5 2
Not
diminishedby therailway.
The Ganges has also played a pre-eminent part in thecommercial development of Northern India. Until the open-ing of the railway system, from 1855 to 1870, her magnificentstream formed almost the sole channel of traffic betweenUpper India and the seaboard. The products not only of theriver plains, but even the cotton of the Central Provinces, wereformerly brought by this route to Calcutta . Notwithstandingthe revolution caused by the railways, the heavier and morebulky staples are still conveyed by the river, and the Ganges may yet rank as one of the greatest waterways in the world.
The value of the upward and downward trade of the interiorwith Calcutta , by the Gangetic channels, may be taken atabout 400 millions of rupees per a. 7 inutn , of which over 153millions go by country-boats, and nearly 240 millions bysteamers (1891). This is exclusive of the sea-borne commerce.But the adjustments which have to be made are so numerousthat the calculation is an intricate one. As far back as 1876,the number of cargo boats registered at Bamanghata, on oneof the canals east of Calcutta , was 178,627 ; at Hugh, a river-side station on a single one of the many Gangetic mouths,124,357 ; and at Patna , 550 miles from the mouth of the river,the number of cargo boats entered in the register was 61,571.The port of Calcutta is itself one of the world’s greatestemporia for sea and river-borne commerce. Its total exports,and imports landward and seaward amounted in 1881 to about1400 millions of rupees (Rx. 140,000,000), and to 1523 millions,of rupees (Rx. 152,363,583) in 1891. 1
Articles of European commerce, such as wheat, indigo,,cotton, opium, and saltpetre, prefer the railway; so also do-the imports of Manchester piece-goods. But if we take intoaccount the vast development in the export trade of oil-seeds,rice, etc., still carried by the river, and the growing inter-change of food-grains between interior districts of the country,it seems probable that the actual amount of traffic on theGanges has increased rather than diminished since the open-ing of the railways. At well-chosen points along her course,,the iron lines touch the banks, and these river-side stationsform centres for collecting and distributing the produce of
1 The sign Rx. uniformly means ‘tens of rupees.’ Thus, as above,.Rx. 140,000,000 signifies 1400 millions of rupees. To find, therefore, theactual number of any sum in rupees in this volume which has the sign Rx.prefixed to it, multiply by ten. Thus Rx. 1,000,000 signifies 10 millionrupees, or say Rx. 270,000 signifies 2,700,000 rupees. This system has.now been adopted in the accounts of the Government of India.