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ments I have mentioned, there is such a cry as that we are 

 becoming poor. I fancy that this is due to three causes. 

 One is, it is a fact that we now fail to see those ' big men ' in 

 the country who once existed with enormous wealth and 

 great influence over the people. My grandfather once told 

 me that when he was a Tahsildar, the Collector having on 

 one occasion called upon him to expedite the revenue collec- 

 tions and intimated to him that if he did not remit at least 

 Rs. 50,000 within a week, he would be dismissed, a single 

 ryot in his taluk paid all the money in advance and received 

 it afterwards from the ryots in his taluk, almost all of whom 

 were dependent on him. Such men of wealth and influence 

 over the ryots do not now exist. This change has taken place, 

 because the lower classes of ryots have slightly recovered 

 from their extreme poverty and dependence upon the bigger 

 men. I myself knew that in some villages of the taluks of 

 which I was the Tahsildar, there were one or two big men 

 who paid all the taxes of the ryots of those villages and took 

 possession of all the produce raised by them, lending them 

 again small quantities of produce for their subsistence. Now 

 such men have diminished in number, because the ryots are 

 able to pay their own taxes and keep to themselves the little 

 they could save, instead of sending it to the pockets of the 

 rich men. Thus, wealth is now more spread than it was, 

 and this change is mistaken by some of us to be a sign of 

 poverty. I do not mean to say that the disappearance of 

 large capitalists is not a misfortune in itself, for I know that 

 Rs. 1,000 in the hands of a single individual may often do 

 more ^^^ good than Rs. 2,000 distributed among 1,000 persons ; 

 but all that I mean to say is that the aggregate wealth of the 

 country has by no means diminished. Another cause of the 

 feeling that we are getting poorer is that the intelligence 

 of the people having improved, the educated men compare 

 themselves with the more wealthy and civihzed nations, 

 whose habits and tastes they have imbibed, and feel their 

 poverty more keenly than their ancestors did. The third 

 and most important cause is, that although we are on the 

 whole undoubtedly better off than we were fifty years ago, 

 still the masses are extremely poor and most of them are 



"^ It is for the reasons stated here by Mr. Chentsal Eao that his proposal to 

 legislate in view to arresting the too rapid decay of the landed aristocracy of the 

 country has commanded general approval. As a return for protection thus afforded, 

 greater public services tlian hitherto rendered will be expected from the great landed 

 proprietors, and, if need be, will have to be enforced. Another important means of 

 counteracting the evils of diffusion of capital amongst innumerable persons, instead of 

 its being concenteated in the hands of a few individuals in a form readily available for 

 industrial enterprises, is the provision of facilities ioy the establishment of baoks and 

 joint stock companies all over the country. 



