Book I, Chapter 11: Irrigation and Railways

CHAPTER XI

IRRIGATION AND RAILWAYS

GREAT irrigation canals, constructed by Mahomedan rulers in Northern India, had fallen into disrepair during the wars of the eighteenth century, and attracted the notice of the servants of the East India Company shortly after they had acquired Northern India in 1803. A Committee of Survey was appointed under Lord Minto’s administration in 1810 to inquire into the state of the old canals both east and west of the Jumna; but the Chief Engineer and the Surveyor-General were divided in opinion, and “poured over the survey report such a flood of contradictory learning” that the first scheme of restoring the canals perished under its weight.¹

Lord Hastings approached the question in a more practical manner. As a result of his tour in Upper India in 1815 he wrote hopefully of the scheme of restoring the old canal west of the Jumna:—

“I will only say that my own inspection has fully convinced me of the facility and the policy of immediately restoring this noble work. Setting aside the consideration of its certain effect, in bringing into cultivation vast tracts of country now deserted, and thereby augmenting importantly the landed revenue of the Honourable Company, the dues to be collected for the distribution of the water from it would make a most lucrative return.”²

Lieutenant Blaine accordingly commenced the restoration of the West Jumna Canal, and saw the waters return to Delhi after a suspension of half a century, but his work did not go much farther. In 1823 Colonel John Colvin was appointed General Superintendent of Irrigation at Delhi, and the work proceeded rapidly towards completion. During the great famine of 1837 the gross value of the crops saved by the water of this canal was estimated at a million and a half sterling. The main line of the canal was 445 miles in length.³

The East Jumna Canal then attracted attention. That work, too, had been constructed by Mahomedan emperors, and the fame of two British engineers, Colonel Robert Smith and Colonel Baird Smith, is connected with its restoration. The first-named officer, Robert Smith, completed the work according to its original design in 1830; but much still remained to be done, and many serious defects were discovered. Captain Cautley rectified these errors; and he was succeeded by Baird Smith, whose high administrative work in another department will be referred to in a subsequent chapter. He completed the necessary improvements and additions; and the completed work, 155 miles in length, has been described with a legitimate pride by Colonel Baird Smith himself in the pages of an Indian Review:—

“Most beautiful in all parts it truly is, with its broad road, smooth as an English lawn, its double rows of trees drooping over the stream, its long graceful sweeps, its rich bordering of the most luxuriant crops, its neat station houses, and the peculiar care with which all its works are maintained. It is certainly one of the most interesting and attractive of Indian sights.”

The history of the Ganges Canal belongs to the last years of the Company’s rule. The great work was commenced by Lord Auckland, but was unfortunately suspended by his successor, Lord Ellenborough. Lord Hardinge, however, recognised the merits of the magnificent scheme, and gave it his sanction and approval; and the Court of Directors, encouraged by the financial results of the East and West Jumna Canals, consented to the expenditure of over a million sterling over this great enterprise. The rule of the East India Company was swept away before the work was completed; but what was done in their time is described in their own Memorandum:—

“The total length of the Ganges Canal and its branches, when completed, will be 898½ miles, and it will furnish abundant irrigation for an area of 4½ million acres. The canal, in the words of the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, ‘presents a system of irrigation unequalled in vastness throughout the world; while the dimensions of the main channel, and the stupendous works of masonry which occur in its course, more particularly in the section between Roorkee and Hardwar, render the work eminently one of national distinction and honour.’ The amount expended on it up to the 1st May 1856 had reached the sum of £1,560,000; and, when completed, the total cost will fall little short of two millions. The canal has but just begun to be brought into operation; but it is estimated by Colonel Baird Smith, the Director, that the annual produce of the land already watered by it is of the value of from £150,000 to £200,000; and that when the canal is in full operation, the value will ultimately reach the enormous sum of seven millions sterling. From the 30th April 1856 the canal had been carried so far that the water flowed continuously through 449½ miles of the main trunk and terminal branches.”⁴

The Punjab was annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1849, and was then found to contain canals of two kinds—inundation canals and permanent canals.

