GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

THE RAILWAY INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE OF INDIA 201
ved the industrialization of the country perhaps in keeping
with the proportional growth in population. But
this snail's pace is not what is required to catch up to the
railway industrialism of japa.... During the same period
the japanese rate of advance has been as follows:
Japan (18,759 km) 1927= 1.76 japan (10,610
km) 1913.
India's co-efficient of progress (1. 13) is lower thanjapan's
(1'76); and as we have seen, japan (1925)
= 1·42 India (1925). The champions of India's industrial
progress must possess Herculean shoulders in order
to bear the responsibilities of bringing India up to the
japanese level of railway equipment. And of course in
the meantime japan is not going to fall asleep.
To visualize India's poverty or backwardness we
may apply this equation-methodology of comparative
statistics to the ton-kilometres or passenger-kilometres as
well. Let us single out, again, only japan to furnish the
perspective for Indian developments.
In absolute figures for 1927
India (35,813,000,000 ton-km) = 2·7 japan
(12,455,000,000 ton-km).
The equation says that in India 2·7 times as manytons
of goods were carried by the railways as in japan.
India's dimensions are extensive and population very'
large and this bulk of trade is naturally to be expected.
But wbat kind of equc-tion does one get in -terms of percapita
values ~
In 1927 India is estimated to have had 331,500,000
and japan 61,275,000 people. Per head of population,
therefore, Indian railways carrieCl108 ton-km while the..