Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/22

14 Guaranteed Railways had from its commencement in 1853 opened only a total of 4265 miles during the seventeen years ending 1869-70. Under the new system of State and Guaranteed Railways inaugurated by Lord Mayo, the total rose to 15,245 miles in 1887-88.

But while Lord Mayo strongly realised that the public safety in India demanded consolidation, he perceived that financial solvency depended on decentralisation. Up to his time the expenditure of the most distant provinces was regulated from Calcutta. In the greater India handed down by Dalhousie this task had grown beyond the power of any single central bureau. The result was an annual scramble by the Provincial Governments for the Imperial grants, and a chronic inability on the part of the Central Government to estimate its real income and expenditure for either the current or the coming year. In the proper chapter the disastrous consequences of this state of things will be duly set forth. It suffices here to state that the measures devised by Lord Mayo and his counsellors put an end to that state of things for ever.

By those measures he re-organised the finances of India on a broader basis of Provincial independence and Provincial responsibility, subject to a clearly defined central control. He awakened in each Local Government a new and keen incentive to economy — the incentive of self-interest. He found chronic