BENGAL RAILWAYS—INADEQUATE ENGINEERING WORKS. (Hansard, 13 June 1901)

*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
, who had the following notice on the Paper—namely, To ask the Under Secretary of State for India what has been done in consequence of the report of Mr. Lyall on the inadequacy of the culverts between Dum Dum Junction and Dum Dum Cantonment; to call attention to the inadequacy of the waterway provided during the construction of the Eastern Bengal and the Central Bengal Railways, which traverse the line taken by the natural drainage of the lower provinces, causing the districts to the west of those railways to be waterlogged, while those on the eastern side suffer from the silting up of the numerous rivers which conducted the spill seawards, and producing deplorable mischief to the health of a population exceeding five millions of souls; and to move 220 that, in the opinion of this House, an inquiry should be made as to these defects, and remedies suggested by an independent commission of engineers assisted by a civil officer well acquainted with the language and local conditions; also to ask what steps the India Office proposes to take to improve the Indian Public Works Department—said: My Lords, the last speech, or almost the last speech, of the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, reported to this country contrasted the feeling of the India Government, and its regard for the population of India now, with the indifference which, he said, existed at the beginning of the last century. The answer which my noble friend the Under Secretary will give me to-night may either confirm or disprove the accuracy of the Viceroy's belief. As I put down a notice as long ago as last November respecting the inadequate culverts of the Bengal railways, I may expect that the India Office will now be fully prepared with a satisfactory answer. I owe an explanation to the House why this notice was withdrawn and replaced on the Minutes, and for my own sake also I desire to make it. The first information I had of the culverts being inadequate was taken from the Hindu paper Amrita, which complained only of the Bengal Central Railway, and led me to suppose that only the immediate neighbourhood of Dum-Dum barracks was affected. I then thought that whilst English engineers of the Public Works Department had proved so inefficient, the recent limitation by the Secretary of State for India of two annual appointments of Indian students from Cooper's Hill College was neither justifiable nor well timed. Then there occurred the incident of the dismissal of the seven professors from Cooper's Hill. Lord Kelvin and others eminent in science complained of this, and blew the iron to white heat. It had therefore to be struck before it grew cool, and I wrote a letter on the subject to the Morning Post, in which I said that this letter would answer the purpose of the notice, which I then withdrew from the Minutes. In that letter I complained of the Secretary of State for India for having trampled upon the Queen's Proclamation of 1858, by his assertion that Cooper's Hill was established for the 221 teaching of English boys. I complained of his denouncing the instruction given at Cooper's Hill, whilst he and his predecessors in the India Office had repeatedly praised that institution on the annual occasions when the Secretaries of State made a speech to the college, and to the successful candidates for employment in the Indian Public Works Department. I do not remember ever to have read in any of the valedictory speeches delivered at Cooper's Hill any admonition to the students as to their responsibilities, or warning what to avoid when transferred from college to the attractions and temptations of life in an Indian station. I was at the last meeting of the East India Directors with the students of Haileybury, and remember how the Directors endeavoured to impress upon the young men the duties and responsibilities they were about to incur. If the present Secretary of State is unequal to this task—and indeed he has disqualified himself by his collision with the teaching body—he had better entrust this duty to Lord Kelvin, or to some other man of science.
