It must be remembered that
India has scarcely yet entered the race with us for the supremacy
in this department, for while we have 110,000 miles of railway
with 55,000,000 of people, she has 250,000,000 of people with only
10,000 miles of rail. This may seem alarming to the untravelled
Yankee, but let him possess his soul in patience. It is a very
safe wager that notwithstanding this seemingly uncalled-for
disparity in railway facilities, the American railway system is
still to increase at a far greater ratio than the Indian. Last
year only three hundred and eighty-seven miles of line were built
in India as against our six thousand, and even my friend, William
Fowler, M.P., in his most interesting article in the
_Fortnightly Review_ for February, 1884, "India, Her Wheat,
and Her Railways," to which I beg to refer such of my readers as
are specially interested in this subject--even he only suggests
that twelve hundred miles should be built every year in India; to
secure which he urges the government to give a guarantee upon
$50,000,000 per year, in order to obtain the necessary capital,
which he admits cannot be obtained otherwise. This the government
is not likely to do until the people rule England and sweep away
the privileged classes, who live mainly through wars, and would be
relegated to obscurity were the resources of England once spent
for peaceful development, as those of Republican America are.
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