i Note in the Al).STR.\CT.-Thc total of all religions here given differs Hon. the total population in Table Xo. 1, page 6, owing to tlie exelu.ion ot Aden and Port Blair. The population divides itself into— Males I*9,04t,85' Females ■23,')4'>,'):o and it is a remarkable and sad fact that out of these totals there are under the head "widowed" (see p. 3', Statistical Abstract)— Males 5,678,382 Females 20,872,595 or an excess of female " widowed " persons .d' i5,"H,2'3- 1" other words, about one-si.xth of all the women of India arc ( "8 ) in tlic unrortuiiatc, all h'.u liopclcs.s, comlilion of widowhood. Oiil oT the total, !'■>, 1 17,135 arc Hindu widowy. TIric were in Dritish India, in 1885-6, 114,303 public and inivale, primary, schools, mostly connected with the Indian educational system. These schools had 2,806,471 pupils, out of which only 149,922 were girls. The area of "British territory" in 1881 was 868,314 square miles, and that of " Native Stales" 509,730 square miles, or a grand total of 1,378,044 square miles. The number of " houses occupied " was in " British tcrri- IiJ'T" 33.032, 607, and in " Niitivc States" 10,516,551 — or a grand total of 43,549,158. The number of " towns and villages " was 544,862 and 169,903 respectively, or a total of 714,765. The average death rate in "British India," with its population of 197,585,350, was, in 1878, at the rate of 28-40 per 1,000 ; in :8S6 it was 25-33 1"^'' i,foo of population. The death rate of 1886 divides itself into the following proportion of causes: — Cholera I '05 Small I'ox 0-26 l-'t-'vers 17-57 Cowel complaints 1-34 Injmics . . . •, , , . , , 0-44 All other causes 4-67 Total 25-33 ■u I 1 may here add, that the eminent financial adviser of the Viceroy of India, ]\Ir. Westland, who resides at Calcutta, told me that since the water supply of Calcutta has been made abundant and wholesome, cholera has entirely disappeared from the area in which that water is supplied. What cholera there remains in the outside — the "country" or "mofussil"- -comes from the tank districts, the Hindus washing their clothes and their bodies in these tanks and drinking the water. Taking the year 1886-87, the area of land "shown by the Survey Department " is 480,667,094 acres, or about an acre and three-quarters per head of population. From this total arc deducted in the return (p. 53) 31,540,608 acres, under the head of "Feudatory and Tributary States"; and 85,074,875 acres ( HQ ) undur the head of " Aiv;i r(ir which RcUirns arc (jlluTwi^c iiiit available," leavinj; 364,051,611 acres as the "Net area dealt with in this return." Strange to say, that as respects " Ben-al " the return has this indorsement, " Statistics not available." How is this ? Then this 364,051,61 1 acres, the " Net area dealt with in this return," is explained thus : — According to the .Survey of India. Acres. 364,051,611. Accordin;,' lo tlic village fapois. Acn's. 123.235.273- Then, under the head of " CuliivakJ," the Statement gives these figures : — Actu.illy cropped . Cuvrcat fidlows . Acirs. 130,109,219 22.72.5.391 Total i52."34.^o Under the head of " UnciiUivalcd ^ as follows :- Acres. Available for cultivation 7!^.4''0. 3=4 Not available for cultivation 75,S2i,.i()0 Total i54.28i,7''4 ! Then " Forests" arc given as 4o,iS5,7Z9 acres. It is repealed that this is all ,-.v Bengal, and I cannot make the figures check at all. Again, excluding Bengal ("statistics not available"), the figures under the head of "Crops Cultivated " are— Acres. Rice ^3,''4.('62 Wheat "^■«''3'°-'° Other food Grains, including Pulses , •,439.2'« Other food Crops ^'^'*I,''o'^^ Sugarcane '''^"^'^?5 Coffee Tea n7.3'^'7 226,41; \ ( '-'o ) And, as respects Raw IMalcrials, &c. — j4cres. Cotton 9,852,654 Jiitu 13,610 Other Fibres 347,779 Oil Seeds 7>678.382 Indifjo 1,034,889 Tobacco 370,502 Cliinchona 9,632 Miscellaneous 2,100,792 Total area cultivated 141,214,181 Deduct area cropped more than once 1 1,631,425 Actual area on which crops were grown , . 