182 



subsistence, the utter absence of a reasonable hope of im- 

 provement, in short, the whole subjective side of poverty is 

 not less terrible because it defies statistics." On the other 

 hand, periodic famines and wholesale destruction of life of 

 the kind frequent in India are unknown.^^ 



Fourthly. — It is when we consider vital statistics that the 

 low condition of this country, as compared with European 

 countries, becomes most apparent. The expectation of life 

 or the number of years which every person born may, 

 on an average, be expected to live is less than twenty-three 

 years in this country, while it is nearly 43 years in England. 

 The number that die before reaching five years is 50 out of 

 100 here, and 25 out of 100 in England. The number of 

 persons dying between the ages of ten and twenty, the 

 period in which they may industrially be expected to become 

 most efficient, is 8 out of 50 in this country, and 3 out of 73 

 in England. The registration of births and deaths is very 

 imperfect; still the rate of recorded deaths is as high as 29*3 

 per 1,000 of the population in the 55 municipal towns, and 



^8 I have given in the appendix V. (m 2) particulars of the ratios which the taxation 

 in some European countries bears to the assumed national income, to compare with similar 

 ratio in this country. It will be seen that the ratio is not higher here (Rs. 2-14-3 

 out of say Bs. 27 or 11 per cent, including local taxt-s) than in European countries with 

 the exception of England, whose wealth is enormous, and where much of public basiness 

 is performed bj'^ voluntary unpaid agency. Of course in a country like India, where by far 

 the larger portion of the national income is expended on the bare necessaries of life, a 

 certain percentage of the national income taken by way of taxation may, in point of fact, 

 be heavier than a higher percentage in a wealthy country. On the other hand, in a 

 country where the people are unenterprizing and indolent, the Government has to assume 

 functions which elsewhere are performed by the people themselves in order that they 

 may reach a higher stage of industrial development than they would do if left to them- 

 selves. The conflicting considerations bearing on this subject have thus been forcibly 

 stated by Professor Walker with special reference to India. 



"By raising money as other money is raised, by taxes (the amount of which is 

 taken by individuals out of their expenditure on the score of maintenance), Government 

 has it in its power to accelerate to an unexampled degree the augmentation of the 

 mass of real wealth. Such is the claim in behalf cf Government expenditure. What is 

 to be said of it ? Let us proceed by way of an example. Let us take a large population 

 spread over a vast extent of country, like India, which possesses almost illimitable 

 facilities for the improvement of the soil through irrigation, and whose broad spaces 

 demand numerous and extensive lines of artificial communication, by canal or railway. 

 Let it be supposed that the people occupying this country are what the people of India 

 now are, in numbers, in character, in habits of living and working. Alike under the 

 influence of sexual passion and of religious superstition, they continually tend to increase 

 up to the limits of subsistence, even to the verge of famine ; not only accumulating no 

 capital, but laying by no store for future wants ; having neither the genius for organi- 

 aation nor the capacity of self-denial which would be required to initiate the simplest 

 local improvements. Now, we may imagine such a population ruled by a benevolent, 

 disinterested despot of the highest order of intelligence, a Napolean devoted to the arte 

 of peace. We may imagine this ruler, by a sj'stem of taxation that shall be as just 

 between individuals and as judicious in its seasons and methods as human wisdom can 

 make it, first, drawing from the crops of good years a store against the occurrence 

 of bad harvests ; then, by a gradually increasing stringency of exaction, adding to the 

 cost of living in such a way as to discourage the growth of population, while applying 

 the proceeds to groat public improvements which enable the food-supply ^pf the empire 

 to be readily equalised in the event of local scarcity ; which guard the cropg against the 



