cdcx 



the country as imports must he paid for hy the exports. In f&ct, it is 

 time wasted, considering seriously such crude proposals which violate 

 the most elementary economic considerations. 



Concluding Remarks. — I have found no small difficulty in ascertain- 

 ing what precisely are the reviewer's conclusions as regards the progress 

 made by the country as his reasoning is full of inconsistencies. He 

 admits that there has been '* very great advance " during the last 40 

 years and that the first half of this period was one of " marked and 

 unchecked progress." As regards the second half, he asserts, however, 

 that there is no evidence to show that the production of food is much 

 ahead of the demand, although it has increased during the period. He 

 admits,, at the same time, that about the middle of the period occurred 

 " the severest famine known in Southern India during the present 

 century " and that this visitation threw back the Presidency "to an 

 enormous extent." Notwithstanding the rapidity with which the 

 Presidency has recovered from the effects of the famine, he calls the 

 period one of agricultural " stagnation," if not of retrogression. The 

 reason assigned for characterising the period as one of stagnation is the 

 fact that the area of ryotwar holdings has not increased in the same 

 ratio as the population. The reviewer in the same breath asserts that 

 the liberty accorded to pauper ryots to take up lands of the poorer 

 qualities which alone now remain unoccupied, or in other words, 

 extensive cultivation, is at the root of the evils of the present economic 

 position, and that the occupation of such lands should be checked. He 

 considers that the effects of improved and cheaper internal and external 

 communication during the last 20 years should have stimulated enor- 

 mously its greatest industry-— agriculture — where the products are so 

 bulky and difficult to move. It does not occur to him that the cheapened 

 cost of production and transport due to these causes might have 

 obviated the necessity for falling upon the poorer soils for production, 

 as indeed will be seen to have been the case, when the facts connected 

 with grain wages of the labouring classes, the prices of food-grains, and 

 the standard of living, are taken into account, and that it is a satisfac- 

 tory feature that the internal and external trade of the country should 

 have increased in the manner it has notwithstanding what he calls 

 the " throwback " of the famine. As the best means of stimulating 

 agricultural production, he recommends that " the export of the raw, as 

 contrasted with the half -manufactured produce of the land " should be 

 checked. Again, for the purpose of diminishing pauperism, he advo- 

 cates the enforcement of the enclosure and consolidation of holdings, 

 forgetful of the fact that the advantage of large farms consists in the 

 economising of labour, that this economising of labour on any large 

 scale cannot be carried out without much suffering unless there are 

 alternative occupations ; that in a country where the labourer himself is 

 the cheapest of machines and manufactures are non-existent, any 

 sudden or great displacement of labour must induce a frightful amount 

 of pauperism and reduce the condition of the lower classes, bad as it 

 is, to a still lower level ; that large farms which will deprive the vast 

 majority of the population of all interest in the soil, must necessitate 

 the maintenance of a very costly system of poor relief with all its 

 demoralising features, and that a system of large holdings can be 

 introduced only pari pas.sH with the development of industrial occupa- 

 tions, and that for a country where opportunities for employment not 