129,582,756 The area {ex Bengal) "Irrigated" is given thus — Acres. By Canal — Government 7,019,886 Private 928,047 Tanks 3,481,366 Wells 8,811,503 Other sources 3,022,325 Total area of crops irrigated 23,263,127 Two inferences may be drawn from these figures ; the one, that irrigation is far behind tlic necessities of cultivation, where water is the condition of food and life in so many districts ; the oilier, that with 78,460,324. acres "available for cultivation," but uncultivated, without including Bengal, there are ample areas for the support of an increasing population. 1 repeat the regret which everyone must feel, that under every item of cultivated and uncultivated areas — areas under crops and areas irrigated — the figures of Bengal are a blank page ; all that is learnt being " statistics not available." The classification of the occupations of a people is always especially worthy of note. In the return before me, out of 129,941,851 *' males," 48,794,195 arc returned as " persons of no stated occupation " ; and out of a total of 123,9491970 "females," I ( I2« ) 86,135,617 arc similarly returned. Tlie main heads of occupation arc — Agriculturists — Males 51 ,089,02 1 Females 18,863,720 Total 09,952,747 Attendants (Domestic Scn'ants) — Males 2, 149,629 Females 651 ,960 Total 2,8o«,S95 Mercantile Men^ Males 983,869 Females 1 24,409 Total 1,108,278 General Dealers- Males 886, 148 Females , , , . , , 286,464 Total 1.172,612 Persons engaged about animals — Males 7S4.S>2 Females 235,830 Total 990.342 Labourers and others (branch of labour undefined)— Males ",248,49> Females 5,244,206 Total 12,492,697 Then there arc large numbers of men and women described as "workers in" books, musical instruments, prints and pictures, carving, tackle for sports and games, arms, machines and tools, carriages and harness, houses and building, cotton, flax, wool, worsted, silk, skins, feathers, earthenware, glass, "gold, silver, and precious stones" (males, 459. iS?! females, 13,799; total, 472,956) ; copper, tin and quicksilver, zinc, lead and antimony, brass and other mixed metals, and iron and steel (473,361 per- sons). In fact, there is a full proportion of the artizan and trades- man class. 11 1 ( >22 ) Of other classes : — Autliors anil Literary Persons Artists !^[usicians Actors , Males. 32,177 10,347 187,69s 58,807 Fcmalci. 3.4^ 584 '9,631 40,381 Of the actors, 47,398 males and 26,145 females, arc returned as " in villages." I Maks. Teachers 1 166,356 Females. 4,345 Clergymen, Ministers, Priests, Church and Temple Olliccrs — Males 601, 164 Females 94,250 Or a total of 695,414. Workers in Animal Food , and Workers in Vegctp k ~"ood Or a general total of 4,255,155. Against this arc thc- Workers in drinks and stimulants — Males Females Males. 640,521 1,445,916 Females. 449,205 1,719,513 Total 708,699 204,331 913.030 The return of "Agricultural Stock" (p. 69) is very incom- plete : Bengal ticketed " statistics not received " ; Central Pro- vinces, "not received"; Assam, "not known." But the agricul- tural stock, ex these countries, is — Cows and Bullocks 35,394,495 Bullocks and he- Buflalocs 4,786,823 Cows and slic-Bufl'alocs , 4,971,132 1 lorscs and Ponies 898, 765 Mules and Donkeys 1 ,054,482 Sheep and Goats 25,299,725 Carts ',733,061 Ploughs 9,843,927 Boats 101,088 REMARKABLE PROGRESS. We have no reliable estimates of the wealth of India, though we can to some extent gauge it by the area under cultivation. ( l-'.) ) I the general industries of llir roiinlry, ilu' ,^;ro\vili nf towns, ;aul so on. Tiie income tax is, douijlless, a great cause of ileceplion and concoalmenl, as regards individual incomes ; and, to some extent, no doubt, it aiils tlie Msleni of lioardiiig, and, as regards the humbler people, tiic conversion of any ready money into ornaments to wear, or coins to conceal. I gave a new sovereign to one of our " boys " — a most kind, genial, gentle creature. lie was asked wliat he intendLil to do with it '■: His answer was, he should "keep it and never pari with it." But is not the wealth of a country simply the dilTerence between the consump- tion and production of a coimtry ? In India the great mass of people, aided by climate, habit, religious