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capital outlay amounting to nine millions on the Orissa, 

 Kurnool and Sone canals wliich have proved disastrous*^ 

 failures. The benefit to the country by the construction of 

 irrigation works cannot, however, be measured simply by the 

 revenue realized by Government, inasmuch as the Government 

 does not take the whole of the net profit due to the provision 

 of irrigation, but only a share of it which is nominally half but 

 really much less. For instance, the capital outlay on the 

 Goddvari and Kistna works up to the end of 1889-90 was 2| 

 millions Rx and the irrigation revenue derived from the works 

 35 lakhs of rupees. During 1876-77, when the Presidency 

 was suffering from a severe famine, the production of rice in 

 the Kistna and Goddvari deltas was valued at upwards of 

 five millions Rx. Since 1876 the area under irrigation in the 

 Goddvari and Kistna deltas has increased by upwards of 50 per 

 cent., the increase in the past ten years amounting to 250,0(J0 

 acres or upwards of 29 per cent. Allowing for the decrease in 

 the prices of food -grains now as compared with the prices in 

 1876, the value of the produce in these deltas due to irrigation 



*^ That much money was wasted in useless and unprofitable undertakings, and more 

 would have been but for the late Mr. Fawcett's persistent efforts amidst much dis- 

 couragement to enforce economy in Indian administration, there can be no doubt. The 

 view which he endeavoured to force on the attention of the British public was that India 

 was one of the poorest countries in the world, and administered as it was by perhaps the 

 richest nation, the utmost vigilance was necessarj' to keep down expenditure by dispensing 

 with costly luxuries which a rich country might, but a poor country could not, afiord. 

 The following facts taken from Leslie Stephen's Life of Fawcett show what great 

 necessity there was for discouraging undertakings of a speculative character which were 

 Kkely in the long run to prove disastrous to the finances of India. The Secretary of State 

 had given a guarantee for the Mutlah Railway which was to conjiect Calcutta with Port 

 Canning. It never paid its working expenses, and the Government was at last forced 

 by the terms of the contract to buy it for £500,000 or £600,000. The port was finally 

 abandoned. The Carnatic Railway Company had received a guarantee, in regard to which 

 the Indian Government was not consulted, and the result had been that Government 

 had paid £43,500 to the proprietors, whilst the aggregate net profit from the working of 

 the railway was only £2,600. Some three-quarters of a million had been spent on the 

 Godivari navigation works from which there was no return, whilst the anticipated result 

 of opening up a new line of traflSc had not been attained. It was thought better to 

 abandon the three-quarters of a million than to spend another quarter in the faint hope 

 of obtaining some better result from a completion of the works. Government had guaran- 

 teed interest on £1,000,000 to the Madras Irrigation Company. It had been forced to 

 lend the Company £600,000 to save it from collapse. Though part of it had been repaid, 

 the final result was that £1,372,000 was swallowed up without return. The irrigation 

 canal has since been purchased by Government, &c. Mr. Leslie Stephen remarks that the 

 evidence of ofiicial witnesses before the Finance Committee of 1872, and especially the 

 testimony of General Strachey, indisputablj' showed that " the accotints hitherto given (of 

 the irrigation and other works) were unsatisfactory and would not show whether a fair 

 profit had been obtained ; that disastrous bargains had been forced upon the Government 

 by the pressure of interested persons ; that the worst extravagance had occuri'ed when the 

 opinions of Indian ofiicials had been overridden by the Home Government." Ail this is, 

 however, ancient history, the Parhmentary Committees of 1872 and 1884 on Indian public 

 works having strictly defined the conditions under which public works, whether irrigation 

 works or railways, should be undertaken. It must be remembered also that if the history 

 of Public Works Administration of any country for a period of half a century be exa- 

 mined, it would be easy to point out failures even more disastrous than those of the Indian 

 Government. 



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