.jpg){kind=link}
Introduction
In a speech at the opening of the Bhor Ghat Incline between Bombay and Madras on April 21st, 1863, Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, was quick to share with the assembled dignitaries his satisfaction that railways were bringing Indians an awareness of their rights and creating a more open and equal society.
WE all know that vast sums, chiefly in English capital, have of late years been spent in this country. Let us consider for one moment what has been the effect of all this money being spent in giving a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s labour.
I can safely say that as a rule, this was not known before the commencement of what I may call the railway period; not only were the wages in most parts of the country fixed by usage and authority, rather than by the natural laws of supply and demand, but nothing like the power of taking his labour to the best market practically existed.
The result was that the condition of the mere labourer was wretched in the extreme, and the best efforts of Government could do but little to raise him above the status of a serf of the soil. All this has now, I am happy to say, changed, mainly as a direct consequence of these vast railway works.* [...]
The labourer is of course more independent; he is in a better position to make his own terms with his employer, and that, perhaps, is sometimes shown in a manner which his employer does not quite like; but as a general rule I believe the labourer works far harder, and acquires new and more civilized wants, in proportion to the high wages he receives.
* It is certainly true that from this time onwards the social and economic progress of India’s Princely States gathered pace: see Progressive Travancore and Mysore’s Golden Age. Samuel Smiles agreed that the railways played an important part: see Britain’s Best Gift to India. And see Fuel of Freedom, where economist Alfred Marshall argues that coal and steam power played at least as much part in the end of social oppression as political reform did.
If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.