About a month after I had withdrawn my first notice, I learned that the mischief caused by bad engineering was very much more extensive than I had at first supposed. The Eastern Bengal Railway, as well as the Bengal Central Railway, both traverse land which slopes towards the Bay of Bengal, and obstruct the escape of the rain-water, so as sometimes to cause the water to lie eight or nine feet deep on the upper side of these railways. On the lower side of the railway towards the sea the watercourses, deprived of their former flow of water, get silted up, the country is waterlogged, sodden, and fever-stricken. I have read that as much as thirty-two square miles of land are affected by this interference with the natural drainage. Public meetings have been held, and memorials were forwarded to the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal in December last. Since then, in April, questions were asked in the Bengal Council by Mr. Bose as to the inadequate waterways, and most unsatisfactorily answered by Mr. Buckley, who said:— The waterways were provided to meet normal flood, and an entirely unprecedented 222 flood, such as that of last year, could not be met at any reasonable cost. This answer is untrue, since the flooding of the land occurs every year, and the village of Sinthee has suffered from malaria since the railways were constructed. Besides, when are floods normal? When is nature normal? Those who know Scotland must know how spates vary in volume, yet in that country there are not such heavy downpours to be provided against as occur in the tropics. With the leave of the House, I will read an article on this subject from the Statesman of May 1st:— The reply given on the 30th March by the Hon. Mr. Buckley, in the Local Council, to the questions of the Hon. Mr. Bose regarding the obstruction stated to be caused by the embankment of the Bengal Central Railway to a number of villages in the neighbourhood of Dum Dum, seems to betray a very inadequate appreciation of the responsibility under which the Government lies in the matter. Mr. Bose asked whether the attention of the Government had been drawn to the serious suffering and damage caused to the inhabitants by this obstruction during the heavy rains of September last, and to a Report on the subject made by the magistrate of the twenty-four Pergunnahs after inspection of the locality; whether the Sub-divisional Officer of Baraset had reported that this portion of the line was a serious obstruction to the drainage of the country; whether the Government would state what steps had been taken to remedy the defects pointed out, and with what result; and whether the Government would direct an enquiry and call for a Report as to the adequacy or otherwise of the culverts to carry off the water during the rains in other portions of the line referred to. Mr. Buckley's reply was to the effect that the attention of the Government had been drawn to the results of the heavy rainfall of September last in the neighbourhood of Dum Dum; that the waterways were provided to meet a normal flood; that an unprecedented flood, such as that of last year, could not be met at a reasonable cost; and that the question of providing increased waterway within reasonable limits was under inquiry. It will be observed, in the first place, that the reply contained no specific reference to the Report of Mr. Lyall or the Sub-divisional Officer of Baraset, though Mr. Bose had asked distinctly whether the attention of the Government had been drawn to these Reports; and that it ignored altogether the question what steps had been taken to remedy the mischief, and with what result—from which it may reasonably be inferred that, as indeed is notoriously the case, no such steps have been taken. As it was six months since the catastrophe caused by the heavy floods of last year had occurred, and only a little more than two months remained before the rains of the present year might be expected to set in, this in itself would 223 seem to imply culpable apathy on the part of the Government. This, however, is not the most disturbing feature of Mr. Buckley's reply. Taken together, the first three of the four statements of which it consists are clearly intended to suggest that the existing waterway is sufficient to carry off the flood waters in a normal season, and that but for the unprecedented floods last year, no serious inconvenience would have been felt. This, however, is not the view of the matter suggested either by the Report of the Magistrate of the 24 Pergunnahs or by that of the Sub-divisional Officer of Baraset, and it is directly opposed to the published statements of a large number of the respectable inhabitants of the villages affected. What Mr. Lyall says is:—'I inspected the locality yesterday morning, and I have no hesitation in saying that the culverts between Dum Dum Junction and Dum Dum Cantonment are ridiculously inadequate for the water they have to carry off. The difference in the water level is nearly two feet at the openings themselves, and the water is roaring through as in a mill sluice. I attribute a good deal of the unhealthiness of Sinthee (through which I rode) and the insecurity of the crops to the north-west of the Bengal Central Line to this cause, and I think the Bengal Central Railway Company should be called on to provide adequate waterways. I would therefore suggest that the matter should be referred to the consulting engineer of Government railways. 'The Sub-divisional officer of Baraset also reports that this portion of the railway is a serious obstruction to the drainage of the country.' It is true that it was during the floods of last autumn that Mr. Lyall visited the place; but no one who reads the first sentence of his letter can suppose for a moment that he considered the culverts between Dum Dum Junction and Dum Dum Cantonments sufficient to carry off the flood water under normal conditions. He would hardly describe culverts which were inadequate only in the case of an unprecedented or even an unusually heavy flood as 'ridiculously inadequate.' The inhabitants of the neighbourhood who attended the public meeting held at Gorui in December last state positively in their petition to the Lieutenant-Governor that since the construction of the Bengal Central Line the flood waters, which come from a great distance, and pass through the culverts in the Barrackpore Trunk Road, 'cannot pass freely towards the Salt Lake, and thereby remain stagnant in the Sinthee fields for days together,' and that thus not only are the young paddy plants annually destroyed, but malaria is created. Prom the last part of Mr. Buckley's answer it is apparently to be inferred that, though the Government are not prepared to insist on the