INDIAN RAILWAYS.
England is naturally in advance of all other countries as regards
railways in her possessions and colonies. There is not one of them in
which the system has not made some advance, but in two of them it has
become of magnificent proportions. First as regards India.
Although the question of Indian Railways was first agitated as far
back as 1840, it was not until 1846 that the British Parliament began
seriously to occupy itself about them. In February and March 1847, the
House of Commons ordered a vast amount of information, both official
and unofficial, that had been collected from various sources, to
be printed, and it may be said that the reports and documents then
circulated, have formed the basis upon which the legislation for Indian
railways has been framed. By the Act of the 12th and 13th Victoria,
cap. 93. (1849), the construction of a line from “Calcutta towards
the Northern Provinces,” by the East Indian Railway Company, was
authorised. The first divisions of the line, that is, from Howrah,
opposite Calcutta, to Pundoah, 37½ miles, was not opened for traffic
until September 1854; and by the 3rd of February, 1855, a further
length of 92 miles to Raneegunge was completed. At the present time,
the total length of the East Indian Railway is 1,354 miles. In mileage
therefore it exceeds the London and North-Western Company of England by
twenty-six miles, eight miles having been added to the latter company’s
lines since page 23 of this book was printed. The following is a
brief sketch of the Great Railway as it now exists. At Burdwan (about
ninety-two miles from Calcutta), the separation between what is called
the “Chord Line” (to be finished throughout in 1869) and the main line
takes place. The latter runs due north to Rajinabad, thus connecting
Calcutta with the Ganges, and enabling traders to avoid the navigation
of 250 miles of one of the most dangerous parts of the river. At
Rajinabad, the railway turns westward, and proceeds up the right bank
of the Ganges, past Monghyr, where it is carried through the only
tunnel in its course, 300 yards long, to Patna, Benares, and Allahabad.
Shortly beyond Patna, it is carried across the River Soane, by a
magnificent bridge, said to be the second longest in the world; it is
therefore next in length to the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, to which
reference is made hereafter. At Allahabad the line crosses the Jumna,
by a bridge nearly as great as that over the Soane. In the crossings
of these rivers, and of two others, the railway is carried at the top,
with a roadway underneath for the ordinary traffic, in a somewhat
similar way to the High-Level Bridge at Newcastle. These four bridges
are constructed upon the wrought-iron lattice principle. That over the
Soane consists of twenty-eight openings, with spans of 150 feet; that
over the Jumna of fifteen openings, of which each span is 205 feet. The
bridge over the Adjai consists of thirty-two openings, with spans of 50
feet; that over the Keeul, of nine openings, with spans of 150 feet; a
smaller bridge over the Touse consists of seven openings, each with a
span of 150 feet.
From Allahabad the East Indian Railway extends through Cawnpore to the
heart of the upper Provinces, and at Ghazecabad it meets the Punjaub
Railway, whence it is carried to the Great City of Delhi.
At Allahabad it branches off to Jubbulpore, where the line of the Great
Indian Peninsular Railway is to come from Bombay to meet it. The gap
to be filled up is 225 miles, and according to the interesting and
instructive report of Mr. Juland Danvers, the Government Director of
the Indian Railway Companies, issued in May last, it is fully expected
that this gap will be completed for traffic, notwithstanding the
difficult and costly character of several of the works upon it, by
October or November of next year. Then railway transit from Bombay to
Calcutta will be accomplished in forty-four hours;[86] and it is not
too much to hope that in two, at all events three years, the present
contract time of mails from London to Calcutta, _viâ_ Marseilles, will
be reduced from 34 days to 23½ days. If the speed of the steamers which
are to carry the Mails between Brindisi and Alexandria were to be
twelve knots an hour, and not ten as specified in the invitations for
tenders sent out by the Post Office, at the early part of the present
year, and the speed of the steamers between Suez and the port of Bombay
were increased from 9½ to 10½ knots an hour, a further acceleration of
nearly two days to Calcutta would be gained, thereby reducing the time
to 21½ days, or 2½ days less than the present contract time between
London and _Bombay_, _viâ_ Marseilles. Two to three hours would also be
gained by the construction of a great bridge over the Hooghly, thereby
extending the East Indian Railway, from its present terminus at Howrah,
into Calcutta. Such a work is stated by Mr. Juland Danvers to be, “in
the opinion of those best able to judge, imperatively required, in the
interests both of the railway company and of the public.” No decision,
however, has as yet been come to with reference to its construction
being commenced at an early period.
The average cost of the upper portion of the East Indian Railway has
been about £15,000 a mile. The lower, or Bengal portion, has been, at
least, half as much again. It is expected that the Jubbulpore extension
will come to £15,000 a mile, including rolling stock and maintenance
of the line and works for a year after opening. The gross traffic
earnings[87] during 1866 were £2,012,680, showing an increase of
£338,239 as compared with 1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865
were 7s. 9d., in 1866, 8s. The expenditure per train mile in 1865 was
3s. 8d., in 1866 a farthing a mile less. The train mileage in the year
ending 30th June, 1866, was 4,625,705 miles.[88]
The Great Indian Peninsular Railway Company was incorporated in 1849.
It is to be the great line which is to unite Bombay with Madras, and
also with Calcutta. From Bombay to Callian may be considered the parent
line, as it is at this point it becomes divided, one branch going
south-east in the direction towards Madras, and the other north-east
towards Calcutta. The south-eastern branch is carried over the Bhore
Ghaut by an incline nearly sixteen miles long, with a total elevation
of 1,381 feet. The foot of the mountain is 196 feet above high water
mark at Bombay. Its average gradient is 1 in 48. The steepest gradients
are 1 in 37 and 1 in 40, for a total length of 9 miles and 44 chains;
1 in 37 extends in one length for 1 mile 10 chains, and 1 in 40 for 5
miles 6 chains. Short lengths of level gradients and of 1 in 330 are
introduced into this incline to facilitate the ascent of the engine.
The radii of the curves upon it range from 15 chains to 80 chains; but
as much as 12 miles 45 chains have a radius of more than 30 chains, and
5 miles 33 chains are straight. It comprises twenty-five tunnels of a
total length of 3,585 yards. The longest is 437 yards; and the longest
without a shaft, which is carried through a mountain of basalt, is 346
yards. There are eight viaducts of a total length of 987 yards. The two
largest are 168 yards long, and respectively 163 and 160 feet above
the foundations. The total quantity of cutting, chiefly rock, amounts
to 1,263,102 cubic yards. The maximum depth of cutting is 70 feet, and
the greatest contents 75,000 cubic yards of trap rock. The embankments
amount to 1,849,934 cubic yards, the maximum height being 74 feet;
and the greatest contents are 209,000 and 263,000 cubic yards. The
slopes average about 1½ to 1. There are twenty-three bridges of various
spans, from 7 feet to 30 feet, and sixty culverts from 2 feet to 6 feet
wide. The rails weigh 85 lbs. per yard. The cost of the incline has
been nearly £800,000; at one time there were no less than 42,000 men
(natives of India) employed upon its construction.
At the eleventh mile the incline is divided into two banks by what is
called a reversing station. This subdivision, however, was not adopted
for the purpose of making two banks of the incline, but of increasing
the length of the base, in order to flatten the gradient and to
reach a higher level, where it encountered the great features of the
Ghaut margin, near Khandalla. Without the necessary expedient of the
reversing station, the practicability of changing the direction of the
line would have been confined to making curves of small radius; but
with the device of the reversing station the direction was altered at a
very acute angle, by means of points and crossings. In consequence of
its adoption, the length of the line has necessarily been considerably
extended.
