The text of the Indian Railway Committee’s Report is now available in this country. It is, of course, too early to offer detailed criticisms on the recommendations contained in it; but a cursory glance through chapters II and III of the Report is enough to justify the worst fears entertained of the failure of railway administration in India. Chapter II, indeed, records a uniformly woeful tale from one end of the country to another of passengers being huddled together in uncomfortable carriages like dumb driven cattle and of valuable good lying rotting at way side stations, not to speak of inadequacy of wagons for what is so essentially a key industry, namely, coal traffic. The figures, which the Committee give, significant, as they are, of arrested developments, are striking. The neglect of the important resources of the country, industrial no less than agricultural, which they deplore in silent eloquence is a matter which must receive serious attention in the country.