provision of waterway sufficient to carry off a flood like that of last year, they recognise the liability of the railway company to provide some increase of waterway. This, however, is much too vague to be satisfactory. We would ask the Government plain questions. Is it, or is it not their duty, when they sanction a railway, to insist upon its being so constructed as not to obstruct the natural drainage of the country 224 under normal conditions to an extent injurious to its agriculture or to, the convenience or health of its inhabitants? If, through miscalculation or any other cause, a railway has been made which causes such obstruction, is it or is it not their duty to insist on a rectification of the error? If, as we do not doubt, both these questions must be answered in the affirmative, then no question of the cost arises. The only question is of the degree of obstruction which; is reasonably to be considered seriously injurious, to the agriculture, convenience, or health of the tract affected. I consulted an English civil engineer as to the injury caused by inadequate culverts, but without mentioning India or the extent of the land affected. A, Bengal civilian had written to me: "They (the railway company) do not care for fever, and they do care for expense," and in writing to my friend I had shortened this into "They prefer fever to expense." The engineer replied that, he knew of a case where land had become boggy, but that any proceedings to obtain a remedy would cost more than the land was worth, and advised a friendly application to the traffic manager. He also evidently thought an. English company was in question—perhaps the Great Northern—as part of it skirts an aguish country, and he urgently advised me not to say they preferred fever to expense. The Bengal Government appears to be less sensitive, and if it persists in doing nothing it must accept the verdict that it prefers, fever to expense. If the Under Secretary of State for India will engage that additional and sufficient water ways shall be immediately provided, I will withdraw the motion; otherwise he will have to negative it, and further destroy the claims of the Bengal Government to any care for the health and well-being of its subjects.
I now come to the last question on the Notice Paper: What steps the India Office will take to improve the Public Works Department or the engineering work in India. That this Department is bad and requires improvement is undeniable. It is usually called the Public Waste Department in India. As long; as I can remember it has constantly been said that barrack walls erected by it fell in, that railway bridges fell down. The fact of Cooper's Hill College having been established about thirty years ago shows that the engineering in India was defective. In this country there is now 225 other school for civil engineers than Cooper's Hill College. In this country engineers learn their profession as architects, and lawyers learn theirs, by entering the offices of men already eminent in those professions. English engineers and their work stand highest in the world. It is enough to mention the Eddystone Lighthouse, the Tubular Bridge, and the Forth Bridge. Why, then, should the Public Works Department of India be so far behind the engineering of this country? A short time ago a Hindu gentleman was with me looking at the Holyhead breakwater, the upper part of which has not required any renewing since it was constructed. I asked him why the Public Works Department of India could not turn out work like that. He replied: "Because they are not responsible to anyone, and they have no sympathy with the people of the country." This, I believe, is the real reason, for they do not belong to the Civil Service; they are paid less, and lately some of them have complained that they have not received the pay that was promised them. The system of educating them is bad; they do not gradually work their way up through the offices of civil engineers who already possess established reputations. They come out from Cooper's Hill with theoretical knowledge only, and, like too many of the Civil Service, are put into places of responsibility and requiring experience at too early an age. The condition of the Bengal railways proves the great want of engineering knowledge and skill or of zeal, since the original defects of these railways have not been remedied. One of these railways was constructed before Cooper's Hill was established, the other a good deal later. The Secretary of State has admitted the inefficiency of the Public Works Department, since he has considered that it might be advisable to close Cooper's Hill. Some of the earlier failures of barracks and bridges may have been due to their having been entrusted to the Royal Engineers, who had been educated for military works and not for civil engineering. I asked a friend who had been twenty years ago at Bombay what he remembered of this. He replied that he remembered the failure of barracks and bridges, and that the Cooper's Hill men 226 derided the Sappers for these failures. But the Cooper's Hill men have not done any better since, as shown by the Bengal railways, and the wish of the Secretary of State to abolish them. One of Mrs. Steel's books, "The Potter's Thumb," is in part a pamphlet against the Public Works Department. One remedy would seem to be that in future for any work of importance an English civil engineer of reputation should be appointed, and that he should be provided with a staff of Indian subordinates, who would naturally have an interest in the country, and as they would remain in India would be interested in the durability of the works they were engaged upon. In short, the recent limitation of two appointments annually to Indian students at Cooper's Hill should be reversed, appointments of Englishmen to the Public Works Department limited, and as many Indian pupils of Cooper's Hill employed as possible. Both for railway and canal works knowledge of the language and sympathy with the inhabitants are necessary in order to acquire the necessary knowledge of what is normal, and especially of what is exceptional in floods, but yet which must be provided against. All are agreed that a larger number of Indians must be admitted into the Civil Service of their own country—because they expect it; because the Proclamation of 1858 must no longer remain a dead letter; because the pensions spent out of the country are helping to bring India to bankruptcy; because the engineering profession is the one in which the fewest objections can be made to the admission of Indians. Race prejudices or partialities cannot be shown in civil engineering as in administrative posts, and there is no connection between engineering and sedition.