The Bhore Ghaut is unquestionably a stupendous mass of works,
unsurpassed by any others in the world; and probably the nearest rivals
to them in magnitude and grandeur are those of the Thull Ghaut.
This incline extends from the village of Kussarah to Egutpoora. It is
9½ miles in length, and has a total ascent of 972 feet. At the end of
3¾ miles there is a reversing station, similar to that upon the Bhore
Ghaut Incline, by which the base is lengthened, the gradient flattened,
and the incline divided into two banks. The steepest gradient is 1 in
37, for a length of 4 miles 30 chains; and the same introduction of a
level portion is adopted here as on the Bhore Ghaut. The radius of the
curves ranges from 17 chains to 100 chains; but of 7 miles 12 chains
the radius exceeds 30 chains, and 3 miles 28 chains are straight. There
are thirteen tunnels of a total length of 2,652 yards. The longest
are, one of 474 yards in black basalt with two shafts, and another of
483 yards without a shaft, in green-stone. There are six viaducts, of
a total length of 741 yards, the largest of which are respectively 144
yards and 250 yards long and 83 feet and 182 feet high. The latter is
of three spans with triangular iron girders measuring 150 feet, with a
pair of semi-circular abutment arches measuring 40 feet at each end.
There are fifteen bridges of which the span varies from 7 feet to 30
feet, and sixty-two culverts. The cost of the incline is about £500,000.
The Thull overcome, a branch line, runs south-eastward through the
great cotton district of Oomrawattee to Nagpore, but the main line
continues its course eastward to Jubbulpore, where it meets the East
India Railway which comes to join it from Calcutta. From Bombay to
Jubbulpore the distance is 615 miles, and from Bombay to Raichore, the
point of junction with the Madras Railway, the distance is 441 miles.
As soon as the whole system of the East Indian Peninsular Railway is
completed it will consist of 1,267 miles.
Its train mileage in the year ending the 30th June, 1866, was 2,259,881
miles. The gross receipts for the year ending the 31st December were
£1,252,962, showing an increase of £77,872 over 1865. The receipts per
train mile in 1865, were 10s. 5d.; in 1866, 10s. 11d. The expenditure
per train mile in 1865, was 6s. 2d.; in 1866, 6s. 4½d. For the
half-year ending the 30th of June, 1867, the net receipts amounted to
£530,568, being at the rate of £6. 9s. per cent. per annum on the whole
of the paid-up capital of the company. As the guaranteed interest of
the half-year advanced by the Government amounted to £398,452, the
surplus profit was £132,116; but, in consequence of the accidents that
had occurred to the works, it has been decided by the shareholders that
no more than at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, shall be divided
among them for the present. The Great Indian Peninsular Railway must
always be liable to heavy cost, and occasional interruptions to its
traffic, in consequence of several of the districts through which it
passes being subjected to severe and sudden floods. At Bombay, the
annual rainfall is about 85 inches (more than three and a-half times
the rainfall of London), and although at other places on the line
it is considerably less, it is nevertheless as high as 255 inches
at Matheran, and as high as 265 inches at Mohableshwar. It may be
that the works on the railway, as a whole, have not been constructed
sufficiently with a view to this fact, but, from whatever cause
proceeding, several serious disasters to viaducts and bridges have
recently taken place; and, we regret to perceive, by a minute of the
Governor-General in Council, that these disasters are attributed
to original defective construction. It also appears, by the latest
reports from India, that as many as seventeen bridges on the unopened
portions of the Nagpore Extension have been condemned by the company’s
engineers. But might not this fact have been avoided if they had done
their duty in the first instance?
It was not until the year 1852 that the Madras Railway was
incorporated. The object of the company was to construct a railway from
Madras to the western coast. The difficulties of construction of this
railway have not been great, the only ones that presented themselves
being the way in which several rivers should be crossed. By means of
this line, railway communication with the important military station
of Bangalore is obtained. It also passes through the cotton fields of
Combatoore, and it finds its way through a passage in the Ghauts to
the Port of Beypoor, on the coast of Malabar. From Madras to Beypoor,
the distance is 406 miles. The Bangalore Branch is 86 miles, and it
attains a height of 3,000 feet on the Mysore Table-land. The north-west
line, leaving the main line at Arconum, 42 miles from Madras, proceeds
through Cudapah, crosses the River Pennar to Gooty, to which place the
line is expected to be opened in January next. Near Gooty, a branch
is given off to Bellary. The main line crosses the Toongabruda, and
runs to Raichore, the point of union with the Great Indian Peninsular
Railway from Bombay. This portion of the railway, when completed, will
be 338 miles, thus making the distance from Bombay to Madras 821 miles,
160 miles more than by the ordinary road. The connection between the
Bombay and Madras Railways is expected to be complete in 1869. When the
whole main line and branches are completed, the length of the Madras
Railway will be 825 miles. Of these, 645 are at present open.
The traffic of the line has been injuriously affected in 1866 by the
failure of the Monsoon rains, the consequent scarcity and famine, and
the state of trade. But good service was rendered by it during the
famine, in conveying to the districts so lamentably affected by it
nearly 23,000 tons of food, an amount which Mr. Danvers says would have
employed 17,000 carts every day for three months. The gross traffic
receipts of 1866 were £438,787, showing an increase of £33,787 over
1865. The receipts per train mile in 1865 were 6s. 1d.; in 1866, 6s.
7¾d. The expenditure per train mile in 1865 was 2s. 10¾d.; in 1866,
3s. 2d. The train mileage for the year ending 30th June, 1866, was
1,306,998 miles.
Beypoor has for some time been felt as an unsuitable terminus, on the
western coast, for the Madras Railway. It provides the conveniences
neither of a harbour nor of a port, and the advantages of the railway
to the western side of India are, in consequence, greatly diminished.
Proposals have, accordingly, been made to extend it northwards to
Calicut, or southwards to Cochin, sixty miles from Beypoor. The former
would hardly be much better than Beypoor, but Cochin appears to offer
considerable advantages. Independently of possessing a fine harbour,
there is close by, the remarkable roadstead of Narrakal, accessible
to ships at all seasons. The only drawback is, that the line would
pass through a foreign territory; but this would be slight if the
Rajah of Cochin would support the project. The matter is now under the
consideration of both the Supreme and the Madras Governments.
It is expected that by means of the Madras Railway the French East
Indian settlement of Pondicherry,[89] situated not far from the
south-eastern extremity of the continent, will eventually be linked
by the railway system with all the chief cities of British India. The
French Government has just decided upon granting a subsidy for the
construction of a line that, in the first instance, is to be carried
between the City of Pondicherry and Conjeveram, and subsequently
to some point on the Anglo-Indian system. Such a connection will
materially improve postal and passenger communication between France
and its dependency. At present there is only direct intercourse
between them once a month, through the medium of the steamers of the
_Messageries Impériales_—a company that is largely subsidised by the
French Imperial Government.
The Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway was formed to connect
Bombay with the Cotton districts of Guzzerat and Central India. The
works were commenced in 1856. Taking a northward direction along the
coast from Bombay, it passes Damaun and Surat. Here it crosses the
River Taptee by an iron bridge 2,000 feet long. But at the Nezbudda
River the bridge is nearly double that length, being 3,800 feet. This
has been the most formidable work of construction on this railway. The
line then continues its course to Ahmedabad, which is 310 miles distant
from Bombay.
