PUBLIC WORKS IN INDIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5298, 19 March 1878, Page 3

PUBLIC WORKS IN INDIA.

(From the Daily Telegraph, January 23.) Considering her famines, and the cost of mitigating their severity, it is not wonderful that India should have supplied a topic for debate thus early iu the session. Last night Lord George Hamilton obtained the assent of the House to the appointment of a select committee “ to inquire into and report upon the expediency of constructing public works in India with money raised on loan, both as regards financial results and the prevention of famine.” If thoroughly carried out, the inquiry should serve to dispel the mist of popular errors which has settled over the subject. The extension of public works in India is a question of money. The notion that either railways or canals can ba constructed on a magnificent scale until the land blossoms like the rose, rests on the fallacy that the capital can be had without increasing t ixation to a degree which wou'd make English rule a curse, and that, when all had been done, the investment would pay, and famine be banished from the E ■’ pire. Mr. Bright compared the efforts of Manchester relatively with those of the Indian Government, just as even Sir Henry Durand contrasted disdainfully the American expenditure on railways.with ihat sanctioned at Calcutta ; and both comparisions are absolutely unfair. If the natives were like the men of Lancashire and America, the taunts would be reasonable. Then they would or might supply the capital and execute the

works. But in India the outlay on the smallest undertaking comes out of the public exchequer. ' If it is borrowed, the interest must he furnished by the taxpayer ; if it is not raised on loan, then it goes direct from the "proceeds of taxes to the contractors. As we cannot indefinitely extend taxation, in order to dig canals or build railways, the quantity of work done must he proportioned to the means available, and have some reference to revenue returns, as "well as to the indispanable demands on them, for security and order. The real enemy of the Indian people is he who advocates expenditure on enterprises which it is not demonstrably certain will pay a profit large enough to cover the interest, and yield a sinking fund Mr. Bright, carried away by humane feelings, and a sort of general hostility to all Governments, is always, though not intentionally, unjust and unstatesmanlike. The Viceroy and his councillors do not constitute an earthly Providence; and if all Air. Bright’s Indian nostrums could be put in force he would, with tile most charitable desire to do good, find that he had rendered English rule in India impossible, because he would have erected a benevolent but intolerable oppression.: It is high time, however, that the relations between taxation and expenditure—the true question in regard to public works—were exhaustively overhauled. We suspect it will be discovered that, unless England is prepared to guarantee the interest on the debts created by the realisation of magnificent ideas, they will be found entirely incompatible with the amount of imposts which the Indian public will hear. The resources of India, relatively to its extent, are very scanty; and if, in pursuit of improvement, the taxing and borrowing mania proceeds much further, the finances of the Empire will not escape a catastrophe. Let the committee now appointed throw a clear light on the exact situation, and it will have done an inestimable service.