A Railway Caution! or, Exposition of Changes required in the Law and Practice of the British Empire; to Enable the Poorer Districts to provide for themselves the Benefits of Railway Intercourse; and to Forewarn the Government and the Capitalists of British India. By Major J. P. KENNEDY, Military Secretary to Sir C. Napier, Commander-in-Chief in India, late an Officer of the Royal Engineers, and Director of the W. and L. Railway Company. Dedicated to the Marquis of Dalhousie, Governor General of India, and late President of Imperial Railway Commission. Calcutta: Published by Messrs. R. C. Lepage and Co. 1849.

The Cotton Trade of India. By Major-General BRIGGS, F.R.S.

1840.

In our last number we showed that residents in India, both European and native, had been for a considerable period alive to the commercial and social ameliorations which would flow from the introduction of railroads into India, and that the Indian Railway Commission of Engineers gave it as their deliberate opinion that "they should not deem it inexpedient or unwise to attempt the introduction of railways into India to any extent that private enterprise might be found willing to embark capital upon."

It was stated, we think without due consideration, by the promoters of the East Indian or Mirzapore direct Railway Company, that "It cannot signify to the Government (who must derive considerable benefit from the measure under any circumstances) which line may be first completed." From this opinion we entirely dissent, as it is obviously the interest of the Government, as well as that of the people, and the shareholders, that the first line opened should be the one of all others possessing the highest political and commercial advantages, combined with the greatest facilities for construction, the most moderate expenditure, and the best adapted for being an integral portion of a great whole. Railway experience and expenditure at home should have pointed out the propriety of having, before a single sod was turned, a general outline of the system which was hereafter to pervade India laid out and defined, so as to guard against the disappointment and confusion which would necessarily ensue, from the injudicious selection of an isolated scheme, having reference only to a particular locality.

But even when the general outline of this system had been, after mature deliberation, decided upon, we repeat that it is the interest of all parties that the first line or section opened should be the one of all

others possessing the most important advantages, combined with the greatest facilities for construction, and the most moderate expenditure; for it is obvious, that, according to the success or otherwise of the first line, so will the general introduction of railway intercommunication into a new country be accelerated or retarded.

"But, besides, as a railway is so superior to all other means of communication that it must necessarily supersede them, and confers the greatest advantages on the localities through which it passes, it becomes of greater consequence that the lines for railways should be wisely selected, and that railway companies should not be suffered, by any injudicious choice, to inflict injury, either on the public in general, or on the owners of property. That these subjects were not at first sufficiently attended to in this country can hardly be a matter of surprise, when we reflect on the ignorance with respect to the nature of the change about to be effected by the new power thus brought into action, which then generally prevailed."

Confident, from the successful result of the first experiment, the Government would have no difficulty in extending its patronage and support to new undertakings, and capitalists would eagerly contend for the prize of gain in the vast and magnificent fields of the East.

Instead of losing their money in foreign loans, or enriching with railroads, Holland, Belgium, or France, by their superfluous wealth transmitted to India, under the guarantee of their native government, they would at once enrich themselves, ameliorate the condition of their distant fellow-subjects, and indirectly, but surely, add to the dignity and wealth of their own country-giving to the mechanic and labourer of India such employment as would speedily open up new markets and outlets for the products of the industrial energies of our home artizan, and add incalculably to the security and strength of our Eastern dominions. Thus the two countries would act and re-act upon each other to their mutual benefit.

Much depends upon the character of the line first completed.

Suppose, for example, a long line to be selected, no matter how direct, or how great the mart it led to, for the result will be effected by what it goes through, and not by what it goes to.† Suppose such

* Railway Acts. Second Report.

Mr. Peto stated, in evidence before Mr. Morrison's committee, "that the experience of Belgium furnishes a striking corroboration of the soundness of these views, as it has been proved by the report of M. Desart, in whose hands the Belgium Government placed the whole of its railway statistics, that in a given population the traffic of the small towns and villages along a line is proportionally greater than the traffic between two large cities at the termini."-Railway Acts. Second Report.

a line for one half of its course to traverse a barren country, in many places covered with almost interminable jungle and totally uninhabited, beset with physical difficulties of the most gigantic description. There could be but one result, and that result fraught with disappointment to the Government, the entire loss of the capital embarked, and the postponement, for an indefinite number of years, to India, of the inestimable boon of improved intercommunication.

