THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA 79 



The money-order form consists of four parts; one is re- 

 tained by the office receiving the money, one is kept by 

 the office distributing the money, one is kept by the man 

 receiving the money and the fourth is returned to the 

 remitter with the signature of the receiver and is consid- 

 ered a legal receipt. Furthermore the postman actually 

 brings the money to the person who is to receive it. So 

 there is not the waste of time going to the post office to 

 get the money. How much greater service is this than 

 the modern American money-order service. The post- 

 man also sells stamps and postcards on his rounds. 



India has approximately thirty-six thousand miles of 

 railroad, unfortunately divided between four gauges, 

 five-foot-six-inch gauge, meter-gauge, two-foot-six-inch, 

 and two-foot gauge. No narrow gauge railway enters 

 an Indian port, though the narrow gauge often serves a 

 very rich and large district. There is therefore a very 

 great economic loss in the trans-shipment of goods from 

 the various gauges. Most of these railways were built 

 with capital borrowed at a low rate of interest, none of 

 it above six per cent, and most of it much below. In 

 order to induce capital to invest in Indian railroads the 

 British government guaranteed the interest to the in- 

 vestors which the railway paid or not. With the credit 

 of the British government the Indian railways were thus 

 built about as cheaply as any railroads on earth and the 

 public in India gets the benefit. The mail trains be- 

 tween Calcutta and Bombay, thirteen hundred miles, be- 

 tween Calcutta and Lahore, about the same distance, run 

 at about thirty-three miles an hour for the whole of the 

 distance. The first class accommodation which equals 

 if it does not excel the Pullman, costs between three and 

 four cents a mile, second class about two cents, inter- 



