RAILWAYS IN BENGAL:

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF A REPORT ADDRESSED TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY,

BY W. P. ANDREW, Esq., H.E.I.C.S.

THE following paper, giving, in a condensed form, the published opinions of the writer, was, at the request of the late Sir A. Galloway, K.C.B., submitted to him when Chairman of the East India Company in 1849, and forwarded by him to the Board of Control, who considered it sufficiently important to retain possession of the original. The East India Railway Company being about to apply for additional capital to enable it to carry out the views contained in this Report, in place of those propounded by its own promoters and founders, and recommended by the Indian Railway Commissioners, the document comes before the public at this moment invested with additional interest and authority, and without further remark we lay it before our readers to speak for itself:

REPORT.

The East India Railway Company having been exclusively identified in the public mind with a direct line from Calcutta to Mirzapore, a gigantic, difficult, and costly undertaking, mainly for political purposes, was necessarily, in a great measure, dependent for success upon the amount of liberality accorded to it by the authorities.

The character of the undertaking itself, viewed as a commercial speculation, irrespective of the 5 per cent. guaranteed by the Hon. East India Company, holding out to the adventurer little inducement to embark his capital therein: the line not being in any way adapted for an experimental or preliminary line, from its vast extent (450 miles in length), and from the unprecedented, and now admitted, fact, that no beneficial result could be obtained, either by the Government or the commercial public, until the entire undertaking should have been completed, bringing Calcutta into railway connection with the Ganges at Mirzapore* the extent and formidable nature of the physical ob

This commercial entrepot stands some fifty miles below the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, and by following the downward course of the former we are brought to the Bhagarutty, which flows into the Hooghly, on the left bank of which stands Calcutta: this is the track of commerce; a continuous

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stacles to be surmounted,* the want of population in 250 miles of the regions to be traversed by the proposed railway, the difficulty (in seed time and harvest the impossibility) of there collecting, housing, and feeding labourers and artisans, as well as of preserving the health and lives of such, and of their European or other superintendents when collected from a distance, and of inducing them to remain in the pestilential jungle-covered hills of a great portion of the line; the expense, delay, and labour in the conveyance of materials to localities remote from river transit; and finally, the utter impracticability of affording any sufficient protection to the line when finished, against the depredations and mischievous attempts of adjacent and uncertain hill tribes to destroy the railway, or against wild animals.

Many other reasons might further be adduced to show that the completion of the Mirzapore direct line must necessarily be a work of great delay, expense, and difficulty, requiring, at the most moderate computation, from fifteen to twenty years for its completion, and involving an expenditure of ten millions sterling before it could make any return on capital or answer any purpose, political or commercial; even when finished it could prove useful to Government but in a very limited degree, as three-fourths of the Bengal army are cantoned above

water communication, in the form of a bow or arch, connecting Calcutta with Mirzapore. The proposed railway to Mirzapore is the string to the bow or arc, and no traffic can accrue till the cord of that arc is completed, or until the railway from Calcutta touches the Ganges at Mirzapore.

* E. g., Bridging the Hooghly at Sooksauger, with its banks ever trembling or in locomotion.-The natural barriers to be surmounted composed of primitive, transition, and secondary rocks, generally of the most obdurate and impenetrable class, such as granite, greenstone, and basalt.-The summit level of the country at the Dunwah pass gives a rise of 800 feet, requiring assistant power to work the trains, and farther on-" the river Soane is a formidable obstacle to the cheap construction of a railway, being two miles and three furlongs in breadth, and the foundation or natural substratum below (at present) an unknown depth of sand. The erection of a viaduct across this great river is, however, a matter of expense only, there appearing no difficulty in the case that perseverance and ingenuity will not overcome."-(Report of Commissioners.) To build a bridge as great in its dimensions as the Blackwall Railway, and the foundation to be sought for below an unknown depth of sand-no difficulty! We say nothing of a rise of water in the river of thirty or forty feet during the rains.-ED.

† As was painfully exemplified when the attempt was made of making the grand trunk road (by means of convicts collected from surrounding districts) from Calcutta to Benares in 1836-7, the lives of more than half of those sent from their respective zillahs were sacrificed.

Mirzapore, and all emergent movements of troops and stores take place more to the north-west, or in advance of Mirzapore; but in a commercial point of view it is physically and geographically impossible that it could ever meet the wants of the country, for it would facilitate but in a very limited degree the transit of the valuable products of the opposite side of the Ganges to their ocean outlet, and it was ascertained in evidence before the Wet Dock Committee at Calcutta, that the great bulk of the traffic arriving at Calcutta comes from points on the Ganges below Mirzapore.

The proposed railroad eschews the ancient and beaten track of commerce, turning away from the rich and populous valley of the lower Ganges, the grand arena of production, and consequently of trade, and which must ever continue to be so till the great river forgets to overflow its banks and ceases to be navigable, choosing rather to scale or tunnel the desolate and impenetrable mountain ranges, running parallel to its course.

The export trade being mostly of heavy goods, could not be expected either to ascend the river to the terminus of Mirzapore against the stream, or ascend to the railway by branches, contending the whole way (the one proposed from Patna, for instance, being eighty miles in length) against the natural inclination of the country. It is evident, therefore, that a line of railway having Calcutta for its lower terminus, and a point on the Ganges for its upper terminus, that the traffic, of necessity, must be in an inverse ratio to the length of the line, that is to say, the further you extend your railway before debouching on that great commercial artery, the less must be the traffic.

