THE FIELD LABOURER 189 



small factories had overcome the impediments to dis- 

 tribution, with which they are far better fitted to cope 

 than the English manufacturer in Lancashire, they 

 would oust the village weaver from his narrow market, 

 in virtue of the superiority of their industrial pro- 

 cesses and mechanical appliances, and to the indi- 

 vidual whose trade is taken from him it matters little 

 whether he is ruined by steam-power or a superior 

 handicraft. There is no reason to think that the 

 village weaver could maintain his position by adopt- 

 ing a modern loom or other mechanical improvements. 

 With a modern loom he would weave more cloth than 

 is needed in the restricted market for which he caters ; 

 he would be in the position of the nailer in the High- 

 lands of Scotland described by Adam Smith ; and so 

 we come round again to the fundamental obstacle to 

 improved industrial processes from which we first 

 started : the Indian organization of industry does not 

 allow of the efficient division of labour in non-agricul- 

 tural pursuits. 



THE FIELD LABOURER 



In Europe the labourers who work for wages under 

 an employer constitute the great bulk of the working 

 class, and the prosperity of millions of families depends 

 upon the proportion in which the product of industry 

 is shared between the employer and his labourers, or, 

 in other words, upon the rate of wages. In India the 

 great bulk of the labouring classes work on their own 

 account, and not for an employer, and the number of 

 those whose prosperity depends upon the rate of 

 wages is comparatively small. In the archetypical 

 Indian village, which we can only conjecture from 

 examples in which the type has been considerably 

 impaired, there probably was no place for the casual 

 labourer working for wages at the bidding of a chance 

 employer. The labour of the staple industry of the 



