PREFACE 



This book is intended primarily for Indian students. 

 My experience has convinced me that in India the 

 study of economics has a tendency to become un- 

 desirably abstract, because the industrial facts which 

 are mentioned in English books to illustrate economic 

 theories are mostly taken from European industry, 

 and are, therefore, as remote from the experience of 

 Indian students as the theories they are designed to 

 illustrate. My object in this book has been to review 

 the principal economic facts in the society with which 

 Indian students are familiar, and to show the relation 

 of those facts to the abstract economics which they 

 read in their text-books. I have not hesitated to make 

 copious extracts from official publications, because 

 these are not generally accessible to students. Wher- 

 ever possible, I have quoted the passages which I 

 adduce as evidence textually, because I believe that 

 the actual words of an original authority are more 

 stimulating than any summary. The advantage which 

 a student derives from extracting for himself the 

 economic moral of a record is lost when the original 

 is digested for him by an officious instructor. 



I do not pretend to have anything fresh to say to 

 experts upon such technical subjects as settlement, 

 irrigation, famine relief, etc. My wish has been to 

 insist upon these matters only so far as is necessary 

 to show their economic bearing; that which is new 

 in this book is the attempt to consider the economic 



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