The Calcutta correspondent of the Times announces that the 'Government
of India has arranged to spend some £27,000,000 within the next five years on State railways and canals of irri- gation. The writer approves the scheme, but adds, "In spite of the demands of Sir Henry Durand, when a member of the Government, five years ago, of the request of the Secretary of State, and of the exposure before the East India Finance Com- mittee, the Public Works Department has failed not only to make a return of the expenditure and income of every great reproductive work, so called, made from loans, but even to pre- pare a form according to which, for the future, the net returns from such works shall be shown." Add that in most provinces of India production is already excessive—wheat, for instance, being burnt to empty the granaries—and that the first effect of irrigation is to stop labour from flowing to more fertile regions, and we may have some idea of the necessity for a separate corps of engineers trained to an Indian tradition, and not to a European tradition about India.
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