PUBLIC WORKS, RAILROADS, AND STEAM, IN THE COLONIES AND INDIA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 92, 9 December 1843, Page 368

PUBLIC WORKS, RAILROADS, AND STEAM, IN THE COLONIES AND INDIA.

[From the Colonial Gazette.'] BY MR. P. CUNNINGHAM, R. N.

In India and Ceylon, all the public buildings, roada, bridges, irrigating dams and' aqueducts, &c, are planned and executed by engineers or other military officers possessing competent heads ; through which the Indian and Ceylon, public have the practicability, cost, and utility of any proposed public work ascertained, and, if necessary, executed, at much less expense than if civil engineers, even when available, were employed : a moderate addition to their ordinary pay, and the honour to themselves and their corps in the successful completion of a task, are sufficient remuneration on their parts. It is only necessary, therefore, to employ military engineers in all our colonies, to examine the country and report upon the capability of the roads, irrigating canals, and dams, &c, that might be constructed for useful purposes, in order to stimulate public spirit to the completion of them. Both England and Ireland also have greatly benefited by similar engineer-surveys at public expense, to ascertain the best main rail-road-lines to circulate through the country, like the main blood-vessels in the animal body, for giving out and receiving the minor lateral sustenance branches in their routes. Great have been the benefits derived by New South Wales from the engineering talents of the present Sur-veyor-General in the laying-out of new roadlines and in the improvement of the old. From the similar talents of the present GovernorGeneral, many streamlet-dams have been constructed for public purposes to retain water that would otherwise have run to waste. Thus, much misery to the population, from the want of this necessary of life in dry Australian years, has been warded off.

On my first visit to New South Wales, twentytwo years ago, the late Mr. Macarthur observed to me, that the colonial roads would be more expensive to keep in order than the roads of England, on account of the greater heat and drought-cracking and the intenser rain-falls breaking them up : a colonial prognostication since well verified ; and it is equally applicable to India, according to the testimony of Lord Auckland. As rail and tram-roads, however, cannot be thus broken and washed away, these must evidently be the cheapest in such countries ; and hence Sir George Gipps has judiciously directed all New South Wales road lines to be hereafter laid out so as to enable them to be converted into iron rail or tramways. Wooden tramways are certainly the best in all countries where the traffic is small, and good road formation therefore is of more consequence than quickness of transit. The wooden tramways are requisite to lay iron rails upon ; and the primary passage of dray and cart wheels over them will consequently compress and render them less liable to atmospheric decomposition, and therefore more suitable to receive the iron rail when the amount of passenger and goods traffic will pay for such a change.

Iron railways, as main lines, are, however, more suitable to India, from the denser population, and consequently greater traffic there ; but especially from the great military and other benefits the Indian would derive from them. Thus we find that all the military marches in Affghanistan and bad road portions of India are performed at about ten miles per day; for although the men could march further, they must wait for the carriage cattle. Consequently, by a series of main railroads throughout India, at the ordinary speed of twenty miles per hour, troop*, artillery, baggage, provisions, &c, could be conveyed to as great a distance^ one day as they could be in forty-eight days by a common road, thereby enabling the Indian Government to concentrate an army from the most distant quarters upon any given disturbed or invaded point in a very short space of time, and consequently to dispense with at least half of the troops now required to preserve internal tranquillity or guard from foreign invasion. The greater security of capital investment in our own country and colonies than in the Republican States of North and South America is now sufficiently apparent. The Journal dcs Debats well exemplifies the recorded capitalist's opinion of the honesty-difference between Republicanism and Monarchy in the American Republics, being unable now to borrow at any rate of interest, whereas, the poorest Monarch in Europe can do -so at less than 5 per cent. The high rate of money interest and low price of labour in India well show the advantageousness of capital investment there in useful undertakings, such as banks, railroads, irrigating canals, &c. ; irrigating canals enabling crops to be grown without fear of failure from want of rain, banks enabling their quick transfer from hand to hand, and railroads enabling them to be quickly, and cheaply conveyed to the most distant internal markets. Those unacquainted with irrigation may easily ascertain its immense value by a perusal of Sir A. Burnes' last work, in the enormous water, land, and tax rental of irrigated fields ntar Cabul, where all agricultural productions are much cheaper than in England; or by a perusal of India statistics, wherein the mosey expended by the Government in irrigating aqueducts returns an interest of 15 to 20 per cent. Hence, as the Indian Government can readily borrow money in England at five per cent., they could pay off both principal and interest in

