Railways’ Economic Impact on Uttar Pradesh and Colonial North India (1860–1914): The Iron Raj By Ian D.Derbyshire, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022. pp. 615. ISBN 9781527586901. Hbk £79.99.
本书考察了1860-1914年铁路对英属印度北方邦的经济影响，发现铁路整合了价格、促进了贸易和作物专业化，提高了人均收入，并缓解了饥荒，但受益不均。
In Railways’ Economic Impact on Uttar Pradesh and Colonial North India (1860–1914): The Iron Raj, Ian Derbyshire weaves an excellent narrative on the impact of railways in colonial Uttar Pradesh (UP). With a population of around 48 million (1901), UP was the largest province of British India, lying in the fertile plains of the Ganga River. Combining multiple sources of data on agriculture and rail- and river-borne trade with rich accounts of villages and towns from various reports, Derbyshire shows that railways integrated prices and increased trade and crop specialization, which in turn led to higher per capita incomes between 1860 and 1914. The narrative proceeds in five parts. Part 1 describes the conditions before the arrival of railways in the 1850s. Pack bullocks and carts, along with riverboats, were the common transport modes, and all of them were slower, less reliable, and more expensive than railways. While canals came to play an important role in crop irrigation, they were a poor transport substitute to move freight. Indeed, Derbyshire argues canal navigation would have been slower and costlier than railways. Part two covers the financing, construction, and operation of the railways. Railway construction began in the 1850s, a decade that witnessed the 1857 Rebellion and subsequent transfer of political control to the British Crown. Military considerations thus affected the early network, though commercial reasons became more central over time. The early lines were constructed and operated by British companies using English capital, with the Government of India entering the field in the 1870s, finally leading to multiple forms of public–private partnerships that accounted for most of the lines from the 1880s to the 1910s. Increasing competition from river transport, construction challenges, and high costs hurt the performance of early lines. As railway construction adapted to Indian conditions and the Government took a bigger ownership stake, operating costs and freight rates came down, and rail productivity improved. Part three traces the differential effects of railways on the rural economy with disproportionate benefits in western UP compared with eastern UP. Railways contributed to price integration, crop specialization, double cropping, and more trade, especially in wheat, low value grains, sugar, and oilseeds. In the past, rural families kept large grain stores to insure against poor harvests. As railways increased the grain trade within UP and between UP and other provinces, rural grain stores declined, increasing the returns to cultivation. The increase in grain trade and decline in grain stores did not lead to the nineteenth-century famines as is often claimed. Rather, railways mitigated the effects of famines by moving grains from surplus to deficit areas in times of scarcity. As the rail and road network expanded, agricultural prices increased, suggesting the increase in demand outpaced the increase in supply, which in turn led to higher per capita living standards in UP. Which groups benefitted and which groups lost? Independent cultivators were the main beneficiaries of the rising agricultural prices as were rural creditors. The urban middle class on fixed salaries lost somewhat, as did dependent cultivators. Why did railways not do more for agricultural development? Derbyshire points to institutional constraints that made it harder for families to form larger holdings and the inability of dependent cultivators to find the resources to make necessary investments. Private investment was not forthcoming and public investment was more focused on infrastructure. Although land taxes were relatively low by the early twentieth century, the Government was reluctant to alienate the landed elite by increasing taxes to fund public investment. In part four, Derbyshire describes the shift in urban centres away from rivers as more towns and markets emerged near rail stations. Railways led to more competition and decentralization in trade as firms and traders alike communicated directly with roadside stations, eliminating the need for agents and branches in multiple locations. Unlike in western India, there was no significant increase in processing or consumption industries though Kanpur emerged as an important industrial centre. Derbyshire argues that unfavourable freight rates among other factors hurt the development of industries. Since UP is far from an industrial powerhouse even today, colonial freight rates probably played a small role compared with deeper factors related to the geography, caste hierarchy, and low human capital of UP. Part 5 briefly reviews the evidence on social savings and concludes that social savings of railways in India and UP were positive. This book is a fantastic addition to the Indian economic history literature and the larger literature on railways. Every chapter includes detailed tables and rich qualitative evidence that illustrate the author's excellent command of primary sources and the secondary literature. I anticipate returning to this book for many years to come. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in learning about railways, UP, or colonial India.