Objections so formidable and incontrovertible have doubtless been long apparent to the Honourable Court, as they have assuredly been to all those acquainted with the country who have taken an interest in a question of such moment; and it is under this impression, and being aware that the best mode of granting relief to the vast and impeded traffic of lower India has long been the subject of anxious solicitude to the Honourable Court, that I venture to recal your attention to another project, essentially different-not liable, when thoroughly explained and understood, to fluctuate in public estimation according to the exact ratio of prestige or credit attachable to the names of those connected with it, or founding its entire and only claim to the support of the capitalist of England on the extent of liberality accorded to it by the authorities; but one comparatively moderate in extent, yet having a great and defined object, simple and easy of execution, adapted to

the requirements of commerce, co-operating with, not suddenly, but gradually, superseding where most defective, the existing means of transit, and susceptible of making a large return, from the cheapness of construction and the extent of the traffic.

On former occasions, in conjunction with General M'Leod and others, I had the honour to lay before the Honourable Court the unambitious but important results obtainable by a line of railway connecting Calcutta with the Ganges, at or near Rajmahl, from which point the river is continuously navigable at all seasons of the year for steamers upwards, or in a north-westerly direction, for a distance of 500 miles; but it was intimated to us that it would be more agreeable to the Honourable Court, as well as more convenient, and tend to facilitate the adjustment of a great national question, to waive pressing at that time this more limited, and therefore more practicable, project. This suggestion was at once acceded to from deference to the authorities, although contrary to settled opinions, derived from personal knowledge of the country. I beg now, however, again to state, that I am still convinced that this project, strictly in accordance with the views originally entertained by the Honourable Court, in sanctioning Colonel Forbes' projected canal for establishing a direct permanent water communication between the Ganges at Rajmahl and the Hooghly at Mirzapore, is a scheme well worthy of the early attention of the Honourable Court and of the Indian Government. I have received from the engineer employed in surveying the Rajmahl line, and who is now in London, plans and sections in detail of the line from Howrah, opposite to Calcutta, to Rajmahl, all of which have been submitted to the inspection of Colonel Forbes; and I am now in a position to prove, from surveys made during the rains, by boat and otherwise, everything which I have advanced, and feel assured that there is not in India, or in any other country, a line possessing such peculiar facilities for construction and working, combined with an existing traffic so large and so susceptible of being augmented;* and I would

It is apparent, from the statistical tables attached to the first report of the East India Railway Company, that the traffic which they claim for the Mirzapore line belongs in reality to the Rajmahl line; for it will be seen that nearly all the traffic which is appropriated to the former, is taken at two points, namely, Calcutta and Bhagarutty River, the principal portion of which, coming either from the opposite bank of the Ganges, or from points below Mirzapore, would of necessity be obliged to pass over the Rajmahl, or some such line, to reach the Calcutta and Mirzapore direct line. The river traffic is estimated at

respectfully beg leave to refer the Honourable Court to that high authority in engineering projects, Colonel Forbes, in confirmation of these views.

The upper terminus of the proposed railway at Rajmahl would necessarily become the steam port of Calcutta and the grand depot of all the valuable commodities constituting the inland trade; while the lower terminus at Howrah, meeting contiguously in the same focal area, with wet docks, and communicating with Calcutta by means of a steam ferry or suspension-bridge, would economise and expedite in an extraordinary degree, the transaction of the external commerce of India.

By connecting in this manner the two great channels of commerce, the Hooghly and Ganges, 528 miles of a circuitous route, large portions of which are extremely dangerous and intricate, through the labyrinth of the Soonderbunds, would be saved for eight months in the year, and the "rapid and ever tortuous Bhangerruttee," always dangerous to commerce, and annually occasioning numerous wrecks, attended with the total loss of large amounts of property, would be avoided for the remaining four months. The railway train would, with certainty, perform in ten or twelve hours what now takes the steam vessel, on the average, as many days, and what is only precariously accomplished by the heavily ladened country boat in a month.

After having thus endeavoured to supply what has long been considered by the Honourable Court and the Government of India the grand desideratum for the commerce of the country, and having thereby, not only solved the problem of the practicability of railroads in India, but from having selected the line of all others likely to yield a large immediate return, demonstrated that a railway in India is a highly remunerative undertaking, we should then

more than 2,000,000 tons, while that by the road is only 33,370 tons; both evidently exaggerated, many boats and carts being empty, or nearly so.

There has been always one great omission in the traffic returns, from taking only the traffic at Jungypore on the Bhagarutty. The tolls on the other two rivers, tributaries to the Hooghly, are very great: that for the Jellinghee is collected at Kishnagur, and though not equal to Jungypore, is large, owing to its having more water all the year; that for the Matabanga and Ishamuttee is collected either at Ranaghat, Sibnibas, or Hanskhalee, and should be entered in traffic returns in preference to the gross collections of the eastern canals, which includes all the traffic of Dacca and Sylhet, to which neither the project of the East India Railway Company nor the line which I advocate can lay claim.