Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/16

 to pay 11 per cent. net on a capital of £2,000,000. Assuming the actual cost of traffic to be one shilling a ton, the total cost of goods would be 3 s. 6 d. a ton, at which rate there would be a saving of £837,000 on the Eastern traffic alone as compared with the present cost of traffic by Rail, Boat and Steamer. This sum is equal to a tax of 8 or 10 per cent. on the produce of the Eastern District, caused by want of adequate means of cheap transit; and, to relieve its Eastern Provinces of such a tax, the Government cannot in justice refuse to grant a concession to a Company for providing a Canal from Goalundo (the confluence of the Ganges and Burhampoota,) to Calcutta.” Now what stronger testimony could we possibly have to the absolute necessity of Water Carriage than these two, of a Governor General, who was completely committed to Railways, and the Chief Engineer, who had just constructed a Railway on that very line. Think of Calcutta paying a tax of a million a year in the shape of cost of carriage, while a Canal on that line would pay 11 per cent. net on the present traffic. And this on a single line of only 130 miles, and if it is now essential that Canals should be cut by the side of Railways that have cost more than £20,000 a mile, how much more is it advisable that on new lines, Water transit should be preferred to land carriage, and that the multitudes now fed by the Government should be employed in that way that must be at last adopted. I am happy to state that the Madras Government are now cutting three portions of Canal, one through Madras itself, one to connect that city with the Navigation works of the Kistnah and Godavery, and one in the Interior. But I must add two or three extracts from the reports of the Madras Company. Thus; “the sight of the Country under the Canal is truly refreshing. In one village I rode through tall Cholum fields for a mile or two. There, more than 300 Acres were saved from utter drought, and about 300 Acres were just ripening. It is very sad to compare this with the rest of the district where utter failure has occuredoccurred [sic].” Again; “as far as I have seen, the appearance of the fields is