e. In the second place, however justifiable and necessary
a system of Government guarantees may be in certain circumstances, it
is essentially an expensive one, because by securing to shareholders a
minimum rate of interest on their capital it weakens in them the
motives to economy, and because by dividing the responsibility for
expenditure between Government and Railway Officials, it diminishes in
the latter the sense of responsibility. Moreover, the indefinite
extension of a system of Government guarantees is wholly incompatible
with the endeavour to bring private enterprise largely into play for
the execution of these works; while there is an unlimited call for
capital for works enjoying the protection of a Government guarantee,
it is not to be expected that capital will be forthcoming to any
extent for similar works which have not that protection. For the
accomplishment, therefore, of the great object to which I am
referring, we must henceforward, I apprehend, look to private
enterprise; not perhaps to private enterprise wholly unaided by the
State, but at any rate, to private enterprise not protected by
Government guarantee. But if so, what are the conditions which will
entitle railway enterprises of this class to the countenance and
encouragement of the Government? I lay it down as a fundamental
principle, that we ought to look to the eventual establishment of one
uniform railway gauge for the whole of India. The experience of
England is conclusive as to the inconvenience of a double or
conflicting railway gauge. After the expenditure of an untold amount
of money in Parliamentary conflicts, the broad gauge of England has
been compelled to take the narrow gauge on its back, and the whole
capital expended upon the former may be said to have been thrown away.
But what does this resolution in favour of an uniform gauge imply? It
will, I think, be admitted that the main object of an uniform railway
gauge is to enable the several railway lines to exchange their plant
in order to avoid transhipment of freight. But if the plant of the
subsidiary line is to be transported along the main lines, it must be
sufficiently well finished to be fitted to travel in safety at high
speed; and if the plant of the main lines is to travel along the
subsidiary lines, the latter must have rails sufficiently