“The inundation canals are cuts from the rivers, which are empty during the winter, because the water is then not high enough to enter them; but as the water rises in the spring, from the melting of the snows, these channels fill, and remain full till late in autumn. The fertility of the South-Western Punjab mainly depends on these canals; and in a former age they appear to have been conducted from all the rivers; their course being traceable by the ruins, not only of villages, but of cities and public buildings, which depended for existence on their fertilising influence. Such of these canals as were found in working order at the annexation have been maintained, improved, and enlarged; and plans and estimates have been formed for the restoration of others. As yet, however, a greater part of the funds which could be spared for the purpose have been devoted to the construction and improvement of permanent canals.”⁵

The only important permanent canal which the East India Company undertook in the Punjab was the Baree Doab Canal, about 450 miles in length. To John Lawrence and to Lord Dalhousie, India is indebted for this magnificent work. John Lawrence continuously pressed on the Indian Government the expediency of constructing roads and canals, promising that such expenditure would soon return itself tenfold in increased revenue. “If we wish to feed the thousands of human beings,” wrote the Lahore Board, “whom the change of rule must necessarily throw out of employment, we cannot more readily do so than by cutting new canals, and improving the beds of the old ones.”⁶ “Everywhere,” responded Lord Dalhousie, “I found lands of vast extent, fertile properties now lying comparatively waste, but wanting only water to convert them into plains of the richest cultivation.”⁷ And the Court of Directors gave them “cordial assent to the undertaking”—the Baree Doab Canal—but with a caution that the work should be carried out with “due regard to economy.”⁸

Baird Smith had become the most distinguished authority on irrigation in Northern India, and he took advantage of a furlough to Europe to visit Italy, and examine the great canal works of Lombardy and Piedmont. And the East India Company paid his expenses for a similar scientific visit to the United States of America. It is needless to add that the Baree Doab Canal was pushed on vigorously. By May 1856, more than 325 miles had been excavated; and the work was expected to be completed in 1859. The total cost was estimated at a million sterling, and the expected return at £120,000, or 12 per cent. on the outlay per annum.⁹

The province of Bombay does not boast of large rivers, except the Narbada and the Tapti, which water a few districts only; and there is little scope for irrigation by canals in the uplands of the Deccan. And sufficient attention was not paid by the Company’s servants to irrigation by means of wells and reservoir tanks. In Sindh, cultivation was dependent on the rise of the Indus, whose waters were distributed by a network of old canals; and the Company spent £25,000 annually in keeping these canals in working order.

Madras was rich in the remains of reservoir tanks, built by old Rajas and Polygars; and Dr. Francis Buchanan had observed and described them in course of his journey from Madras to the West Coast as early as 1800.¹⁰ A systematic restoration and preservation of these ancient works, and the excavation of new works of the same kind where most needed, would have changed the face of the country within fifty or sixty years, and the Company might have handed over the Southern Province to the Crown with its agriculture safeguarded, and its population protected from famines. But irrigation was sadly neglected; and when, sometimes, a Collector undertook the restoration of an old reservoir, it was mainly with the purpose of adding to the heavy assessment of his district.

There are, however, a few tracts in the Province of Madras where irrigation by means of canals on a large scale is possible, and these tracts are the deltas of the great rivers—the Godavari, the Krishna, and the Kaveri. Thoughtful men perceived, early in the nineteenth century, the possibility of utilising these great rivers, and irrigating their deltas; and the name of Sir Arthur Cotton is imperishably connected with the first great canal works in the South, as those of Baird Smith and his colleagues are in the North.

