338 



INDIA. 



debt The same conditions prevail throughout 

 India. The investigations into land revenue 

 showed that where assessments were lowest the 

 people were most in debt, and from that the con- 

 clusion was drawn that the land tax was no- 

 where excessive. The system of exacting prompt 

 payment in years of drought the same as in years 

 of plenty was condemned, although it has been 

 the British policy in India from the beginning, 

 and the Government decided not only to remit ar- 

 rears of land revenue altogether or postpone col- 

 lection in the districts lately affected by famine, 

 but for the future to introduce elasticity into the 

 system of collection where it is required, as was 

 the practise of the rulers who preceded the Brit- 

 ish in India and is generally customary with 

 Oriental rulers. The Government has also under- 

 taken to combat the evil of usury, which is trans- 

 ferring the land from the possession of the oc- 

 cupiers to that of a small class of money-lenders. 

 In the Punjab and Bombay laws have been en- 

 acted giving courts power to review contracts of 

 debt, and similar legislation is proposed for other 

 parts of India. Agricultural banks are to be in- 

 troduced experimentally. More restrictions are 

 to be placed on the alienation of property. The 

 Government continues to advance loans to the 

 cultivators in the distressed districts. The 

 drought of 1899 was considered by the Famine 

 Commission, of which Sir Anthony McDonnell was 



E resident, to have been the severest that India 

 ad experienced. The crop losses in that season 

 were over 50,000,000 in British India and 20,- 

 000,000 in the native states. The direct expendi- 

 ture of the Government on relief up to March 31, 

 1901, was 6,300,000; agricultural advances and 

 loans, 1,200,000; loss of revenue and indirect ex- 

 penditure, 2,700,000, deducting 700,000 of ad- 

 ditional receipts from railroads and canals. The 

 excess of deaths due to famine was estimated for 

 British India at 1,250,000. In the native states 

 affected by famine population declined from 42,- 

 000,000 in 1891 to 36,000,000 in 1901, while in 

 states not visited by famine, population increased 

 over 12 per cent. The Indian Government loaned 

 2,333,000 to native states and guaranteed loans 

 amounting to 700,000 to aid them in their opera- 

 tions of famine relief. Owing to the system of 

 productive railroads the famines of 1897 and 1899 

 did not entail want of food in any district, as was 

 the case in the Madras famine of 1877, the famine 

 in Orissa in 1866, and all previous ones, but in the 

 last two famines there was want of money to buy 

 the surplus crops of the granary districts that the 

 railroads brought into the stricken region. Care- 

 ful and intelligent cultivation and incessant hard 

 labor of men, women, and children do not prevent 

 the peasantry from growing poorer and falling 

 hopelessly in debt to the middle and higher classes, 

 which are becoming richer. The argument in 

 favor of a permanent settlement of the land 

 throughout India, such as was made with the 

 zemindars of Bengal, the Government meets by 

 saying that the unearned increment, which the 

 Government appropriates to itself by periodically 

 raising the land taxes, would not be retained by 

 the cultivators, but any extension of permanent 

 settlements would multiply landlords to the 

 detriment of the cultivators. Where the zemin- 

 dari system has been established the Government 

 generally limits its demands to half the net as- 

 sets of the landlords, and has progressively re- 

 duced them in the Northwest Provinces, the Pun- 

 iab, the Central Provinces, and Orissa, while laws 

 have been enacted to protect rent-paying tenants 

 against the landlords ; where ryotwari, or peasant 

 proprietary tenure under temporary settlements, 



exists an assessment all round of one-fifth of the 

 gross produce would be severer than the present 

 assessments, which are half the net produce in 

 Madras and Burma, not more than a tenth of the 

 gross produce in the Central Provinces, less than 

 a twelfth in the Punjab and the Deccan, and in 

 Bombay, Assam, and all parts of India tend to 

 diminish. The policy of settlements for longer 

 terms is being extended. Where land is fully cul- 

 tivated, rents are fair, and production is stable a 

 readjustment is made only once in a generation; 

 where rents are low, where there is much waste 

 land and a fluctuating cultivation, or where the 

 construction of roads, railroads, or canals, an in- 

 creasing population, or rising prices cause re- 

 sources to develop shorter settlements are neces- 

 sary, but in order to leave more money to the 

 landholder the Government has made the conces- 

 sion of taking the actual yield at the time of as- 

 sessment, not the prospective yield, as the basis. 

 Until the next revision the landowner enjoys all 

 benefits arising from his improvements or the un- 

 earned increment accruing from outside circum- 

 stances. Iri Bombay and Madras special rules 

 exempt improvements made by the enterprise of 

 the cultivators from all future assessments, and 

 rules are to be framed for zemindari provinces 

 which will afford sufficient exemption of private 

 outlay to stimulate the investment of capital in 

 improvements. While some contend that only ir- 

 rigation works or a rise in the price of produce 

 can give a just right to increase assessments in 

 ryotwari tracts, the Government claims the 

 ancient right to share in the produce, and wher- 

 ever there is an increase in the produce or in its 

 value the" state requires its share, though the 

 right has been waived in some provinces and lim- 

 ited in others as regards increments due to the 

 expenditure of labor or capital on the land. The 

 Famine Commission found the incidence of land 

 revenue moderate in good years except in Bom- 

 bay. Among secondary causes of famine are 

 enumerated subdivision of holdings, rack-renting 

 by landlords and middlemen, the decline of in- 

 digenous industries, the usury of money-lenders, 

 expenditure on litigation, extravagance in festi- 

 vals, and payments of petty bribes. The famine 

 fund, although diverted in war scares, has been 

 repaid in famine relief amounting to 12,750,000, 

 protective works costing 9,000,000, and reduc- 

 tion of debt to the amount of 1,500,000, so that 

 at the end of twenty-five years only 1,750,000 of 

 the 1,000,000 a year is owing. The excess of 

 exports with which India pays the home charges 

 of 16,000,000 a year is considered by many In- 

 dians to be the cause of gradual impoverishment 

 and periodical famines. About 6,000,000 of 

 these home charges are interest on capital, in- 

 vested mainly in railroads and irrigation works, 

 which pay the interest and earn a net profit be- 

 sides ; 6,000,000 are remitted to pay for civil and 

 military services, which are officially regarded as 

 more than equivalent to their cost, as the Eng- 

 lish raj has saved India from the internal strife 

 by which she was formerly devastated and pro- 

 tected her from foreign invaders, and it secures 

 justice and promotes the welfare of the people in 

 various ways; 1,000.000 are remitted in pay- 

 ment for stores ; and 3,000,000 represent interest 

 on the ordinary debt, which is less than it has 

 been. The more extensive employment of natives 

 in higher posts would lessen the drain for leave 

 pay and pensions, but it rests with the supreme 

 Government to judge how far such posts can be 

 safely and efficiently filled by natives. The prac- 

 tise of charging India with the cost of maintain- 

 ing troops sent out of India to fight the battles of 