dogmas, and so on, live in health and strength on very little, and clothe on less. And the amount of their individual contributions to the total production of wealth must far e.xcecd the Eur(jpean, and still more the Northern American proportions. Thus, I should imagine that the margin, which means accumulation of wealth, is, as a matter of proportion— wants of one people against wants of the others— in excess of European or Northern American accumula- tions. That is only conjecture ; but all external statistics would go to prove this ; and one hears of native Shrofls, and Bunias, and Kiahs, or by whatever name the Indian " Gombeen men"— who work in family connection — go, as tlie possessors of mil- lions, and as taxing the poor and needy and ignorant, as they are taxed in Ireland, unmercifully. Take, for instance, the external evidence of shipping, which shows something to Hhij) and the payment for the produce and the profit of the merchandise. In 1 878 the number and tonnage of sailing and steam vessels engagctl in the foreign trade, "entered and cleared" at "ports of British India," was, in total, 12,537 ship^. "^''l'' =1 tonnage of 5-754.379 tons. While, in 1887, the tonnage was 7,172,193 tons— the number of ships being, however, less than in 1878, owing to larger ships super- seding smaller craft. The material and industrial progress of India between 184.2 and 1857 was enormous. Taking every head of import and export, the increase in 1857 over 1842 was, on the average, 100 \[ t t U ( 1^4 ) per cL'iil. I do not [iroposf to f,'o so far hack; but to compare 1887 willi i8.;7, a period of thirty years, dating from the Mutiny. I find tiic followinf,' results : — Till' len^'tli of railway opened was, in 1857 273 miles. While in 1887 it was H'3^i >> The total imports of merchandize in 1857. .ii'j. 14,200,000 In 1887 01,770,000 The total exports of merchandize in 1857. • 25,340,000 The same, in 1 887 88,430,000 To these figures must be added the imports and exports to, from, and beyond the external land frontier. Thus dealt with, the year ending IMarcli, 1887, shows a total export of/'92, 904,000, and a total import, including the net import of treasure, of _^7i, 030,000. The imports of merchandize by sea were thirteen per cent., and the exports five per cent., larger than the previous year. The exports of the year, March, 1887, included: values °f=- ;f(Rx.) Cotton 13,468,000 Oil Seeds 9, l9So of India. What is the objection r In principle none; but whatever the damage to the safety or progress of the State, we are exhorted that we must never interfere with the sacred nest of jobs and bad bargains called "private ent(;rprise." An in- dependent State cable could be laid from Tlymouth to Bombay, calling at Lisbon, and on the west coast of Africa at Senegal, Congo, and the Cape ; and on th<> east coast at Natal, Delagoa Bay, Mozambique, and Zanzibar — a total of about 11,300 miles— for /^i,joo,ooo. Great good would result from enaliling the European residents in India, and their families, to go and return home at very cheap rates. There are seasons when the !| V 'U ( i2(y ) P. (i O., and otluT stoamors, carry vory few passengers. The* "Rohilla," in which I came, had not f)n tho averaj^u of tho voya>,ft> more than forty or fifty of 1)olh classes of passengers, with accominochition for three or four hun- dred. Hero, again, " private enterprise" dictates its conditions and stops the way. We hear much about the Ijurden of the debt of India. But there are public works to show for most of it. Tho permanent debt in India is ^92,653,000 (Rx.); in England, £84,228,000; the Savings Bank deposits and other unfunded debt, ;^8, 789,000, or a total of (Rx. & £) 185,670,000. This money is represented by £77,644,000 spent on profit-earning railways; by £25,290,000 on pro- fitable, on the avcragfs irrigation works (the only unpro- fitable works being the " private enterprise" things taken over) ; and by £/3, 94 7,000 for other purposes of essential public expenditure. What otlmr country can show a better record of its capital outlay of borrowed money? i \