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India, where Government is the landlord, though very 

 much remains to be done, we have the finest roads 

 perhaps in the whole World, sarais stud the great 

 lines of intercommunication at convenient intervals, 

 noble canals for irrigation hundreds of miles in 

 length, intersect two great divisions of the country, 

 and others are being built in the Punjab. In truth, 

 it is common to hear persons arriving in Calcutta 

 from the upper Provinces exclaim that Bengal is a 

 century behind the North West in material progress, 

 and the assertion is undoubtedly not without some 

 foundation. I am well aware of the great difference 

 in climate between Bengal and. the North West, 

 and the greater engineering difficulties, and the 

 absence of kankar or road stuff in many parts of the 

 former. I have resided nine years in each division 

 of the Bengal Presidency, but making all due allow- 

 ances for these differences, and at the same time taking 

 into account that frightful famines have periodically 

 decimated the population of the one throwing half 

 the country out of cultivation, and that the other, 

 besides being naturally far more fertile, has been 

 entirely free from these visitations, I am unable to 

 alter the conclusion at which I have arrived, that if 

 the perpetual settlement in Bengal has enriched the 

 Zemindars, it has kept the people in a sadly im- 

 poverished and depressed condition, and immensely 

 retarded the material progress of the country. It 

 may be said that to build bridges and to make 



