INDIA. (Hansard, 6 May 1853)

§ The EARL of ALBEMARLE

rose to move for various returns intended to throw light upon the present state of internal communication and irrigation in India. Since he addressed some remarks to their Lordships in connexion with these subjects a few nights since, he had had an opportunity of commnnicating with two gentlemen recently returned from India, who perfectly bore him out in the statement he then made; they informed him that the roads between Calcutta and Bombay, and Bombay and Delhi, were, as far as regarded the purposes of commerce, merely imaginary roads. They were practically useless, and hardly justified the description he gave of them when he had called them footpaths. Lieutenant Colonel Grant, of the Bombay Engineers, speaking of these roads said— They are mere cleared tracks, unbridged and unmetalled, in which slopes of one in six are no uncommon occurrence. In 1850 the leading merchants and bankers of Bombay thus expressed themselves in a memorial to the Governor General:— Bombay possesses scarcely any roads. So miserably inadequate are the means of communication with the interior that many articles of produce are often left to perish in the fields, while the cost of those which do find their way to this port is enormously enhanced, to the extent, sometimes, of 200 per cent. Now, let their Lordships compare that state of things with that which existed in another country—the island of Ceylon; and 1231 the comparison was a perfectly fair one, because Ceylon was essentially Indian, being separated from the continent of India, as their Lordships were well aware, only by Adam's bridge. Ceylon comprised an area of less than 25,000 square miles, and there 1,247 miles of road were made serviceable in four years and a half. The British territories in India, together with those of the tributary States through which the roads must of necessity pass, contained an area of about 1,250,000 square miles. If this area were as well furnished as Ceylon, instead of having only 3,159 miles of road as at present, it would have 160,000 miles. It should also be borne in mind, that of the 3,159 miles of road said to exist in India, the only really good road was that from Calcutta to Delhi, which was about 900 miles long; the rest were in nubibus, or, at least, "looming in the future." The noble Lord concluded by moving for the Returns.