Coleroon is one of the branches of the Kaveri; and the old Coleroon Works, constructed by the ancient Hindus, can be traced from the second century of the Christian Era. When the country came under British administration in 1801, the old works were found to be very defective; the bed of the river was rising by the deposit of silt; and the extent of irrigated land was diminishing. The success of the Jumna Canals in Northern India at last suggested the improvement of the Coleroon Works in the South; and from 1836 the work was regularly and vigorously prosecuted. The total expenditure on the Upper and Lower Coleroon anicuts came to upwards of £80,000; and a further sum of £100,000 was spent on subsidiary works for conveying irrigation over the district of Tanjore, and portions of Trichinopoly and South Arcot. The lands irrigated from the Coleroon and Kaveri increased from 630,000 acres to 716,000 acres; and the land revenue was increased by £44,000 per annum, giving a return of over 24 per cent. on the outlay.¹¹

The East India Company took credit to themselves for the successful and profitable results of this great work, but the real credit is due to Sir Arthur Cotton, who first conceived the idea, and commenced the construction, of the Upper Coleroon Dam against much opposition. Born in 1803, he had come out to Madras in 1821; and before his final retirement from India in 1860, he had won for himself a reputation higher than that of any other engineer who has ever worked in India. “The permanent prosperity of Tanjore,” wrote Baird Smith, the great irrigation man of Northern India, “is without doubt to be attributed in large measure to that first bold step taken by Colonel Cotton in the construction of the Upper Coleroon Dam, under circumstances of great difficulty, with restricted means, against much opposition, and with heavy personal responsibilities.”¹²

The great reputation won by Arthur Cotton by the Coleroon Works marked him out as the fittest man to undertake the task on which his fame mainly rests, the Godavari Works. He selected a place a few miles below the ancient Hindu capital of Rajamundri, and he constructed his magnificent anicut in four sections, taking advantage of two islands in the river. The total estimated expenditure was £264,000; but the East India Company looked at it as a profitable speculation, and expected an increase of land revenue by £300,000, or over 100 per cent. per annum.¹³

There remained, then, the Krishna River; and the anicut across that river was commenced in 1853. The cost was originally estimated at £155,000; and an increase of £60,000 in the land revenue, or 39 per cent. on the outlay, was expected per annum.¹⁴

These were the principal irrigation works undertaken by the East India Company before 1858, when they ceased to exist. The works were constructed at a great expense; and the Company could fairly claim an adequate return on their outlay by a moderate rate on the water they supplied. It will be noticed, however, from the figures given above, that the Company went further, especially in the benighted Province of Madras; they raised the land revenue as much as it was possible to raise it, leaving the unfortunate cultivators as permanently poor as they were before. This policy would scarcely be considered wise or generous in a landlord dealing with his tenants; it was distinctly ungenerous and unwise in the Government of a great country dealing with a vast agricultural population. The growth of wealth and the accumulation of capital among a people should ever be the foremost aim of an enlightened Government.

The history of railways in India is different in its character from the history of irrigation works. Irrigation works paid, and more than paid, from the very commencement; railways did not give an adequate return on the outlay. Irrigation works were converted into a source of revenue by the Government; railways led to a permanent loss to the Government year after year. Irrigation secured crops, increased the produce, and averted famines in years of drought; railways helped the conveyance of food to afflicted tracts in famine years, but did not add to the produce of the land.

It might naturally be expected that, under these circumstances, the Government of an agricultural country like India would be more partial to irrigation works than to railways. But Englishmen in their own country were more familiar with railroads than with canals; and they made the mistake of judging the needs of India accordingly. British manufacturers, too, thought that railways would more quickly open up the interior of India to their commodities than canals; and the administration both of the East India Company and of the Crown was subjected to a continuous Parliamentary pressure to extend and multiply railway lines in India, even at a loss to the revenues of the country. There was no counter pressure from the people of India, who had no votes and no representatives in the Executive Government; and irrigation works were thus treated with comparative neglect, while railways were multiplied beyond the urgent needs or the resources of the country.

