348 



INDIA. 



Railroads. The number of miles open to 

 traffic in 1891 was 16,996, compared with 16,092 

 in the previous year. The total expenditure of 

 capital by the Government up to the end of 1890 

 was Rx 222,417,543, of which Rx 125,877,000 

 were expended on lines owned and worked by 

 the state, Rx 26,722,654 on lines owned by the 

 state and leased to companies, Rx 54,065,645 on 

 guaranteed lines, Rx 8,002,514 on lines in the 

 native states, Rx 5,053,660 on subsidies to com- 

 panies, Rx 1,688,271 on foreign lines, and the 

 rest on surveys, coal mines, interest, etc. The 

 amount of capital raised by companies was 71,- 

 958,757. The gross earnings of the railways for 

 1890 was Rx 20,670,115. The working expenses 

 amounted to Rx 10,3^8,918, or 49'87 per cent, of 

 the gross earnings, making the net receipts Rx 

 10,361,197, giving a return of 4'85 per cent., com- 

 pared with 4-93 per cent, in 1889. 



Irrigation. The area irrigated by major and 

 minor works in all parts of India was 7,984,275 

 acres in 1891. The value of the crops was Rx 

 24,554,110. The cost of the works was Rx 25,- 

 465,000, not taking into account the old irriga- 

 tion system in Madras. The canals and reservoirs 

 are made to pay a profit to the Government, 

 which has amounted, up to the end of 1891, to 

 Rx 4,014.502, after deducting 4 per cent, interest 

 on the capital outlay. The aggregate profit from 

 the completed and productive works is Rx 10,- 

 735,022. In 1890-'91 the net returns amounted 

 to 4'81 per cent, on the capital, including that 

 expended on large new projects and extensions 

 that are not completed and produce nothing as 

 yet. The income from the productive works 

 averages 5'8 per cent. New works are projected 

 that will irrigate 1,291,260 acres, and are ex- 

 pected to yield a profit of 13-3 per cent. These 

 do not include large extensions in Sindh and a 

 whole system that is contemplated for Upper 

 Burmah, where scientific irrigation has not yet 

 been introduced. 



The National Congress. The seventh an- 

 nual Indian Congress, held at the close of 1891 

 in Nagpur, confirmed the predictions of those 

 who said at the beginning of the movement that 

 the demand for representative institutions in 

 India is premature. The interest, in the move- 

 ment did not lag, however, until the Government 

 took quiet but effective measures to repress it, 

 and the participants in the congresses began to 

 see that their meetings were leading to no prac- 

 tical results, and were drawing upon themselves 

 the displeasure of the authorities. The Congress 

 saw its palmiest period in 1887, when 1,248 del- 

 egates from every part of the empire, represent- 

 ing every faith, met at Allahabad, and the nation- 

 alists among the Indians were encouraged by 

 members of the British Parliament, who came 

 out specially to aid the movement. Since then 

 the numbers of delegates have declined year by 

 year. In 1891 whole provinces, as Bombay, went 

 unrepresented. There were hardly 800 persons 

 present, and of these many had no credentials as 

 elected representatives of their localities. The 

 committee was continued, and a meeting was 

 appointed for December, 1892, but the interest 

 in the Congress was so dead that the chief leader 

 and organizer of the movement, Mr. Hume, re- 

 signed, because he had used up his own fortune 

 in the agitation and was unable to induce the 



large local associations to contribute enough to 

 carry the work forward. Allan Octavian Hume 

 was an Englishman, fifty-three years old, whc 

 had an honorable career in the Indian civil serv- 

 ice, and resigned his post as Secretary of the 

 Government in order to give himself up to the 

 object of securing representative institutions for 

 the Indian people. The leaders of the Congress 

 had ignored the warning that Lord Dutt'erin 

 gave tnem before he retired from the viceroy- 

 alty, in 1888, to leave politics alone and confine 

 themselves to social reforms. They paid enough 

 attention to this injunction to organize, in con- 

 nection with the political, a social congress, 

 which failed to work out any practical projects 

 or agree upon any proposition of the slightest 

 importance. In 1891, when a motion was made 

 to hold a congress in London, the presiding 

 officer, a progressive Brahman, suggested that it 

 would first be necessary to abolish the degrad- 

 ing, costly, and troublesome penance that a 

 Hindu who has made a sea voyage or visited 

 foreign countries, where he can not observe tho 

 ordinances of his religion regarding food, drink, 

 and intercourse, must undergo before he is re- 

 stored to his caste and family. The proposition 

 was submitted to the social congress, and when 

 the native magistrate, Marathe, supported it with 

 a cogent argument, he was howled down, and a 

 motion was carried, with tumult and uproar, con- 

 demning any attempt to prescribe to the castes 

 or meddle with religious customs. The con- 

 gresses have had some influence on the recent 

 action of the Government in providing in the 

 India Councils bill for a larger native represen- 

 tation in the legislative councils, and in throw- 

 ing open to Hindus a few more posts in the civil 

 service. The election of Mr. Naoraji, a Parsee 

 champion of the Indian national movement, to 

 the English Parliament in July, 1892, was hailed 

 with rejoicing by the vernacular press of India. 

 The new provincial service, to which natives are 

 eligible, was extended and elevated on the rec- 

 ommendation of a commission that studied the 

 public services by having 86 of the higher posts 

 opened to it in 1892 in various provinces. The 

 offices to which they were admitted include the 

 posts of district magistrate and under secretary 

 of state ; 21 such appointments were made in the 

 Northwest Provinces, 20 in Bengal, 18 in Bom- 

 bay, 15 in Madras, and 12 in the Punjab. In the 

 summer of 1892 Mr. Hume published a circular 

 letter calling upon Indian patriots to insist bold- 

 ly on attention being given to the growing grav- 

 ity of the situation, and on remedies being found 

 for the "widespread poverty, semistarvation, 

 misery, and discontent " which had brought In- 

 dia to " the verge of a cataclysm," for there were 

 " millions on millions who have nothing to look 

 forward to but death, nothing to hope for but 

 vengeance." The only hope of averting a terri- 

 ble rising, " when Englishmen will be as men in 

 the desert vainly struggling against the simoom," 

 lies in awakening the British public to a sense of 

 the wrongs of the people by carrying on an Eng- 

 lish agitation on the lines of the Anti-Corn Law 

 League. In answer to the evidence of misery ad- 

 duced by him, the Indian officials, while admit- 

 ting the general poverty of the cultivators, pro- 

 duce statistics to show that the condition of the 

 people everywhere is much better than it was 



