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Trevelyan is about to leave to inspect the Godavery Navigation. He will also confer with the Enam Commissioner and Director of Revenue Settlement. The reduction of the passenger fares on the Madras Railway has had an enormous effect. The Railway officers now admit that they were wrong, and they are revising the goods tariff. Asks Canning to consider raising the salaries of the three Deputy Chief Engineers. Directs Canning's attention to the correspondence listed in the enclosed memorandum. The Madras Government was asked to send an officer to Calcutta to learn the Bengal system of Public Works accounts in order that it might be extended to the Madras Presidency; and when the Madras Government replied that there was an accounting system already established and that the Madras Government deprecated any sweeping change, the Supreme Government administered a rebuke such as no Public Department in England would have addressed to its subordinates. Other correspondence listed in the memorandum relates to a new way of auditing part of the Public Works accounts imposed on the Madras Government The public service cannot be carried on under such conditions. The liability to receive such letters as these from Colonel Baird Smith is enough to account for the state of suspension and discouragement in which Trevelyan found the Government of Madras, and officers are not likely to work to improve existing systems when the systems are liable to be swept away by those who know nothing about their practical application.

Enclosed: Memorandum of the dates of certain correspondence with the Government of India, Public Works Department.