This line, when completed, will prove to be the most expensive in
India. Its cost will be more than £20,000 a mile. To cover the interest
a large traffic will be required, and such may be reasonably expected.
But its capabilities are at present cramped by the want of a good
terminal station at the Port of Bombay,[90] and by the imperfect road
communications with the stations. This last is a complaint that can
truly be made by all the railway companies of India. The railway
sustained very serious damage by floods during the Monsoons of 1866.
Their destructive character is said to have been unprecedented, and
for upwards of a month the traffic was totally suspended on about
thirty miles of the line. Nevertheless the growth of the traffic is not
unsatisfactory. In 1866 the gross receipts were £407,688, being £85,872
more than in 1865. The gross receipts per train mile in 1865, were 12s.
6¾d. (the highest in India), but the working expenses were also the
highest—8s. 1¾d. a mile. The train mileage for the year ending the 30th
June, 1866, was 745,961 miles.
Very considerable desire exists in India to extend this railway from
Baroda, across central India to Delhi, nearly parallel (but at a
distance of from 350 to 500 miles during two-thirds of its course) to
the main line of the Great Indian Peninsula to Jubbulpore, and thence
to Allahabad. The length of this line would be about 570 miles, and
surveys are already being carried on with the view of ascertaining the
best route and making complete estimates of cost. At present it is
assumed that the line will cost about £12,000 a mile, or £6,850,000.
If the results of the surveys be satisfactory, arrangements will
probably be made for constructing this railway. A main difficulty is
that it will, for the most part, be carried through the territories
of native princes; negotiations must, therefore, before the works can
be commenced, be entered into for the abolition, at all events the
relaxation, of the existing onerous transit dues.
The tendency of the construction of this extension would be to still
further concentrate European traffic at Bombay, as by means of it not
only would Delhi and the north-western provinces be accommodated, but
there would be a second route from Bombay to Calcutta, a roundabout one
to be sure,—but a second route notwithstanding.
The next railway we have to refer to is the Scinde Railway, which was
incorporated in its present shape in 1857. “Although,” says the editor
of _Engineering_, “the affairs of this company are under a single
board, the operations of the company, in reality, embrace four separate
concerns.” The object of the combined undertaking is to establish
railway communication between the port of Kurrachee and the Punjaub,
and to connect the chief cities of that province with the East Indian
Railway, which has already been mentioned as extending to Delhi.
The first portion of this great connection is a most important section
of 109 miles in length, crossing the rivers Bahrun and Mulleer, and
through the Karatolla Hills to Kotree on the Indus, opposite Hyderabad.
It has since its opening in May, 1861, developed a considerable trade
in cotton, which had not been previously seen on the Indus, as well as
Indigo, grain, wool, and other products.
Usually, the violence of the monsoons does not extend on the western
side of India, so far to the north as Scinde, but, in August, 1866,
it was not less destructive to the works of the Scinde Railway than
to those of the Bombay and Baroda. In two days, forty inches of rain
fell, and the floods produced by this sudden down-pour were such that
they as completely swept away a viaduct as if it had never existed.
Iron girders, sixty tons in weight, were hurled along for a distance of
half-a-mile, and rails were carried away 300 feet from the line. The
traffic was, in consequence, interrupted for several weeks. As in the
case of the Bombay and Baroda Line, the cost of repairing the damage
will, in consideration of the exceptional circumstances which caused
it, be allowed as a charge against capital. In 1865, the gross receipts
of the Scinde Railway were £82,493, and the net, £3,507; in 1866,
although the gross receipts had fallen to £53,166, the net earnings
were £10,083. The train miles in 1866 were 283,062.
The second portion of the system connected with the Scinde Railway
as it now exists, is for the navigation of the Indus from Kootree to
Moultan, eventually to be superseded by what is designated the Indus
Valley Railway. The Indus Steam Flotilla consists of thirteen steamers,
three tugs, and twenty-six barges. The vessels which formed the early
portion of the company’s fleet did not turn out satisfactorily, but
now the service is efficiently carried on. The gross receipts of the
company for the year ending the 30th of June, 1865, were £73,958, and
the net, £16,400; for the year ending the 30th of June, 1866, they were
respectively, £80,640, and £22,283.
As regards the Indus Valley Railway, the object of its projection is
to unite by means of a line that would be about 500 miles long, the
existing Scinde and Punjaub Railways, and thus to provide a continuous
line of railway communication, about 2,200 miles long, from the Port
of Kurrachee to Calcutta, _viâ_ Hyderabad, Moultan, Lahore, Delhi, and
Allahabad.
The project is indeed a grand one, and its effect would be (assuming
that the line be made between Baroda and Delhi) to give a _third_ line
of communication between the western coast of India and Calcutta,
and also three lines of communication between that coast and the
North-Western Provinces, of which two (one, however, circuitous) would
be from Bombay, and one from Kurrachee.
When we have, as we shall undoubtedly have, sooner or later, the
Euphrates Valley Railway,[91] it will, in the first instance, be
carried from the ancient Port of Seleucia, on the Mediterranean, to
Ja’bar-Castle, on the Euphrates, below which point there is water
communication by the Euphrates and Tigris to the Persian Gulf.[92]
Kurrachee[93] will then be the port of call between Europe and India.
At whatever time these eighty miles shall be constructed, and proper
lines of steamers established in connection with them, there will be a
gain of fully four, if not five days over the existing Red Sea Route.
But will progress in shortening time between England and India stop at
the construction of only eighty more miles of railway?[94] It would be
out of reason to suppose that such will be the fact. It may therefore
be taken for granted that continuation of the whole 800 miles of
Euphrates Valley line will be accomplished somehow or other. Whenever
that time comes,—and every day is accelerating its advent,—the gain
will be at least two days, possibly even a little more on the homeward
journey. Then, India—the India of England—will, at its nearest point,
be under fourteen days from England. Then the postal communication
between the two empires will not be as it is now, forty-eight times
a year; it will not be the two and fifty, so long proposed, so long
and so miserably resisted by Post Office narrow sight and want of
appreciation of imperial grandeur and importance.[95] No! It requires
no great foresight, or fore-reading of events to feel conviction that
the service will be daily, and that despatch will succeed despatch
on each of the working days of the year, as well from west to east,
as from east to westward. Even now, the postal service of England
with the east is the grandest combined land and ocean communication
of the world.[96] No other maritime service approaches it. It is five
times as great as that of the Cunard Company. It is more than double
that of the two great routes of the Royal West India Mail Company.
Notwithstanding that its ramifications extend thousands of miles, the
component parts of it fit in so harmoniously, and work together in such
complete and accurate accordance, the one with the other, that whether
we take the outward journeys with their divergent fragments, or the
homeward journeys, continuously aggregating and increasing as they
approach completion—the mails arrive almost with the rarely failing
fidelity of clockwork—punctuality the rule, absence of it the rare
exception.
