Page:Arthur Cotton - The Madras Famine - 1898.djvu/39

Rh in respect of the Famine. Every corner of the Famine districts would have been now within easy reach of the most productive tract in India.

To convey food for 20 millions of people from a thousand miles by such Canals, a years supply, would have cost only £1,000,000. But who can estimate what the state of India would have been on the whole by this time, if instead of spending this 160 millions on railways during the last 25 years, this same had been spent on the Canals? One thing is certain, that all the world could not have shown another country in such a state of material prosperity. If people could only see the life put into Godavery by the Canals, though without steam, the multitudes of both goods and passenger boats, that swarm on them, they might form some idea of what would be the state of things, if the same district were put in communication with all India by the same means. So also for military purposes, there is no sort of comparison between the two. Troops might be conveyed by Canals any distance, with their usual sleep and food, and landed perfectly fresh at any spot at any moment, without any confusion from other traffic, and the Canals could be patrolled by armed steamers day and night. The Canals that have been made already have cost £1000 to £6000 a mile, and are from 25 to 60 yards wide. What country in the world could compete with India with her immense, and industrious population, if she had such a complete system of effective internal transit.