twelve or twenty years at farthest, by its expenditure in the construction of irrigating canals, provided they employed the strongest possible labour force upon them, in order to finish them in the least possible space of time, and thus obtain a quick return of interest ; for railroads and navigable and irrigating canals either return no interest upon the outlay, or at the best but a comparatively small one, until the whole line is completed.

But if railroads make capital invested in India more secure by its easier and cheaper defence on the land side, its fast increasing mercantile steam marine will soon render it equally invulnerable by sea ; as it is only necessary to have a sufficient artillery corps, with cannon suited to the various steamer sizes, ready for embarkation on a marine war breaking out. Steamers can fight or not fight sailing vessels at option in a breeze, and hence choose their best distances in a breeze, as well as their best position in a calm ; the steamer principle being, n,ot to engage in a general action in line with sailing vessels, but to destroy them in detail by a Parthian mode of warfare, when opportunities suit. The known abundance of coal in India will soon make it independent of foreign supply ; and hence hostile steamers from Europe would then be as ineffective as sailing vessels after their European coal was expended. Thus the invasion of India by sea will eventually become as hopeless through our steam-power defence aB railroads will make it by land.

An American Railway. — The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out is only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of there being anybody to get in. It rushes across the turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal: nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted " When the bell rings, look out for the Locomotive." On it whirls headlong, dives through the woods again, emerges in the light, clatters over frail arches, rumbles upon the heavy ground, shoots beneath a wooden bridge which intercepts the light for a second like a wink, suddenly awakens all the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town, and dashes on hap-hazard, pell-mell, neck-or-noth-ing, down Ihe middle of the road. There — with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from their doors and windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and men smoking', and women talking, and children crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed horses plunging and rearing, close to the' very rails — there — on, on, on — tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars; scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its wood fire; screeching, hissing, yelling, panting ; until at last the thirsty monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people cluster round, and you have time to breathe again. — Dickens' s American Notes.

The Minuet op the Ox. — Haydn one day was not a little surprised at seeing a butcher call upon him, who, being not less sensible than the majority of that great composer's admirers to the charms of his productions, said freely to him — " Sir, I know you are both good and obliging, therefore I address you with confidence of succeeding in my wishes. You excel in all kinds of musical compositions ; but lam particularly fond of your minuets, and very much wish for a new one, for my daughter's approaching wedding. Haydn, always kindly disposed, smiled at this curious instance of homage to his talents, complied with the solicitation, and desired his visitor to call again the next day. The amateur returned the appointed time, and received with gratitude the precious gift. Shortly after the joyful sound of instruments struck the composer's ear: he listened ; and thinking he recognised the passages of his own minuet, went to the window; when he beheld a superb ox with gilded horns, adorned with festoons, and surrounded by an ambulatory orchestra, which presently stopped "under his balcony. The butcher knocked at the door ; when, being admitted, he respectfully approached Haydn, and again expressing his admiration, ended his speech by saying, " Sir, you have done me a very great favour : and I thought a butcher could not better express his thanks for so beautiful a composition as your minuet, than by presenting you with the finest ox in his possession : I therefore request your acceptance of this." He persisted in pressing the offering upon the composer, till, affected by the frank generosity with which it was urged, he accepted the living present. From that day, the minuet written for the butcher was known throughout Vienna by the appellation of ths Minuet of the Ox.