But shall we always be satisfied, even when we have achieved
communication by railway from the Mediterranean to the head of the
Persian Gulf, and thence by water to English India? There can be but
one answer to the question—It would be contrary to all human progress
if we were to be so. Only in the summer of the present year, France
and England were each honoured with a visit from the Sultan, and it
is said there was nothing which struck His Majesty during his short
residence in Western Europe as of more importance to the well-being
of a state than the construction of railways. It is therefore not
surprising that he has already given the subject attention for his own
country, and that concessions have been granted for several important
lines. Even now the break which separates the railways that extend
continuously from Calais to Basiach, on the Danube, 419 miles to the
south-east of Vienna (accomplished by the express train in seventeen
hours), are only separated from Rustuch by less than 300 miles, and, as
the railway—138 miles long—from Rustuch to Varna is open, there is in
fact only the Basiach-Rustuch break in a complete railway communication
from Calais to the Black Sea. Before ten years from this time, not only
will this gap be filled up, but the City of the Golden Horn will be
equally put into connection with the whole of the European system of
railways. The Queen’s messenger, and the mails now go from London to
Constantinople,[97] _viâ_ Marseilles, in about eleven days. When the
Brindisi route is established, the time will be diminished some three
days, and on the completion of the railways to Constantinople, the
interval in time between it and London will not exceed five days.
So far with regard to a railway journey, the accomplishment of which,
within ten years, is certain. Nothing, except the coming of chaos, can
prevent it.
But when the railway has arrived as far east as the City of the Golden
Crescent, will it stop and end there? In one sense it must, unless
indeed some of the engineers who are now competing for the honour of
tunnelling under, or placing tubes upon the bed of the ocean between
Dover and Calais, shall suggest a scheme for tunnelling under the
Hellespont, and their proposals shall be accepted. At all events, even
if a railway were only to extend a hundred or so of miles eastward in
Asia Minor, one will certainly be made for that distance, and opened
for traffic by the time the line, coming from the far west to its
terminus at Constantinople, shall be completed. It will go through a
country rich and productive, as well as covered by a prosperous and
money-making population. Fact and reality ended, we approach a “dream
of the future.” A dream not new to us, for we have often dreamt of
it, and occasionally discussed it with others, whom the reader will
probably feel disposed to consider as dreamy as ourselves. And yet
the time will come—possibly even a few of those now grown to manhood
may see its fulfilment before they die; the LONG RAILWAY will first
traverse Turkey in Asia, anciently the seat of the kingdoms of Troy and
of Lydia; the birth-land, possibly of Homer and Herodotus, certainly
of Thales, Pythagoras, and others hardly less distinguished. From
classic land it will cross to Persia, and from Persia it will pass
to Afghanistan, the grandest in physical aspect, and perhaps for 600
miles, the most difficult country in the whole world for railway
construction. When it has gone beyond those kingdoms, it will be on
British soil. There it will attach itself to the then Great Indian
Railway, the unbroken course of which will be from the Persian Gulf to
the mouth of the Ganges.
When the now far distant day of accomplishment has arrived, how will
Calcutta and London be to one another in point of postal distance?
Possibly, fifteen; certainly, not more than seventeen days asunder!
The third portion of the Scinde connection is the Punjaub Railway,
253 miles long. Its present western terminus is at Moultan, where
eventually it will be united to the Indus Valley Railway. From
Moultan the line follows nearly a straight course up the left bank
of the Ravee to Lahore; whence it proceeds, taking a westerly course
until it reaches Umritser. But surely the statements recently made
respecting wholesale corruption, both in England and in India, on
the Punjaub Railway cannot be true. It can hardly be possible that,
but for the interference of the Governor-General, Sir John Lawrence,
the contract price for the construction of the line would have been
£5,000 a mile higher than it now is; neither is it to be believed,
although so broadly asserted, that the iron-masters have to pay “the
usual commission” of from five to ten per cent. for orders given to
them by the officials of Indian Railways. However, the Government of
India has very properly appointed a Commission to inquire into these
allegations, and the facts must shortly come to light in their reality.
It is evident, from a passage in Mr. Juland Danver’s Report, that he
has had, for some time, serious doubts as to the efficient character of
the traffic management of this railway.
In the year 1865 the gross earnings of the Punjaub Railway were
£25,250; and if the traffic accounts be correct, the net receipts
were £6,009. In 1866 the gross receipts were £90,269; the net £25,395.
The number of train miles for the year ending the 30th of June, 1866,
were 354,239. The Punjaub, while rich in agricultural produce, is a
comparatively new and uncivilised province of British India; and the
benefits which the railway is destined to confer upon it cannot be
shown until proper access is obtained by the construction of roads
leading to it from the neighbouring districts.
The Delhi Railway will, when completed, be 320 miles long, and it forms
a link in India pretty much as the Lancaster and Carlisle does in
England in connecting English and Scotch railways together. By means of
the Delhi Railway a junction will be effected with the Punjaub Railway,
the North-Western Provinces, the Indus Valley, and the Scinde Railways.
87 miles of line are now opened; 117 will be opened next year, leaving
116 to be finished in 1869. As the line crosses several important
rivers, the bridges at them constitute the measure of time for the
completion of the railway. It is, therefore, satisfactory to know that
the piers and abutments of all the large bridges have been successfully
got in.
The Eastern Bengal Railway Company was formed to give accommodation
to the densely populated and prolific districts lying north and east
of Calcutta. Its length is 114 miles; but in August, 1865, it was
determined to extend the line forty-five miles farther, to Goalundo,
at the confluence of the Bramapootra and the Ganges, with the view
of intercepting the traffic from Assam, Bhotan, and the more distant
north-eastern countries.
The Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway Company was established in
1857 for the construction of a line, twenty-nine miles long, in
a south-eastern direction, to a town and harbour which it was
determined to establish on the Mutlah estuary, the object being to
avoid the dangerous navigation of the Hooghly. The necessary wharves
and jetties required at “Canning Town” have been constructed; but
unfortunately, just as the traffic was beginning to make progress, the
bed of the river shifted, in consequence, it is supposed, of certain
operations on the shore close by, and it was partly carried away.
The “Port Canning Company,” which has already expended £600,000 at
the place, is re-establishing the jetty. A new town is now gradually
rising at the place; “so that,” says Mr. Juland Danvers, “when the
dangers and difficulties of its infancy are passed, the whole scheme
of establishing a port on the Mutlah will be in a more promising
condition. Upon the whole, we may look with hope, if not with
confidence, to the future.”[98] The Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway
exhibits a deficit in its revenue accounts.
The Great Southern of India Railway was constituted in 1857, its
objects being to construct railways in the southern provinces of India.
The line runs from the east coast of the Great Indian Continent, by
Tanjore to Trichinopoly, through a country extensively cultivated with
rice and cotton crops. Seventy-nine miles were opened in 1862. An
extension of eighty-seven miles has been since authorised, by which a
junction will be effected with the Madras Railway at Errode.
With the exception of the Indus Valley and the Rajpootana Railways,
all the lines above enumerated are entitled to the payment of
interest from the Government of India, at the rate of 5 per cent. per
annum, on all capital, the expenditure of which is duly sanctioned
by the Government. At the close of 1865, the number of miles thus
guaranteed was 4,944, and the amount of the guarantee would be about
£81,000,000, when all lines are completed. This year, the guarantee
has been extended to 700 more miles, making the total now sanctioned
for guarantee 5,644 miles, and the total capital £88,000,000. By means
of it, the Indian Branch Railway undertakes to construct a system of
railways through Oude and Rohilcund, with branches to various places
on the East Indian Railway. These districts are populous, and highly
productive, and have obtained the name of the Garden of India. There
are no engineering difficulties on the lines, and very few works of
great magnitude, except some bridges over the Ganges, which will have
to be made, if the full benefits of the lines are to be secured. The
form of guarantee to the Indian Branch Railways differs in some details
from the form originally adopted, but in the main the terms are the
same. In the old contracts, the guarantee is given for ninety-nine
years, and at the end of that period the railway lapses to the
Government; but these provisions are practically annulled by the power
which each company has of surrendering the railway to the Government
at any time before the expiration of the ninety-ninth year (at the
ninety-eight year for example), and receiving back from the Government
the capital expended. In the new arrangements, no period is fixed for
the termination of the guarantee, but the Government has the power
of taking possession of the line after the first twenty years, or at
the expiration of any ten years afterwards. If it exercise this power
within a hundred years, it will have to pay a sum equivalent to the
average value of the stock during the three preceding years. If the
power be not exercised until after a hundred years, it then has only to
pay back the capital expended. _Per contra_, the company has the power
of surrendering the railway to the Government any time after the line
has been opened six months. In this event, the Government is not to pay
back more than the capital actually expended.
