association known as thugs, whose operations extended far and wide throughout the country. The dacoits might be professional brigands. These have been rooted out,— as also have been the thugs,-by a special department of police which had authority to carry its operations into the Native States, and so to deprive these criminals of their final refuge. Dacoities still occur: but they are generally committed by bands of enterprising men, organised for the occasion, who not infrequently are found to belong to respectable families. Violent crime of this description commonly breaks out in times of stress or hardship: it is a not infrequent accompaniment of famine; and of recent years, in Bengal, it has accompanied manifestations of anti-British feeling. The pacification of Upper Burma was delayed for some time by dacoities in which discontented spirits showed their dislike of annexation by robbing and mutilating their own fellow-countrymen. In Bengal dacoities have been serving a more practical purpose they have been used as a means of procuring funds for a seditious campaign. The police administration of Indian has generally been regarded as the department upon which British rule has had least reason to pride itself. It may be doubted whether those who have criticised it most severely have realised the character of the environment which the police have been expected to resist. But during the past ten years strenuous efforts have been made to procure greater efficiency, and the expenditure on the department has been increased by no less than 68 per cent. Indian police officers must have been gratified by the course of a recent debate in the Viceroy's Legislative Council, which arose out of a motion for a special enquiry into police administration. It was noticeable that even the elected members of Council who pressed for such an investigation, frankly admitted that the morale of the force had immensely improved. CHAPTER XVII TECHNICAL DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT To an alien Government the maintenance of the law must always appear of paramount importance, and the Indian Civil Service, to whose hands this function has specially been committed, has accordingly figured very conspicuously on the Indian stage. But, having assured the public peace, British authority in India has interested itself directly in the welfare of the people, and has developed activities which some years ago might have been ridiculed as paternal but are now quite in accord with the socialistic fashion of the day. These activities are generally exercised through separate technical services, the European staffs of which, taken together, vastly outnumber the Indian Civil Service. PUBLIC WORKS So far, Britain's deepest marks upon India have been made by her engineers. It is not only that their railway, canal, and road enbankments could stand when all else had slipped away,-that, should British rule be withdrawn, and the exotic ideas and institutions that it has introduced vanish in a welter of obliterating strife, these would remain, the only memorials of such a passing tutelage as Britain herself once experienced at Roman hands, but that, through these public works, the life of the common people has been changed as by nothing else that Britain has accomplished, the produce of their land augmented, their wages raised and the comfort of the poorest families increased by some simple novelties. Touched by railway communication, the very appearance of the fields is changing. Villages need no longer be self-supporting, growing in varied patches the different crops they require. Cotton is sown in large stretches for Europe and Japan, and sugar-cane is disappearing before the tempting cheapness of sugar from Java and Mauritius. These are material changes. To railways are also owed moral changes which are of still greater moment, since they may lead the way to social reform. Such relaxations as have become permitted in the rules of caste have proceeded in great measure from the novel exigencies and experiences of railway travel. There are now 32,398 miles of railway in India,—a larger network than in any country of Europe except Germany and Russia. In proportion to population the mileage falls very short of European standards—even that of Russia. But it is as large as that of Japan. The railways carry annually over 330 millions of passengers and 80 million tons of goods. They represent a capital outlay of £292 millions. Their rates are exceedingly low for a penny a passenger may travel, third-class, five miles, and a ton of goods will be carried 24 miles. Yet the railways not only pay their way, but ordinarily yield a surplus profit which in four of the last ten years has touched two millions sterling. Three-fourths of the railway system is the property of the State. But State ownership was not the policy on which railway construction was initiated. In accordance with the ideas of those days it was left to private enterprise to pioneer the ground; and, when it was ascertained that private companies could not borrow money at moderate interest, for outlay in India, the State engaged to add so much to the railway traffic receipts as was required to give a return of 5 per cent. to the shareholders, subject to the conditions that should the receipts yield more than 5 per cent. it should be entitled to a moiety of the excess, and should further have a claim to purchase the railway on the expiry of 30 years. On these terms the three principal trunk lines were constructed. As the paying prospects RAILWAYS of Indian railways became more and more evident these concessions appeared unnecessarily liberal: the rate of guaranteed interest for new companies was reduced to 4 per cent., and subsequently attempts were made to attract private capital by offering concessions which fell short of a firm guarantee. At the same time the Government decided to enter upon railway construction itself; and a railway department was formed which took a very active part in extending the network. Most of the lines made by guaranteed companies have now been purchased. But the State has not attempted the task of managing this large system, and has leased the greater portion of it, for purposes of management and upkeep, to private companies which are generally assisted by a guarantee of interest on their working capital and divide surplus profits with the Government in settled proportions. The original trunk lines were built not on the English 4 ft. 8 in. gauge, but on a special Indian gauge of 5 ft. 6 in., and this has been adopted for the greater portion of the lines that have since been constructed by private enterprise. But when, some 40 years ago, the Indian Government determined itself to take a hand in equipping the country with railroads, it decided in favour of the metre gauge (3 ft. 3 in.) for its own lines, and its choice in this matter was accepted by some of the companies to whom, later on, concessions for railway construction were granted. The earnings of Indian railways have always suffered from the sharp seasonal fluctuations to which their business has been subject. At certain seasons of the year traffic offers itself in greater quantity than it can be carried, while at other seasons it hardly suffices to keep the line in working employ. This fluctuation, primarily due, of course, to the fact that the consignments mainly consist of agricultural produce, was formerly aggravated by the absence of feeder lines and by deficiencies in road communication which left only the dry months of the year available for the transport of produce across country. In these circumstances it seemed desirable, by reducing the cost of construction, to minimise the loss that was sustained during the slack months: a considerable saving in capital outlay is effected by the adoption of the smaller gauge. The Indian main lines of railway form, then, two distinct networks-one on the 5 ft. 6 in., and the other on the 3 ft. 3 in. gauge-there being 16,758 miles of the former and 13,633 miles of the latter. Transfers of goods from one system to another involve break of bulk, and, could the increasing amount and regularity of the traffic have been foreseen, it is improbable that the saving of capital outlay would have seemed so great an object. But in truth until recent years it has been necessary to economise very carefully in railway construction, since experience had shown that the Indian Government, while unable to attract Indian investors, could only borrow at low interest in the London market if it carefully moderated its demands. Fifteen years ago the capital expenditure upon railways rarely exceeded £2 millions a year. At that time the railways, taken together, did not pay their way, and it fell upon the general revenues to supply a deficit on their account. By 1896-97 it had, however, become evident that the Indian railways were financially promising, and a more venturesome policy was adopted in borrowing on their behalf. Assisted by grants from surplus revenue, the annual capital expenditure has since risen in some years to as much as £9 millions. But some two-thirds of this has been absorbed in the improvement and equipment of existing lines; and the construction of new lines, although very greatly accelerated, is still too slow to satisfy the interests of British manufacturers, merchants and engineers. In the past some critics have nourished suspicions that railways exploit the country for the benefit of capitalists, |