321 



of the common good of the family, and the result is that, 

 while the earning and non-earning members are placed on a 

 par, thereby preventing extreme hardships to the latter, the 

 incentive to exertion among the earning members is weakened 

 to the extent to which their earnings have to be shared with 

 members who have not in any way contributed their quota of 

 labour towards such earnings. So long as mere numbers 

 give strength to a family by enabling it either to cultivate a 

 larger extent of waste lands or to fight other communities 

 with greater chances of success, there is every inducement 

 to the members of the joint family to hold together, notwith- 

 standing the restrictions imposed on the personal independ- 

 ence and comfort of the several members. When, however, 

 these cohesive forces are removed, the family breaks up. 

 This tendency is, as already stated, a beneficial one, not- 

 withstanding that thereby the chances of co-operation for 

 the purpose of carrying out large undertakings are made 

 more difficult in the same way as it is more difficult to 

 raise a large pile of buildings by means of free labour than 

 by means of slave labour. 



118. The obvious remedy for the evils incidental to this 

 situation is the promotion among the peo- 

 minSKon"'" '"'"^ ^^' pl© of habits of voluutary co-operation 

 for carrying out public objects, and it is 

 this object that education obtained by taking part in the 

 administration of local and municipal affairs is intended to 

 secure. 



The policy of entrusting the management of affairs con- 

 nected with the well-being of towns to bodies composed 

 partly of official and partly of non-official members was, for 

 the first time, inaugurated in 1865. In 1871, similar bodies 

 were created for the management of public matters affecting 

 the well-being of rural tracts. In 1884, the scheme of muni- 

 cipal and local administration was placed on a somewhat 

 wider popular basis, and the principle of allowing the inhab- 

 itants of towns and rural tracts to elect their representa- 

 tives to serve on the boards was to some extent recognized. 

 The elective system is in force in 32 out of the 55 towns 

 constituted municipalities, the former containing a popu- 

 lation of 1,200,000. The extent to which non-official per- 

 sons take part in the administration of affairs connected 

 with municipalities will be seen from the following figures. 

 There were, on 31st March 1892, 871 municipal coun- 

 cillors, of ]yhom 473 were nominated by Government and 

 398 elected by the townspeople. The number of official 



41 