The amount of guaranteed capital raised up to the 1st of April, 1867,
has been £67,254,802, of which £51,800,377 consists of share capital,
and £15,454,425 of debentures. It may here be observed, that it has
been determined, as a rule, henceforth to restrict, as far as possible,
the issue of debenture capital, especially such as is not convertible
into stock. Perpetual debenture stock has, however, been sanctioned, to
some extent, in the case of the Great Indian Peninsular Company, and
its issue will, probably, under certain circumstances, be permitted to
be made by other companies.
The Indian railway capital is well diffused all over Great Britain, as,
on the 31st December, 1866, there were 34,849 shareholders, and 8,170
debenture holders. In India, there were at that date 816 shareholders,
of which 396 were Europeans, and 420 natives. Neither Europeans in, nor
natives of India were debenture holders at that date.
The total amount of guaranteed interest on railways which has been paid
by the Government of India from the year 1849, to the 31st of December,
1866, has been £18,929,576; of course during the early period of the
Indian railways, it was all expenditure and no profit, for, although
guaranteed interest commenced in 1849, the first length of Indian
railways was not opened for traffic until 1853, and then the length was
only 22 miles. In 1854, the miles opened were 55; in 1855, 98; in 1856,
102; in 1857, 145; in 1858, 145; in 1859, 75; in 1860, 208. In 1861,
759, which is the largest number of miles opened in any one year;
the following year, 1862, was nearly as much, being 747. Since then,
the amount has been increased at the average annual rate of about 300
miles, and the total mileage now is 4,070.
The companies have repaid to the Government, out of net earnings, about
£7,000,000; making the present debt of the railways to the Government
nearly £12,000,000. Their net earnings for 1865 were £1,341,550, and
for 1866 they were about £2,170,000. The amount paid by the Government
for guaranteed interest during 1865 was £2,796,676, consequently the
net amount of money which the Government had to find, and to debit
against the companies was £1,455,126; but, in 1866, whilst the amount
paid in guaranteed interest was £2,964,073, as the net earnings were
£2,170,000, the Government had only to debit the companies with about
£800,000. It is expected that the sum deficient this year will not be
more than £600,000, notwithstanding that the amount of interest for
which the Government is responsible will be about £3,300,000.
In 1866, for the first time, the net receipts of the East Indian, and
of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway Companies exceeded the 5 per
cent. guarantee. The excess of the first named was £108,073; of the
second, £75,878. In accordance with agreement, half these amounts,
or £91,976, were retained by the Government towards repayment of
guaranteed interest which it has already advanced. Mr. Juland Danvers
notices, as a very satisfactory circumstance, that “the guaranteed
interest which was exceeded by the receipts, was paid on account of
capital greater than that which produced those receipts, a large
portion having been expended upon unfinished works or lines not opened
for traffic, and consequently unprofitable.” How long it will take to
extinguish the debt against the companies on this account is difficult
to say. Some no doubt will be able to do so in the course of the next
twenty to twenty-five years, some very probably never. It will be seen,
by referring to page 255, that the surplus profits of the Great Indian
Peninsular Company, for the first half-year of 1867, were £132,116;
half of this will go in diminution of its interest debt due to the
Government.
It is quite clear that the guarantee system—without which experience
has shown it is impossible to obtain the construction of railways
in India—is not to stop at 5,644 miles, involving an expenditure of
£88,000,000 sterling. We have already referred to the extension of
the line proposed from Baroda to Delhi, called the Rajpootana Line,
and that of the Indus Valley. Their lengths (jointly) are about 1,070
miles, and the capital required for their construction—the works
for them being, on the whole, not of a difficult character—would be
under £13,000,000, or about £12,000 a mile. The construction of these
lines, with the guarantee on the capital, will, no doubt, be commenced
before long; and there is a third, the capital for which, whenever
constructed, can only be raised on the same system—the line to connect
Lahore and Peshawer together. This railway has been the subject of
a great deal of discussion and debate, both within the walls of the
British Parliament, and outside them. Whenever made, it can hardly
be looked upon other than as a military and political line, for its
commercial importance is very trifling indeed. It will also be very
expensive in its construction. Besides the Indus,[99] there are three
rivers, the Ravee, the Chenab, and the Shelum, great hurling and
devastating torrents at the period when the rains set in, and when the
Himalayan snows are melting; but with almost dry beds for at least
six months every year. These three rivers must each be transversed by
a long and costly bridge. The length of the line would be about 250
miles, and the cost about £20,000 a mile, or a total of £5,000,000. It
has been decided that, at all events for the present, the construction
of this line shall not take place, and that the two other railways
seeking the guarantee shall have precedence over it. Mr. Ayrton, M.P.,
whose opinion is entitled to much consideration, from his knowledge of
India, is decidedly adverse to its construction at all; whilst, on the
other hand, Mr. Laing, M.P., laments that the Governor in Council has
come to the determination of not recommending the work to be proceeded
with at once. As these three railways progress, they will add to the
guaranteed capital about £18,000,000, making its total £106,000,000,
and the amount of interest for which the Government of India will be
annually responsible, £5,300,000, against which will be the net incomes
of the railway companies up to 5 per cent. on the capital invested in
each. We have just seen, that even with increased responsibility in
the shape of guaranteed interest for the present year, the net amount
will be less by £200,000 than it was last year. Nevertheless, on the
£88,000,000 guarantee, when it shall have all been expended, the
Government may, we think, look to being liable on balance for at least
a million per annum for some years to come, and to still more during
the construction, and subsequent to the opening of the lines likely
to obtain the guarantee that is to raise its total amount to about
£106,000,000.
We now come to speak of the very important subject of working expenses.
On these working expenses depends, in fact, the fate of the Indian
railway system, and in considering them we must bear in mind that there
are three elements of outlay of a character to which railways are,
at most, very partially subjected in England—terrific inundations,
destruction of materials, and cost of fuel. As regards the first, it
would almost seem as if scarcely any provision that the engineer may
make is sufficient to counteract their devastating effects upon the
railway. Nor can this be wondered at when we read of rivers rising
twenty—thirty—fifty feet in a few hours, as also that in places where
there was a dry river bed one afternoon there is an impetuous torrent,
hurling villages along in its devastating course next morning. On
the Indus at Attock, on the high road between Lahore and Peshawer,
the floods of 1858 appear to have risen 80 feet above the usual cold
weather level of the river. In 1841 they were 92 feet above it, and
from the nature of the river at this time it is possible that they may
rise even higher. It is the same, though not to the same degree, at
other places, and even if railway bridges and viaducts be not carried
away, the ordinary permanent road suffers to an extent such as we know
nothing of in this country.[100] No doubt experience will in process
of time suggest means of protection as regards both construction and
maintenance. Still, let man do what he may, there is no foe that
he has ever faced on earth, or that he is likely to face, equal to
the elements in anger. It is God’s will that they should be so, and
although He places in our hands means to resist them, He has never
given, and for His own wise purposes probably never will give us
complete power to control and subdue them.
