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INDIA

their construction and for guaranteed interest by loans,
applying to railways the same process as was originally
applied to irrigation works. These loans form part of the
State debt. The net earnings of all the railways in India
(including the West of India Portuguese line, which is
worked at a dead loss) are about fourteen and a half
million (expressed in tens of rupees), the net earnings of

RAR

RAILWAYS.

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the East Indian line alone being four millions. Next to
the East Indian ranks the North-Western system with a
million and a half. The gross earnings in 1898 were
twenty-seven and a half millions.
In no way can the vast variety of topographical and
ethnographical conditions that exist in India be more
forcibly impressed on the mind than by the simple process
of a railway journey across the length or breadth of the
peninsula. The one can be read and marked by looking