63 



average, this rate is equivalent to about As. 2-5 per ton per mile, 

 while the cost of carriage by railway is about 8 pies per ton 

 per mile or a little more than one-fourth of the cost of carriage 

 by carts. The cost of carriage in boats on the canals is about 

 half of that on railways. Confining our attention to the main 

 railways and canals in this Presidency, the quantity of goods 

 and the number of passengers carried in 1888-89 were for the 

 Madras Eailway — passengers 8,003,205 over an average distance 

 of 39 1 miles and goods 1,088,774 tons over an average distance 

 of 105 miles; for the South Indian Railway — passengers 

 7,212,299 over an average distance of 35'12 miles and goods 

 1,349,433 tons over an average distance of 46-9 miles. In the 

 Oodavari, Kistna and Buckinsjham canals, the number of pas- 

 sengers carried was 480,000 and the ton-mileage of goods 36 

 millions. Leaving out of consideration the passenger trciffic, the 

 saving in the cost of carriage of goods alone caused by the sub- 

 stitution of carriage by railways and canals for conveyance by 

 carts may roughly be estimated at 27 millions of rupees every 

 year ; that is more than one-half the entire land revenue of the 

 Presidency. If the saving in time, and the diminislied risk of 

 loss^^ by robbery and of damage by exposure to the weather 

 be taken into account, the real saving in cost will be found to 

 be very much greater. Of course, under the old conditions it 

 would have been impossible to carry anything like the quantity 

 of goods now sent from place to place, or in other words, the 

 immense trade that now exists wnuld not have been possible 

 but for the extension of communications. It is a well known 

 fact that silver has fallen considerably in value since 1873, and, 

 under ordinary circumstances, we should have expected that the 

 prices of the principal commodities in India would have risen 

 in the same proportion. The cheapening of the cost of carriage 

 has, however, been so great as to neutralize almost wholly the 

 rise in prices, and the consequence is that the prices of food 

 grains during recent years are slightly, if at all, in excess of 

 the prices in 1873. 



^' Even as regards passengers, the risks in travelling by railways are incomparably 

 smaller than the risks of travelling by other conveyances, notwithstanding the terrible 

 railway accidents that occasionally occur. The number of passengers carried 1:)y the 

 Madras and South Indian Railways in 1889-90 was upwards of 16| millions, while the 

 number of persons killed was 32. In England the number of persons killed by railway 

 accidents during the years 1882 to 1885 was 1 in 60 millions of passengers. Mr. Henry 

 Ward in his article on "Locomotion and Transport, " in the jubilee volume entitled 

 The Reign of Queen Victoria, says: "From a comparison between the number of acci- 

 dents and the average train mileage, it may be deduced that a man in order to secure 

 his death must be.iin to travel as soon as be is bom and move da}' and night at the rate 

 of 20 miles an hour for 466 ypars. Even to make the risiss from railway travelling 

 equal to th(^be from general causes, he must pursue the practice for 9 years. Very few 

 have time even to get injured by the railway," 