No matter how highly timber used for sleepers on Indian railways may
be saturated with creosote, or any other analogous preparation, they
are all powerless to resist the ravages of the red ant. Iron “pot”
sleepers have therefore been generally adopted, and they have been
found very serviceable, especially on lines where the speed is not
high. Some of the engineers are in their favour, even where trains are
run at high velocities. Thus the District Engineer and the Locomotive
Superintendent of the Punjaub Railway report strongly in recommendation
of them. “I have never,” says the latter, “travelled over a finer piece
of road, than the seventy to eighty miles of pot sleepers road laid
between Montgomery and Mooltan. Our speed does not exceed thirty-five
miles per hour, and I have never heard of breakages to permanent way
resulting from this rate.” The agent to the Madras Railway Company
says, “I have all along strongly advocated the use of cast-iron pot
sleepers upon our lines of railway, believing that a road laid with
iron was more easily and economically maintained, insured greater
safety from accidents, and from its smoothness of surface, less
prejudicial in its effects upon our rolling stock than any other form
of roadway.”
In 1862 Mr. Henry Rouse, the Chief Resident Engineer to the Egyptian
Railway, in the course of a report upon the use of these sleepers,
says, “I may assert with unerring confidence, that after ten years’
use of them, had a system of permanent way to be again selected for
adoption on the fine alluvial soil of Egypt, no more fitting choice
could be made than was, in fact, made by Mr. Robert Stephenson in 1851,
when he determined on the adoption of Greaves’s cast-iron pot sleeper
road.”
Captain Sherard Osborn, R.N., the late agent to the Great Indian
Peninsular Railway, quotes the report of Mr. Rouse, and confirms it
with the recommendations of Mr. Hardcastle, Mr. Perry, and Abul Meyd
Effendi, Civil Engineers, each in charge of portions of the Egyptian
Railway. On the other hand, the Chief Engineer of the East India
Line says, “I do not consider these sleepers would be suitable for
the through roads of this railway, although they might be used with
advantage on sidings and in station yards. From general knowledge I am
of opinion that, with small ballast, iron pot sleepers would answer
well in countries where rainfall is not excessive, and is evenly
distributed over many months in every year, but that they are not
adapted to large ballast under any circumstances, more particularly
when the road is liable to much periodical injury from rain. They
might be used with advantage on long lengths of bank in dry districts
with very considerable economy in ballast. In rock cuttings, however,
where the jar is at all times great, iron pot sleepers would be liable
to much damage from trains at high speed.” It may here perhaps be
incidentally noticed that the use of cast-iron sleepers has not been
adopted in the construction of Peruvian railways. In Brazil, with one
exception, they have been used on all the railways in that country. The
running speed of the trains there is, however, not more than twenty
miles an hour. They have also been adopted in the construction of the
railways of the Argentine Republic.
Upon the whole, the balance of opinion seems decidedly in favour of the
general adoption of iron sleepers. They are certainly preferable to
stone blocks; and timber is impossible[101] upon Indian Railways.
Several miles of steel rails have been sent from England during 1866.
Their first cost is, of course, much greater than that of iron; but,
irrespective of any other advantages, if we take into consideration the
cost that is always incurred in sending materials from Great Britain—a
cost which, in some cases, where the inland carriage is of considerable
length, almost doubles the original price of the rails—it is certainly
worth while, within certain limits, to ship steel rails in the first
instance.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the fuel
question.[102] Cheap or dear fuel may, in many instances, on Indian
railways, be translated into complete success or very nearly total
failure. Even at the commencement of the present year, before freights
had risen so much in consequence of the Abyssinian expedition, the
value of coal and coke before it was landed in India was about 50s.
a ton. When the landing charges and the cost of conveyance along the
lines are added, the average price of coal for the railways on the
western and southern sides of India becomes about 60s. a ton. It is a
fortunate circumstance for the East India Railway that its line runs
through the finest portion of the Raneegunge coal-field,[103] thereby
reducing its cost of fuel to 3¼d. per ton, and also affording it the
opportunity of having a large coal traffic. Nor will this be the only
source from which the railway can be supplied with coal, for the
chord line between Raneegunge and Luckieserai passes through another
coal bed, that of Kurhurbali. The coal of this field is described
as excellent, although it does not exist in as large quantity as at
Raneegunge. On the other hand, the Great Indian Peninsular Company, not
having entered into arrangements with the Nerbudda Coal Company, its
fuel cost was 1s. 6¼d. per train mile in 1866, the estimated average
cost of coal over the whole line being £3 per ton, of coke £3. 12s.,
and of “Patent Fuel” £3. 8s.
Mr. Oldham, Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, does
not speak encouragingly as regards the prospect of coal being found
in parts of India where it would be of great value to the railways.
“Extensive coal-fields do occur,” says Mr. Oldham; “but they are not
distributed generally over the districts of the Indian empire, but are
almost entirely concentrated in one (a double) band of coal yielding
deposits which, with large interruptions, extends more than half across
India, from near Calcutta towards Bombay.” He, however, adds, that
much still remains to be surveyed, and, until careful mapping has been
carried out, of all the fields, any estimate of the coal resources of
British India must be defective.
In the meantime coal from Labuan and from Australia are in course of
being tried. Much must not be expected from the former; but there are
great hopes that the latter will be largely available for India. But
all persons who have written upon, or are interested in, the subject,
come to the same conclusion, which is that the railways must mainly
look to wood for their fuel. We are happy to perceive that the subject
is engaging the most serious attention of the Governments both at home
and in India; and there is no doubt but that an extensive system of
planting timber suitable for fuel purposes will be immediately carried
into operation, all the more necessary when it is borne in mind that a
plantation of twenty acres will be the average proportion necessary
for the requirements of every mile of railway.
The working expenses of the railways exhibit very great differences
both as respects actual amounts and their per centage proportions to
traffic. Thus, for instance, on the Great Southern of India Line they
were for the year 1865 2s. 7½d. a mile, and only 2s. 3d. a mile in
1866; yet the fuel cost was £2. 18s. a ton; exactly the same price as
on the Bombay and Baroda line, the working expenses of which were 8s.
1¾d. in 1865 per train mile. In 1866 they had fallen to 6s. 8d.; so
that the _difference_ between these two amounts is exactly two-thirds
of the _total_ working cost per train mile of the Great Southern
Company. The East Indian was 3s. 8d. per train mile in both 1865 and
1866. But the Madras cost was only 2s. 10¾d. per train mile in 1865. It
went up, however, 3¼d. in 1866, being 3s. 2d. Yet the average price it
pays for coal is the same as that paid by the Great Indian Peninsular,
the cost per train mile of which in 1865 was 6s. 2d., in 1866, 6s. 4½d.
No doubt the two Ghaut inclines add heavily both to locomotive and to
permanent way charges, but they do not explain why the working cost per
train mile should be double that on the Madras Line. It is a remarkable
fact also, and it is one which should be recorded to the honour of the
Madras management, that, although its traffic receipts per mile are
almost the lowest on the whole system of East Indian railways—£13 a
mile a week—its per centage of working expenses is actually the lowest,
43½.[104] The per centage of the East Indian, with a weekly mileage
receipt of £43, is 44½. The Great Indian Peninsular, the weekly receipt
per mile of which is £48, is 59¾; and on the Bombay and Baroda the
weekly receipt per mile is £29, the working expenses being 64½ per
cent. The Scinde working expenses were 85½ per cent. of the receipts;
but the unlucky Calcutta and South-Eastern spends £109. 10s. for every
£100 it earns.
