172 AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL 



in roads and railways. Means of transport are an 

 indispensable condition to the development of agricul- 

 tural industry. Northern India is by nature very 

 poorly supplied with means of transport ; its rivers 

 will not compare with the Thames or the Rhine as 

 natural waterways. Before the nineteenth century 

 very little had been done by art to remedy this defect. 

 Even within the memory of men still living there was 

 but one metalled road in the northern districts of 

 these provinces, namely, the Grand Trunk Road, 

 which ran from Calcutta to Ambala, and thence, after 

 the conquest of the Panjab, to Peshawar. Away from 

 this single line of communication the ways were sandy 

 tracks, impassable in the rainy season, fetching great 

 loops to cross the rivers at practicable fords, or to 

 descend the ravines (nalas) at an easy incline. It 

 necessarily happened that the inhabitants of the 

 village had few communications with the rest of the 

 world. In a year of bountiful harvest the cultivator 

 could sell his surplus produce only in the overstocked 

 market of his village. Prices in that limited area 

 would run down as if they had no bottom ; when the 

 demands of the few non-cultivators were satisfied, 

 there was only the local grain-dealer to sell to, and 

 this single grain-dealer could make his own price 

 among a crowd of sellers. Moreover, it must be re- 

 membered that the village grain-dealer is a very small 

 capitalist, and that his grain -pits and 'purchasing- 

 capacity are very limited ; after his demand had been 

 satisfied there were no purchasers left. This restric- 

 tion of his market deprived the cultivator of a great 

 deal of the benefit of a good harvest, and he may often 

 have felt inclined, like Shakespeare's farmer, to * hang 

 himself in the expectation of plenty.' The old reports 

 contain many references to the severe agricultural 

 depression which followed upon a succession of abun- 

 dant harvests, when grain was a perfect drug in the 

 market. As soon as metalled roads were constructed, 



