168 



tion than servile and ignorant boors could appreciate." 

 These remarks are, to a great extent, applicable to the trans- 

 formation that is taking place in this country among the 

 higher classes and to some slight degree among the lower 

 classes of the population also. The desire to live in a 

 respectable manner, to give a good education to their sons, 

 to procure greater comforts, and it may be more expensive 

 jewels for their wives, and to marry their daughters to young 

 men who have received an English education and who will 

 not treat them merely in the light of household drudges 

 have compelled many men, who, under the old conditions, 

 would never have thought of leaving the neighbourhood of 

 their villages, to proceed to distant parts of the Presidency 

 in search of a competence. Even the mania for makingf 

 jewels is not without its good side. It is quite as legitimate, 

 if less refined, a mode of enjoyment as costly furniture, dress 

 equipage, horses and dogs. The difference between the two 

 methods of enjoyment lies in the fact that in the latter case 

 the superfluities which constitute articles of luxury bear a 

 smaller proportion to the capital devoted to production than 

 in the former. Though the standard of living among the 

 higher and middle classes in this country has risen, it is as 

 yet nothing like what it is in European countries, and it 

 ought to rise much higher if India is to attain to the same 

 rank as European nations in industrial development. What 

 is it that makes a ryot in the Ceded Districts or in Ganjam 

 so liable to suffer distress when there is even a partial 

 failure of crops ? In the former district it is the capricious- 

 ness of the seasons and the low standard of living, and in the 

 latter, isolation from the other parts of the country by want 

 of communications and the low standard of living, that is the 

 cause of the ryot's poverty and helpless condition. In coun- 

 tries in which people have very few wants and can live 

 cheaply, the population increases up to the limits of bare 

 subsistence, and, when a failure of seasons or other causes 

 diminish in the least degree their resources, they are deprived 

 of food and die off in large numbers. 



65. Notwithstanding the great increase in population 

 during the last decade, there is no reason 

 Pressure of popuia- to suppose that the population has as yet 

 begun to press on the land in any part of 

 the Presidency to such an extent as to cause any deterioration 

 in the standard of living to which any class has hitherto 

 been accustomed. The districts in which population is the 

 densest are also districts in which all classes of the popula- 

 tion, not excepting even the lowest, are, comparatively 



