10 GROWTH OF POPULATION 



and variety of wants is developed. This applies as much 

 amongst the upper classes in India as in Europe. 



With regard to the present problem of Indian rural 

 conditions, it is important to note, however, that the tenden- 

 cy of a high standard of living to limit the growth of 

 population does not come into operation until a very high 

 standard has been reached. The first effect of increased 

 earnings on any class of people who are at the subsistence 

 level is to reduce the action of the positive check of 

 starvation and disease, and to allow a more rapid expansion 

 of the number of that class. It will need, therefore, a 

 considerable and rapid expansion of earnings to lift the mass 

 of cultivators to such a standard of living as may begin to 

 restrict the growth of population. 



A further analysis of the population question is necessary. 

 It will then be seen that the benefits supposed to accrue 

 from a peasant proprietorship or ryotwari tenure are, in 

 fact, largely illusory when the standard of living of cultivat- 

 ors is very low. We may consider four different cases : 

 the first of these is hypothetical, and the rest are more or 

 less reproduced in actual conditions in India. In the first 

 case we assume the peasant cultivators with low standard 

 of living settled in a country where there are qo landlords, 

 and where the Government exacts no land revenue or taxes 

 whatever from simll cultivators of, say, less than 50 acres. 

 It does not matter how the Government manages to exist ; 

 for our purpose the important point is that out of the gross 

 produce of agriculture in any given district of small 

 cultivators nothing whatever goes either to the maintenance 

 of the Government or the support of a landlord class. In 

 these circumstances, the cultivating population whose stand- 

 ard of living is very low can go on increasing in number ; 

 and they will do so until the limit of the sub-division of 

 holdings has been reached, that is to say, the minimum six;e 