Accidents have hitherto been rather numerous on Indian railways. The
returns for 1866 were not complete at the time of Mr. Juland Danvers’
last report. In 1864 there were 345 accidents on an average of 2,699
miles of railway open, and the number had fallen to 284 on an average
of 3,153 miles open in 1865. The Madras line, on the whole, has had
fewer accidents than any other company—only five in 1865. Accidents by
fire are rather numerous, especially in those districts where wood is
used as fuel. This is, perhaps, also to be expected, in consequence of
the conveyance of cotton forming so important a portion of the business
of the two companies having their termini at Bombay. Accidents from
fire, however, sensibly diminished in 1865, which is ascribed to the
extended introduction of covered waggons for carrying cotton, to the
greatly increased use of coke, which gives out less sparks, and to the
custom that prevails now of invariably placing several waggons (even
running empties for the purpose, if none others are available) between
the engine and cotton waggons.
But although the number of accidents was less in 1865 than in 1864,
they were more destructive in their character in the former year, 316
persons having been killed or injured in 1865, as against 256 in 1864.
But in these numbers are included the persons injured through their own
fault or imprudence. It deserves to be recorded that in eleven years
the Madras Railway has carried nearly twelve millions of passengers,
hitherto without a case of injury to any of them. But, on the other
hand, owing to two serious collisions on the line, a large number of
the company’s servants have been fatally or seriously injured. Native
passengers are reckless; but native servants are especially so, for
out of 49,398 employed on all lines in 1865, 96 were killed and 97
injured, or 193 in all, against 147 in 1864, with about the same
number of servants. Of these casualties, 136, or 1 in 363, occurred
in 1865 through incaution or misconduct; 42 were killed or injured in
attempting to get upon or off, or falling from, engines or carriages in
motion; and 52 were run over or struck whilst incautiously crossing,
standing, or walking upon the line.
Reference to page 176 will enable the reader to compare the number and
character of Indian railway accidents with those on the railways of the
United Kingdom.
There is one more subject connected with the working expenses of
railways in India to which reference must be made—the staff. It is
quite evident that on railways, as in every other department of
Anglo-Indian service, whether it be governmental or corporate,
all the persons in leading positions—not only those to direct and
command, but those in the scale some degrees subordinate to them—must
be European British subjects; not merely of European descent, but of
actual birth as such. Without them the great railway system of India
can never be efficiently worked. The returns of persons employed on
the lines in 1866 show this fact very clearly, for whilst “native”
servants were (excluding the Southern of India, which has not sent in
any return of its staff) 30,838, the Europeans and East Indians were
only 2,736. All the highest appointments were filled by Europeans.
East Indians could rise to the class of station-masters; so could the
natives, in an inferior degree, but these last constituted the whole
of the humblest classes of servants. On the East Indian Railway the
comparative estimation of the three nativities for the appointments
of station-masters was thus shown:—Out of 114, 35 are Europeans, who
receive salaries the lowest of which (irrespective of ample lodging
accommodation) is £180, and they range up to £420 a year. Five East
Indians, very choice and exceptionally superior men, have from £180 to
£300 a year; whilst the salaries of the 74 natives vary from a minimum
of £25 to a maximum of £250 a year.
It will always he necessary to recruit the upper ranks of railway
officials in India from amongst the railway officials of Great Britain;
and up to now, as far as our knowledge and acquaintance extend, no
gentleman has left this country to fill a railway appointment in India
at much less increase than three times his English emoluments. It
is possible that efficient gentlemen may henceforth be obtained at
smaller comparative salaries; but we doubt that such will be the fact.
The character of the climate of India, so telling, as a rule, upon
Europeans, but especially upon those who do not go to it when very
young, and who are liable to exposure out of doors in the broiling
hours of the day, and during the down-pours of the deluging rain
torrents every year, and the necessary separation of a man and his
wife from their children during the period of their education, must
naturally deter officials from leaving comfortable appointments in
England, except under the influence of strong pecuniary temptations.
The risk of health-failure is also accompanied by knowledge of the fact
that men cannot insure their lives, except upon payment of very high
annual premiums.
The manner in which the East Indian Railway Company proposes to meet
this last difficulty is by the establishment of a Provident Fund, the
principles of which are explained by the following extract from the
last Report of the Directors:—
“One of the most difficult questions which has presented itself to the
board in the organisation and management of their staff in India has
been how to meet the claims that have been constantly urged for the
payment of pensions, after a given period of service, founded upon the
analogy of the Indian services. The company’s permanent European staff
consists of gentlemen drawn chiefly from the best-managed English
lines. It is felt that without some provision being made for them in
case of sickness, involving their retirement from the service, or in
cases where, after a certain period of time, they may wish to retire,
or when it may be considered desirable that they should do so, the
railway service in India does not present sufficient attractions.
Various schemes, with a view to make the service more popular, have
been suggested, both here and in India; but, until recently, every
proposition which has been made has been found, from one cause or
other, to be impracticable. After much anxious consideration—and
being satisfied of the almost insuperable difficulty of applying the
principle of pensions to a constantly-varying service such as this
must necessarily be—it has been thought that the best mode of meeting
the difficulty is to establish a Provident Fund, in the advantages of
which all the servants of the company, European and native, receiving
a monthly pay of Rs. 30 and upwards shall participate, the Fund being
supported by contributions from the staff, assisted by the company.
It is proposed—1st. That the present staff shall contribute to the
fund only if they think fit; but that all persons joining the service
on or from a given date, with a monthly pay of Rs. 30, and those who
may be promoted to this pay shall be required to do so. 2nd. That the
staff shall be divided into two classes,—class A consisting of all
European servants of the company, and class B comprising all servants
of the company not Europeans. 3rd. That those in class A shall
contribute 5 per cent., and those in class B 2½ per cent. on their
respective monthly salaries or wages. 4th. That the company shall
contribute annually 1 per cent. on the surplus net earnings, after
6 per cent. per annum has been appropriated to the company and the
Government, in the terms of their contract, together with 1 per cent.
on the 6 per cent. so appropriated, so far as the surplus will admit
of the said contributions. 5th. That the moneys of the fund shall be
invested, from time to time, either in Indian Government Securities or
in the Railway Stock, and that, subject to rules and regulations to be
prescribed by the board, the fund and all accruing interest shall be
the property of the respective members of the staff in the ratio of
their subscriptions.
“It is estimated that when the line earns over 6 per cent., the
contributions of the company and the staff will be about equal; as
the profits increase, the company’s contribution will most probably
be the larger of the two. The board are of opinion that the creation
of such a fund will be most acceptable and beneficial to the staff
in numerous ways; and so far as the company is concerned, the effect
of it being to give every servant, who can influence its success, a
direct personal interest in the economical working of the line, it can
scarcely fail to be advantageous.”
Although the Secretary of State for India has sanctioned the
arrangement, and the shareholders of the company, at their meeting held
on the 2nd of July last, approved of, and agreed to its adoption, we
doubt whether it is one that is likely to prove satisfactory to the
officials, especially to those from Europe. The practical operation
of the scheme is this. Henceforth, the Europeans are, from the moment
of their appointments, to he subjected to a deduction of 5 per cent.
from the nominal amount of their salaries, but the company is not to
contribute to the fund until after the net earnings have amounted to
6 per cent. and upwards; thus, if these earnings were declared at
the rate of £5. 19s. 11d. per annum, the shareholders would receive,
firstly, 5 per cent., and secondly, the half of 19s. 11d., under the
contract between the Government and the company; the Government would
receive the second half of the 19s. 11d., and the Provident Fund _nil_.
