Then comes the all-important question of cost. Regarding the permanent establishment, Colonel Low suggests that a Director, who would have control all over India, should be appointed with staff pay of Rs. 1,000 per month. His subordinates in Bengal would be two superintendents (Rs. 500 each), and four assistants (Rs. 150 to 200); in Bombay and Madras just half this establishment. There would also be a number of native officers, and non-commissioned officers, and five sowars would be told off to each district. The staff in Bengal would cost Rs. 9,210 per month (in peace time), in Bombaya and Madras Rs. 4,030 each, or a total of Rs. 17,270 for establishment. The premium to owners of Re. 1 per animal would be Rs. 70,000, making a grand total of Rs. 87,270. When war broke out, the staff would be available for instant service at their normal pay, while the owner of each animal would receive his Rs. 12 per month, in all Rs. 8,40,000, or a total expenditure on service of Rs. 8,57,270. To put the matter in simpler form, Colonel Low remarks:—“If we suppose a period of four years in which there was war for four months, the cost would be:—
| Rs. | |
| 44 months’ peace, at Rs. 87,270 per mensem | 37,29,880 |
| 4 months’ war, at Rs. 8,57,270 per mensem | 33,29,080 |
| —————— | |
| Total | 70,58,960 |
This is, in round numbers, £700,000;” and Colonel Low significantly adds:—“This can no doubt be compared with transport expenses in the last campaign”—an allusion, perhaps, to the enormous compensation we had to pay to camel-owners for animals lost or killed. The second line of transport in a campaign, Colonel Low considers, should be wheeled carriages, a certain number of carts being always kept ready at stations near the bases of supply, such as Multan, Rawalpindi, &c. With this scheme, and no doubt several others before them, it will be strange if the Government does not once for all make up its mind to an expenditure in peace time upon transport service: it may seem, for the time being, money wasted, but any one seeing the accounts of the present war cannot help being convinced that a permanent transport would have saved the country many lakhs of rupees.
THE END.
Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C.
Footnotes
[1]. Sirdar Sher Ali Khan Kandahari, Governor of Candahar, assured Sir Donald Stewart that Yakub Khan, from the first, never intended to pardon the chiefs who had aided us. Such a course of policy would have seemed madness in the eyes of every Afghan, said the Sirdar; not a man would have understood it.