Sir Arthur Cotton, the Indian engineer who believes that canals
would cure all the economic evils of the Empire, and that God created rivers principally to feed them, writes to the Timesadvo- eating the immediate expenditure of £20,000,000 a year upon public- works, especially canals, and alleging that a thousand millions might be so expended in India with great profit. We believe that statement to be entirely true, provided that profit is not understood to mean direct, but only indirect return ; but then it is true not only of India, but of every other country in the world. A thousand millions spent upon canals, roads, and tram- ways in France, for example, would double the wealth of that great country in no long time, and in Russia would be even more productive. But then where is the money to come from ? The works will not return fair dividends in direct cash, as Indian- canal shareholders know by experience, and private aid is there- fore not to be looked for. The Indian Government could not borrow the money, or anything like it, without crushing the people with taxation ; and if the British Parliament advanced it, it would lose its capital in the first insurrection. If Sir Arthur wants men to believe him, let him cut an Indian canal with pri- vate capital, and divide • 10 per cent. in cash, instead of in statistics, for ten years. He will not find it difficult then to raise even a thousand millions. For ourselves, we believe irriga- tion in India is like sanitation in England. You are repaid in every- thing excepting coin.
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