290 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



animal value of manufactures, would not average more than forty 

 shillings (ten dollars) per head for the entire population.* As 

 compared with Egypt, the situation in India has this marked dif- 

 ference — namely, that whereas in the former country the extreme 

 poverty of its rural population — the fellahs — has not been due to 

 any lack of fertile land, or any incapacity on their part for obtain- 

 ing from it a comfortable subsistence with continued betterments 

 in condition, but owing to the fact that they have from time imme- 

 morial been deprived of the control of the fruits of their labors ; 

 while in India the population is increasing so rapidly — especially 

 under the conditions of peace which have been attendant on Brit- 

 ish rule — and so disproportionately to the amount of new and fer- 

 tile soil that can be appropriated, as to leave but little margin, un- 

 der existing methods of cultivation, for increasing the moans of 

 subsistence for the people. In fact, the " Malthusian theory " is 

 completely exemplifying itself in India, which is densely popu- 

 lated, destitute in a great degree of roads and of the knowledge 

 and use of machinery, f 



In a debate in the British House of Commons on the Indian 

 budget, in August, 1894, Mr. S. Keay, an ex-official of the Indian 

 Government, stated that in 1892 " he had a census taken of five 

 villages in the presidency of Bombay. The population was 236. 

 These five villages farmed 1,400 acres, the gross crop of which 

 was valued at £193. If a starvation support of 14 shillings a 

 year were allowed to each of the 236 persons and 11 shillings a 

 year for each pair of bullocks kept to till the farm, the net prod- 

 uce of the five villages amounted to £5 for the year. Yet in the 

 same year they paid to the inland revenue £73, and the village 

 books showed that it was done by borrowing from the usurers at 

 24 per cent.^' 



Mr. Keay further stated that " about seven years ago the Di- 

 rector-General of Statistics for all India published a book in which 

 he stated that 40,000,000 of the people of India habitually went 

 through life on an insufficiency of food. The Government of 

 India wanted to be able to deny the statement, and they sent a con- 



* Resources of Modem Commerce. A. J. Wilson. Longmans, London, 1878, vol. i, p. 

 57. Taxation in India. Shoshee Chimder Dutt, Justice of the Peace, Calcutta. 



f Under the old-time system of native rulers, frequent wars, consequent on foreign in 

 vasions and internal race antagonisms, with accompanying famines and epidemic diseases, 

 materially restricted the growth of the population of India. But under the conditions of 

 peace that have been attendant during the last half century of British rule, the population 

 of India has increased so rapidly that the limits of the agricultural capacity of the country, 

 and the consequent means of subsistence for its people, seem to be approaching exhaustion ; 

 and one extraordinary drain upon the revenues of the Government in later years has been 

 due to the wise creation of a national famine fund, to be U5ed in cases of periodical emergen- 

 cies due to failure of the crops, for the relief of multitudes who would otherwise peiish by 

 stanration. 



