GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

THE RAILWAY INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE OF INDIA
19T
not by itself lead to economy or efficienc~
which indeed can be introduced even under the system
of "freedom" or private enterprise, as it has been in India
also in recent years.
In India the entire problem is associated with some
special considerations such as are likely to be ignored by·
students who take interest in pure theory or pure statistics.
9
All the companies in India are foreign by
nationality as well as by domicile. The category,_
company management, means" therefore, not only
•• private" or ., free" administration as elsewhere but at
the same time foreign domination and perhaps foreign
"exploitation" in the sinister sense. Emancipation from
company management and, of course, from company
ownership, is in our nationalist estimation not so much
a question of "individualism," freedom of enterprise,
private initiative, laissez jaire etc. os. public ownership,
Government interven.tion, state socialism or the like as a
most solid plank in the elimination of foreign hegemony
and dictatorship from the Indian economic sphere.
Objective students of comparative railway economics and
statistics might argue that the state in India is no less
foreign, at any rate, to a considerable extent. But they
would thereby ignore the fact that the railway profits of
the state, although alien in certain respects, are bound tobe
but feeders of the general revenues of the country
itself, a possibility such as can never -be realized in the
case of alien companies. Besides, there is a chance of
9 See Appendix B in the Report of the Railway Board for 1930-31.
vol. I. pp. 90-94. For the financial position of state lines managed by·
state or by companies, see pp. 16-18.