This scheme should be altered. The deduction of 5 per cent. from
salaries is too high, and the contributions of the shareholders and of
the Government should commence at a much earlier step in the scale of
net earnings.
The rolling stock provided for Indian railways is miserably
insufficient. The number of locomotives possessed by all the companies
on the 1st of January, 1867, was only 795, not quite one engine for
every five miles. The other descriptions of plant are equally defective
in point of numbers. The East Indian Company announced, in its report
of January last, that it intended to make up its rolling stock for a
traffic of £60 a mile, at a cost of about £300,000. The other companies
will have to outlay at least half-a-million on rolling stock almost
immediately.
Apart from every consideration purely political, the railways of India
have been the means of rendering the greatest service to England, at
a moment of greatest peril. Through them she has received supplies of
cotton that otherwise could never have got even as far as a port of
shipment. There are seven districts from which these supplies come. By
far the largest and most important is the Oomrawattee Cotton District,
which both the main line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and
its Nagpoor Extension pass through. When the extension line of this
company to Jubbulpore is completed, it will, jointly with the East
Indian Railway, open up the Sassegur District, and, on the opening of
the Madras Connection, it will touch upon a fourth. The Bombay and
Baroda goes into the midst of the great Guzzerat Cotton Fields; the
Madras Line through that of Combatore. There is a comparatively small
one at nearly the extreme south of the continent; and the smallest of
all is in the Punjaub, between, and to the northward both of Delhi and
Lahore. Of the production of these cotton districts, we shall speak
presently.
If England have found almost exclusively the capital for the
construction of Indian railways, she has not only made a safe—or,
it might rather be said, a first class—investment, but she has also
benefited largely in her manufactures and commerce through their
construction. The amount of capital expended in the United Kingdom
in consequence of Indian railways between 1851 and 1866 has been as
follows:—In 1851 it was £154,212; in 1852 it was £174,920; in 1853,
£252,484; 1854, £960,878; 1855, £1,939,101; 1856, £1,752,813; 1857,
£1,324,873; 1858, £1,940,052; 1859, £2,507,949; 1860, £2,396,924; 1861,
£1,596,010; 1862, £1,854,289; 1863, £1,411,661; 1864, £1,387,699; 1865,
£2,192,090; 1866, £3,942,598. It is expected that the amount expended
in England during 1867 will be about £2,457,250. The industry of the
mother country has thus been greatly assisted by the valuable orders
represented by these figures. If all these amounts be added together,
it will be found that they are nearly £26,500,000, or between a third
and a half of the £67,932,550 that have been expended up to April last
on account of Indian railways. The tons weight of goods despatched have
been 3,195,862; and as the number of ships they were conveyed in was
4,827, it followed that the average load which each carried was 662
tons.
We have dwelt upon Indian railways at greater length than we had
originally intended, but the subject is a great one; for it must not
be forgotten that the capital expended upon them at this date is a
seventh of that to the same account in the United Kingdom. Presently it
will be a sixth, and hereafter it will he a fifth; because also the
mileage of these railways is, even now, nearly a third of the railways
of Great Britain; presently it will he more than a third. On the 1st
of January, 1867, it was nearly half that of France; only 1,413 miles
less than that of Prussia, 1,138 less than that of Bavaria, 69 more
than that of the Austrian dominions, 1,030 more than that of Italy, 854
more than that of Spain, 2,160 more than that of Belgium; 2,177 more
than that of both Russia in Europe and Russia in Asia; and 1,574 more
than that of Canada.[105] On the 3,638 miles which, towards the close
of 1866, constituted the length of Indian railways, the train miles run
amounted to 10,120,920. The gross receipts earned by those trains were
£4,537,235, just 1,425,000 more than in 1865; of these gross earnings,
£1,278,580 were received from passenger traffic, and £3,091,723 from
that of merchandise. The number of passengers carried in 1866 was
12,867,000, being 367,000 more than in 1865. This, of course, in no way
represents the proportion due to population in British India, for in
1861 that population was 143,271,210, dwelling on 956,436 square miles
of land.
Let us proceed some few steps farther with reference to the development
of India. Its revenue has increased from £27,832,237 in 1852, to
£45,652,897 in 1865. But on the the other hand, the expenditure,
which was £27,098,462, or £750,000 within its income, in 1852, was
£46,450,920, or £800,000 in excess of income in 1865. Then, us a
further but doubtful proof of prosperity, the public debt of India
had risen from £55,114,693 in 1852, to 98,518,145 in 1865.[106] The
tonnage of vessels entered and cleared in India during 1852 was
(exclusive of coasting trade) 1,591,937; in 1865 it was 4,268,666. The
value of imports (including bullion and specie) into India in 1840
was £8,415,940; in 1852 they were of the value of £17,292,549; and in
1865 they had increased to £49,514,275. The value of its exports rose
in fifteen years from £20,798,342 to £69,471,791.[107] In 1852 the
total amount of cotton which British India sent to the United Kingdom
was only 84,922,432 lbs., just a ninth of that received from the
United States, which was 765,630,544 lbs. In 1866 the amount of cotton
imported from India was 615,302,240 lbs.,[108] exactly 95,244,840
lbs. more than from the United States, and not far from one half of
the total amount imported from all places, namely, 1,377,129,936 lbs.
Thanks to India, the total quantity of cotton imported in 1866 is only
13,000,000 lbs. less than it was in 1860, the year of our greatest
cotton importation. In that year the quantity received from India
was little more than a seventh of the importations from all sources.
It is, therefore, not to be wondered that Manchester has altered its
cotton machinery, and has rendered it suited for working the cotton,
the importation of which will, thanks to Indian railways, soon make
England, as regards supplies, independent of all other countries in the
world.[109]
Let us say, finally, that if we have dwelt at such length upon the
yet _infant_ railway system of the Indian Empire, it is because India
is a land that has a well-recorded history dating back nearly 4,000
years, with national monuments and buildings still existing, and in
comparatively sound preservation, that were erected 400 years before
Rome was created; and, last of all, BECAUSE of the now standing army of
India, numbering 190,195 men, 71,880 first saw the light from Heaven
in the United Kingdom. It is at that number our reinforcements will
have to be never-failingly kept up, if we wish to avoid the dangers and
horrors of a second Indian mutiny.
* * * * *
_Postscript._—Immediately after page 271 was printed, we met a
gentleman who, in consequence of his professional connection with
Persia, has, for several years, made the subject of a communication
from the north-western side of Asia Minor, through Persia and
Affghanistan to India, his constant study. He takes a different view
from us as to the starting point of the LONG RAILWAY, but in many
other respects our opinions are identical. It is probable that they
may be brought jointly before the public in a more detailed and
substantive form, in the course of a few months. We may here mention
that, as early as 1847, Mr. Austin H. Layard, M.P., was alive to the
importance of this communication, for in his work on the “Ruins of
Nineveh and Babylon” (London, Murray, 1853), he says, that the route
of the Euphrates, the adoption of which he urgently recommends “must
be the second Indian route until civilisation and Christianity afford
a reasonable basis for those gigantic schemes which would carry a line
of iron through countries almost unknown, and scarcely yet visited by a
solitary European traveller.”