This was all that I had intended to say; but I do not gather from the countenance of my noble friend the Under Secretary of State for India that he has much sympathy with the question, or that I may expect a very favourable reply. I would like to refer him to the report of the Sanitary Commissioner, in which that official states that— In the Bengal-Orissa group the most malarious stations were Barrackpore and Dum Dum. The medical officer in charge at the former says that it is situated on a low 227 lying alluvial soil, with insufficient drainage, surrounded by rice cultivation and stagnant tanks; but he acknowledges that the drainage has been greatly improved by the measures completed in 1898, and to that attributes the reduction of malaria in 1899. At Dum Dum the soil is said to be water-logged. In some station reports the inter-fluctuations in the diagnosis of ague, simple continued fever, and influenza are noticed. The newspaper article containing the extract from the sanitary inspector's report which I have just read, states that the railway bund, which acts as a breakwater to the floods, should be pierced at more frequent intervals than a space of twenty feet to every two miles. Can your Lordships imagine two miles with only one exit for water? Barrackpore and Dum Dum both contain a large number of troops, so that it is not only the health of the villagers but also that of the troops which ought to be considered. I contend that the villagers would be morally justified in breaking down these culverts. As to the superior officer who commands a Dum Dum, what should he do? It all depends on his education. If his education was entirely military he would probably wait for orders; but if he remembers the Roman maxim, Salus populi, suprema, lex, he would be inclined to send a number of sappers with the requisite quantity of dynamite and blow up the culverts. I move the motion standing in my name.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of HARD- WICKE)
My Lords, the noble Lord has detained your Lordships at some length on a subject which I trust I shall be able to deal with in a very few words. The noble Lord has made it a little difficult for me to reply as shortly as I should wish, because he has divided his motion into four parts. He commences with a question, and goes on to call attention to certain engineering defects in connection with the Eastern and Central Bengal Railways. The noble Lord then moves a motion, and in the last three lines asks a further question regarding the Indian Public Works Department. Perhaps it would be convenient to the House if I briefly recite the facts of the case to which the question refers. There was an unprecedented rainfall in Calcutta and the surrounding district in September last, the rainfall between the 19th and 22nd amounting to 38.6 inches. Such a rainfall had never been known there before. It is not, therefore, remarkable that certain culverts were found inadequate to carry the water away; but, even if there had been no railway existing at all, the inconvenience and damage would have been equally severe. It is true that the inhabitants of the surrounding district suffered considerably, but how the noble Lord arrives at a population of five millions I am at a loss to understand. Dum Dum is a very short distance from Calcutta, the inhabitants of which number under one million, while the population of the adjacent villages is somewhere about 400,000. The damage in Calcutta was far in excess of any resulting from the inadequacy of these culverts. The Government of India at once instituted an inquiry into the supposed inadequacy of the culverts, with the result that an additional forty lineal feet will be added to the waterway, and this will be done at the expense of the company. I hope this statement will satisfy the noble Lord, and that he will not think it necessary to press his motion to a division, though I believe under the rules of the House it is necessary to have the motion seconded before the House can be divided. With regard to the last question of the noble Lord, I think the Government of India and my noble friend the Secretary of State will require some further instance of the inefficiency of the Public Works Depart- 229 ment than that to which the noble Lord refers before taking any steps in the direction indicated.

*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
The noble Earl asks me how I arrived at a population of five millions. I have the number on the authority of a Bengal civilian who knows the country well. I should like to ask the noble Earl whether he means that the twenty feet culverts will be extended to forty feet, or that any more culverts will be made.

§ THE EARL OF HARDWICKE
I understand that the total number of feet of extra waterway that is required is forty, and that it will be distributed over a distance of one and a half miles.

*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
I think that will be satisfactory for the present, until experience shows that it is not so. I therefore withdraw my motion.