Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/779

755 AGRICULTURE,] INDIA 755 must be regarded rather as an insurance fund against famine than as reproductive outlay. The works are not yet complete, but the experience already gained proves that irrigation is wanted even in ordinary seasons. Up to the close of 1877-78 the total expendi ture on capital account for all the irrigation works in Bengal was 4,653,903; the gross income for the year was 49,477; the working expenses were 70,286; and the estimated interest on capital, at 4 per cent, amounted to 203,971, thus showing a net deficit of 224,780. The area irrigated was about 400,000 acres. In the Madras presidency, and generally throughout southern India, facilities for irrigation assume a decisive importance in determining the character of agriculture. Crops dependent on the rainfall are distinguished as &quot; dry crops,&quot; comprehending the large class of millets. Rice can only be grown on &quot; wet land,&quot; which means land capable of being irrigated. Except on the Malabar or western coast, the local rainfall is nowhere sufficiently ample or suffi ciently steady to secure an adequate water supply. Everywhere else water has to be brought to the fields from rivers, from tanks, or from wells. Out of the total cultivated area of Madras, only 15 per cent, is classified as &quot; wet land ;&quot; the rest is at the mercy of the monsoons. From time immemorial an industrious population has made use of ail the means available to store up the rainfall and direct the river floods over their fields. The upland areas are studded with tanks, which sometimes cover square miles of ground; the rivers are crossed by innumerable anicuts, or dams by which the floods are diverted into long aqueducts. Most of these works are now the property of Government, which annually expends large sums of money in maintenance and repairs, looking for remunera tion only to the augmented land revenue. The average rate of assessment is 9s. 6d. per acre on irrigated land, as compared with only 2s. 3d. per acre on unirrigated land. It is, therefore, not only the duty but the manifest advantage of Government to extend the facilities for irrigation wherever the physical aspect of the country will permit. The deltas of the Godavari, the Kistna, and the Kaveri (Cauvery) have within recent years been traversed by a network of canals and thus guaranteed against any risk of famine. Smaller works of a similar nature have been carried out in other places ; while a private company, with a Government guarantee, has under taken the more difficult task of utilizing on a grand scale the waters of the Tungabhadra amid the hills and vales of the interior. According to the latest statistics, the total irrigated area of the presidency is about 5 million acres, yielding a land revenue of about 2 millions sterling. Of this total, 1,680,178 acres, with a revenue of 739,778, are irrigated by eight great systems, for which revenue and capital accounts are kept. The minor works consist of about 35,000 tanks and irrigation canals, and about 1140 anicuts or dams across streams. In Mysore, tanks, anicuts, and wells dug in the dry beds of rivers afford the means of irrigation, but wet cultivation is there even rarer than in Madras. After the disastrous famine of 1876-78 some comprehensive schemes of throwing embankments across river valleys were undertaken by Government. In the Central Provinces irrigation still remains a matter of private enterprise. According to the settlement returns, out of a total cultivated area of 13,610,503 acres, 804,370 acres, or 6 per cent., are irrigated by private individuals. The only Government work is a tank in the district of Nimar. In British Burmali, as in Lower Bengal, em bankments take the place of canals, being classed as &quot;irrigation works &quot; in the annual reports. Within the last few years Govern ment has spent about 318,000 under this heading, in order to save the low rice-fields along the Irawadi from destructive inundation. The following figures, applying to India as a whole, partially show how the Government has performed its duty as a landlord in undertaking productive public works. During the ten years ending March 1878 a total sum of 10,457,702 was expended on irrigation under the budget heading of &quot; extraordinary,&quot; as compared with 18,636,321 expended on state railways in the same period. In the twelve months ending at the same date irrigation yielded a gross income of 495,142, as compared with 548,528 derived from state railways; while 370,747 was charged to revenue account against irrigation and 420,754 against state railways. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION. Railways. The existing system of railway communica Railways tion in India dates from the administration of Lord Dalhousie, who brought to bear upon this question an experience gained at the Board of Trade when railway speculation in England was at its height. The first Indian line was projected in 1843 by Sir Macdonald Stephenson, who was afterwards active in forming the East India Railway Company ; but that premature scheme was blighted by the financial panic that followed soon afterwards in England. Bombay, the city that has most benefited by railway enter prise, saw the first sod turned in 1850, and the first line of 3 miles to Thdnd (Tanna) opened in 1853. The elaborate minute drawn up by Lord Dalhousie in the latter year still faithfully represents the railway map of India at the present day, though modified in detail by Lord Mayo s reform of 1869. Lord Dalhousie s scheme consisted of a few trunk lines, traversing the length and breadth of the peninsula, and connecting all the great cities and military cantonments. These trunk lines were to be constructed by private companies, to whom Government should guarantee a minimum of 5 per cent, interest on their capital expended, and from whom it should demand in return a certain measure of subordination. The system thus sketched out was promptly carried into execution, and by 1871 Bombay was put into direct railway com munication with the sister presidencies of Calcutta and Madras. The task Lord Mayo had to undertake was the development of traffic by means of feeders which should tap the districts of production and thus open up the entire country. The means he determined to adopt was the con struction of minor lines by the direct agency of the state, on a narrower gauge, and therefore at a cheaper rate, than the existing guaranteed railways. The guaranteed lines, including the East Indian, which was transferred to Government in 1879 in accordance with terms applicable to all alike, comprise the following: the East Indian, running up the valley of the Ganges from Calcutta (Howrah) as far as Delhi, with a branch to Jabalpur ; the Great Indian Penin sular, which starts from Bombay and sends one arm north-east to Jabalpur, with a branch to Nagpur, and another south-east to the frontier of Madras ; the Madras line, with its terminus similarly at Madras city, and two arms running respectively to the Great Indian Peninsular junction at Raichur and to Beypur on the oppo site coast, with branches to Bangalore and Bellary ; the Oudh and Rohilkhand, connecting Lucknow and Moradabad with Cawnpur and Benares ; the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India, which runs due north from Bombay through the fertile .plain of Guzerat, and is destined ultimately to be extended across Eajputana to Delhi ; the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi, consisting of three sections, one in Lower Sind, another from Delhi to Lahore, and the third from Lahore to Miiltan ; the South Indian (the only one on the narrow gauge), in the extreme south, from Cape Comorin to Madras city ; and the Eastern Bengal, traversing the richest portion of the Gangetic delta. The state lines are too numerous to be described singly. They in clude the extension from Lahore to Peshawar on the north-west frontier, which at present stops short at Jhelum; the &quot;missing link,&quot; from Multan to Hyderabad, thus bringing the Punjab into direct connexion with its natural seaport at Karachi (opened throughout in 1878); the line up the valley of the Irawadi from Rangoon to Prome ; and several short lines which have been con structed entirely at the expense of native states. Statistics of Indian Railways for 1878. Miles. Open. Capital Expended. Number of Passengers. Tons of Goods and Minerals. Head of Live Stock. Gross Receipts. Gross Expenses. Net Earnings. Guaranteed railways 6044 95 430 863 32 206 570 7 166 205 9,503,721 4,501,693 5,002,028 State railways 2171 19 628 591 6 289 173 1 005 412 901,032 705,245 195,787 Totals 8215 115,059,454 38,495,743 8,171,617 594,249 10,404,753 5,206,938 5,197,815 These figures show 1 mile of railway to every 109 square miles of the area of British India, or to every 179 square miles of the area of the entire peninsula. The average cost of construction per mile is almost exactly 14,000. The guaranteed railways, embracing the great trunk lines throughout India, are on the &quot; broad gauge &quot; of 5 feet 6 inches ; the state lines follow as a rule the narrow or metre gauge of 3 281 feet. Roads. As the railway system of India approaches its completion, the relative importance of the roads naturally