Unacquainted with India himself, the English capitalist looks to those placed in authority, and acquainted with the country, to act with a just and discriminating vigilance, and surely those in authority will not disappoint this reasonable expectation. It might have been hoped that the Railway Commissioners would have cleared the way to a satisfactory decision on this subject, with an authority derivable from the soundness of the views enunciated, the variety of new and interesting data-the prestige of office and acknowledged ability. But their report, beyond giving an official sanction to railroads in general, sheds no new light on the question at issue; long, without being comprehensive-elaborate, without supplying any data to arrive at practi al results, giving no estimates of cost, or specifications, or traffic tables, even leaving to private enterprise the decision (with one exception) of whether this or that line should be ultimately adopted. The commissioners instructed "to suggest some feasible line of moderate length," the principal portion of their report, as we before remarked, is devoted to recommending the adoption of a railroad of four hundred and fifty miles in length, through the most difficult, most unproductive, and most desolate portion of a country, elsewhere easy, fertile, and densely peopled. "Our opinion remains unchanged," wrote Mr. Andrew, in 1846, "notwithstanding that the Railway Committee have enunciated propositions, and proposed projects in exact accordance with the views entertained by the East Indian or Mirzapore Railway Company, but which they have failed to demonstrate, not even supplying the requisite data on which to found the demonstration of the plans and propositions proposed and enunciated by themselves-we say that our opinion remains unchanged as to the impolicy of commencing the railroad system by an attempt to supersede the river navigation, where it is comparatively free from obstruction and is always available for steam navigation, as is the case between Rajmahl and Allahabad. The former is situated at the head of the Delta of the Ganges and the latter at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna, the distance between the two towns, by the river route, being 500

miles. But should a line be determined on for this portion of the country, an extension of the Rajmahl line up the Gangetic Valley to Mirzapore and Allahabad, would have many advantages over the direct route indicated by the East Indian or Mirzapore Railway Company. These advantages we shall notice in detail when we come to review the report of the Railway Committee. It may, however, be mentioned now, that although the actual or lineal distance between Calcutta and Mirzapore, by the valley of the Ganges, would be 100 miles longer than by the direct route, yet, taking the difference of gradients into account (assistant power being required on the latter, and pro rata to the power required, so is the distance), the gain in time, by the direct line, would not be more than three or four hours, which would be too trivial to be an element in any calculation of the comparative merits of the two lines in a country where time occupied in travelling is estimated by months instead of hours."

The grand object both for the Government and the merchant to attain is to connect Calcutta with the north-west frontier, and there can be no great difference of opinion as to the direction of the line from Mirzapore through the Dooab to the banks of the Sutlege; this at once disposes of nearly two-thirds of the entire length of the grand trunk line; but as to the best mode of connecting Calcutta with Mirzapore, there are two if not three opinions expressed, and it is to be borne in mind that this portion of the line, besides commencing at the metropolis of British India, traverses the provinces of Bengal and Behar, the revenues of which, we have already shown, equal those of the whole of the remaining British territories in India, yielding a surplus of £4,000,000 annually, a portion of which flows from India to our shores, and the rest enables us to improve, consolidate, and defend other and more remote regions in the East, naturally less productive. It also ought to be borne in mind, with regard to the vast descending trade of the Ganges, 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 farther you extend your railway before debouching on that great commercial artery, the less must be the traffic.

Before proceeding to describe in detail the plans of the Upper India Railway Company for the supply of railway communication in the north-west provinces, or the Agra Presidency, a few additional remarks appear desirable as to the communication between Calcutta and Allahabad, the latter being the starting point of the Upper India Railway Company.

Some years ago two modes were brought before the public for connecting Calcutta and Mirzapore, the latter being fifty miles below Allahabad, viz.—the Mirzapore direct line, the original project of the East Indian Railway Company and the Gangetic Valley line advocated by Mr. Andrew; but for the formation of which no company was ever before the public. The line of the East Indian Railway Company from Calcutta to Burdwan, and Shirgotty to Mirzapore, has been already described and objected to, the other from Rajmahl by all the various populous cities in the fertile valley of the Ganges, we describe in the words of the railway commissioner, Captain Western, of the Bengal Engineers, "from Rajmahl along the banks of the Ganges, with the exception of one point, where a shoot from the Rajmahl hills extends into the Ganges at Siclygully, no difficulty occurs; indeed the only engineering difficulties at all would be the insurmountable, for it has already been proposed to build bridges over passage of the rivers, and these I trust would soon be shown not to be the rivers Jumna and Ganges at Delhi, Agra, Allahabad and Benares; and plans and estimates for a masonry bridge across the Jumna at Delhi were in preparation when I was at that station; besides, the bridges could be built of sufficient width to allow of the construction of another road alongside the portion marked off for the rails, for the passage of the ordinary traffic of the country."

The table at the foot of the page,* carefully prepared from the Dâk (post) routes, shows the relative distances by the two lines. The actual length of the line to Mirzapore by the valley of the Ganges.