Letters and Papers Concerning the Trans-Persian Railway and Other Railways in Persia [‎201v] (402/442)

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The Trans-Persian Pailway. [ LORDS ] The Trans-Persian Pailway. 486
the railways of India every penny which
the Government of India could spare from
its surplus balances, and every penny
which could be borrowed in England and
i i India on the security of the revenues
of India, and every penny which the rail way
companies could borrow in this country,
but the twelve and a-half millions have
never been reached.
I spent last winter in India, and having
been appointed President of a Conference
between the Government of India and the
railway companies to try and settle some
long out-standing differences, I had
occasion during the course of my in
vestigations to travel some 12,000 miles
over the railway systems of India. And,
my Lords, what did I see ? From Bombay
in the west to Calcutta and Madras in
the east, from the Himalayas in the north
to Cape Comorin in the south, practically
every large railway station was congested
with goods for which there were no means
of transport to be found. The mills in
Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were
dangerously near the end of their coal
supplies, ships were hung up in the Hugh
for want of coal, which had gone to
famine prices, although at the mouths of
the pits in the Bengal coalfields not
150 miles away from Calcutta I saw
tens of thousands of tons of coal piled
up, which reminded me of that old
song “ Wait for the Wagon.” There were
no means of getting the coal down to the
seaboard. It was anticipated when I was
there in March that things would mend
by May, but only the other day an in
fluential deputation waited upon the Secre
tary of State for India and represented to
him that the state of affairs was still as
bad as ever. I impute no blame to the
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. , to the Government of India,
to the Railway Board, or to the directors
and managers of the great railway com
panies in India who manage the railways
so admirably for the Government.
When I went to India about forty years
ago there was a cry for more permanent
way and more rolling-stock. That cry
has gone on every year since then, and the
cry exists to-day. The fact is it is difficult
to get sufficient money in this country,
where the capital alone can be found, to
meet the railway requirements of India,
and it has been more difficult than ever in
the past five years through young countries
being opened up and trade being so
active all the world over. The Three-and-
Lord Inchcape.
a-Half per cent. Loans of the Government of
\ India, which used to stand well over par, are
now under 92, and so long as trade con
tinues active, and so long as India con
tinues to be a borrowing Government, we
cannot expect to see her annual issues
; absorbed except at constantly dwindling
prices. Hie outlook at the moment for
i getting more money for Indian railways is
I by no means bright. The opium revenue
is being relinquished, as the noble Earl
said, for the supposed moral and material
benefit of the blue-robed nation, although,
if recent reports are correct, as the poppy
cultivation diminishes in Hindustan it
, increases in the Celestial Empire.
Then, my Lords, the Government of
India is faced with an expenditure in the
immediate future of several millions sterling,
it may be four, it may be six, it may be
eight, I think it will probably be ten
millions, for the new’ capital at Delhi. All
this means that there will be less money
available for irrigation, for railways, and for
other reproductive works in India. I have
heard it stated—although I felt somewhat
reassured by the statement of the noble
Viscount that nothing was being done in
connection with this railway—that the
survey has either been begun or is about to
be undertaken from Karachi to Charbar.
It would be a distinct misfortune if the
resources of the North-western State railway
were to be squandered on a project of this
kind instead of being laid out in providing
that rolling-stock which is so necessary to
enable it to handle the goods which it is now
unable to carry. I submit that the time is
inopportune for the Government to think of
building a line from Karachi either to the
centre or to the confines of Persia—a line
which will never pay its working expenses,
far less interest upon the cost of its con
struction. I submit that the funds at the
disposal of the Government of India should
be employed in the development of the
railway system of that country and not
wasted on a silly project of this description.
Even if the money is found by outside
financiers the effect will be the same. If
the interest is guaranteed on the cost of
construction and if the guarantee comes
from the revenues of India it will be a dissi
pation of the credit of the Secretary of
State and a charge upon the revenues of
the country. I strongly urge, therefore,
that neither His Majesty’s Government nor
the Government of India should have
anything to do with the building of this
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