Two private associations called the East Indian Railway Company and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, were formed in 1845; but the projectors found it impossible to raise the necessary funds for their schemes without the assistance of Government. After much discussion the Directors of the East India Company consented to grant assistance in the shape of guaranteeing interest on the railway capital. The terms of the agreement were that, if the nett receipts from the railways were less than 5 per cent. on the capital expended, the Government of India would make good the difference from the revenues of India. If, on the other hand, the nett receipts from the railways were more than 5 per cent., one half of the excess would go to the railway companies, and the other to the Government of India. To take an example, if the railway traffic yielded 4 per cent. on the capital expended, the Government of India would pay 1 per cent. to make up the guaranteed rate of interest. If, on the other hand, the traffic yielded 7 per cent. on the outlay, the shareholders of the railway company would keep 6 per cent., and would pay the Government of India 1 per cent. The management remained with the railway company.¹⁵

It was also stipulated that the railway companies could surrender the works on giving six months’ notice, and the Government would have to repay the whole amount expended by them. And the Government was empowered, after the expiration of twenty-five and fifty years respectively, to purchase the lines at the market value of the shares. Lastly, at the expiration of ninety-nine years, the land and works lapsed to the Government, who would have to purchase the engines and carriages at a valuation.¹⁶

East Indian Railway.—In 1854, only 37½ miles of this line were open for traffic; and in February 1855 the length opened was 121 miles, from Calcutta to Raniganj. Lord Dalhousie then drew up a scheme of a general system of trunk railways for India; and another contract was entered into, by which the same railway company agreed to extend the line to Delhi, and accepted 4½ per cent. as the guaranteed interest on their capital spent on this extension. But the Indian Mutiny occurred before any extension was opened for traffic, and the administration of the East India Company terminated after the mutiny.

Great Indian Peninsula Railway.—The line from Bombay to Kalyan, 37 miles, was completed in 1854. In November of that year, the same railway company agreed to construct extensions at a minimum interest of 4½ per cent. on the outlay, but this rate was increased to 5 per cent. whenever shares were issued; 54 additional miles were done before the mutiny of 1857.

Madras Railway.—The first section of this line, from Madras to Arcot, 65 miles, was opened to the public in July 1856. No further extension was constructed within the period of the East India Company’s administration. And no other lines except the three named above were opened for traffic before November 1858, when the Indian Empire passed under the direct administration of the Crown.

All the three lines described above were losing concerns, and the sums which the Government of India had to pay to the railway companies from year to year, to make up the guaranteed interest, are shown below.¹⁷

The loss to the people of India increased, as the railway lines were extended, from year to year. But so long as the interest was guaranteed, the railway companies made their earnings, and new companies were started to open lines in every part of India. The Sindh Railway Company, including the Punjab in their operations, the Bombay, Baroda and Central Indian Railway Company, the Eastern Bengal Railway Company, the Great South of India Railway Company, and the Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway Company, were all formed before the extinction of the East Indian Company’s administration, but the lines undertaken by them were not opened.

This delay irritated British manufacturers and merchants; and in 1858 a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed “to inquire into the causes that have led to the delay.” The Committee, after due inquiry, reported that the delay was owing to Government supervision of the works, to the distance of India from home, to insurrection and mutiny, and to the natural difficulties of the country. And the Committee added:—

“First, that the Government has acted wisely in committing to private enterprise the execution of these great public works;

“Secondly, that a guaranteed interest on the requisite capital was indispensable to induce the public to invest their money in undertakings of this magnitude and novelty;

“And thirdly, that in order to protect Indian revenue from undue expenditure, Government control over the railway operations is requisite, and even valuable to the interests of the shareholders themselves.”

It is possible to conceive that if the people of India had been represented on this Committee, or even if many Indian witnesses had been examined by them, the Committee would have formed a different opinion. They might have come to the finding that, in order to protect Indian revenue from undue expenditure, railway lines on the guarantee system should not be undertaken in India except on the ground of absolute political necessity; that all other lines should be left entirely to private enterprise; and that canals were more suited to the needs of India, both as a means of cheap transit to the people and as a protection against droughts and famines.

Footnotes