Page:The Marquess of Dalhousie.djvu/198

 CHAPTER X

Railways. Commerce. Telegraphs. Public Works

I have hitherto dealt with the territorial and political aspects of Lord Dalhousie's government, for these were the aspects which the public opinion of his time pronounced, and which the deliberate voice of history must still declare, to be the most conspicuous features of his rule. But I have pointed out from the commencement that Lord Dalhousie's work in India was not alone a work of conquest, it was also a work of consolidation. He not only augmented the British dominions in India by between a third and a half, but he created a new mechanism for amalgamating them, and literally bound together the old and the new territories by bands of iron. Lord Dalhousie is the father alike of the Railway and of the Telegraph in India.

Clearly discerning that his improved strategic distribution of the military forces was only half his task, he introduced an entirely new system of internal communication for the defence of his new India. The idea of the Indian railway had been