Page:India in the Victorian Age - an economic history of the people.djvu/390

362 expenditure by the State increased from year to year. Irrigation works had, on the other hand, been generally undertaken by the State from the commencement, and the State expenditure therefore virtually represents all that was spent on irrigation. We extract the following figures from the Statistical Abstract, showing the expenditure on railways and on irrigation from Imperial Funds, not charged to revenue accounts.

It will be observed that while the total expenditure on railways by Guaranteed Companies and by the State came to 125 millions sterling down to March 1880, the total expenditure on irrigation works was only twelve millions sterling. It was this disproportion between the two classes of public works which irritated and grieved Sir Arthur Cotton; and after the terrible Madras famine of 1877, he found an opportunity to rouse the attention of the British public to the unwisdom of their policy in India.

Indian economic questions, not directly touching the interests of British traders and manufactures, seldom receive public attention in England. Sir Arthur Cotton had done all that man could do to rouse public attention to the importance of irrigation in India. And in spite of the practical proof he had given by his Kaveri and