20 OTHER ECONOMIC FACTORS 



There are certain broad economic movements -which in 

 their progress automatically affect the landlord's position, 

 sometimes advantageously and sometimes adversely. These 

 he, as an individual, and even as a class, is powerless to 

 alter ; but he should make it his business to be acquainted 

 with them so that he may swim with the tide, so to say, 

 making use of every opportunity of adapting the control 

 of his estate to the trend of economic forces. 



We saw in the last lecture how population continually 

 tends to grow. This of itself alone increases the com- 

 petition for land and so enlarges the economic rent. Hence, 

 the landlord, with no exertion of his own, can get some 

 increased rental by the mere lapse of time. Another 

 factor tending greatly to increase the total money produce of 

 agriculture and the net surplus retained by landlords is the 

 development of communications, particularly cheap trans- 

 port over long distances by rail and river, and the develop- 

 ment of roads for linking up the railways with the larger 

 villages. Herein, if they would but realise it, lies the 

 most profitable field of activity for zemindars and talukdars, 

 in stimulating the district boards to embark upon extensive 

 programs of road improvement. 



The effect of cheap long distance transport is to 

 revolutionize the system of agriculture, changing what has 

 formerly been of necessity a subsistence economy into a com- 

 mercial economy. When there are no railways and no roads 

 every small group of villages must be practically self-sufficing, 

 and its inhabitants must grow a little of every kind of pro- 

 duct they require whether the soil be suited therefor or not. 

 When long distance haulage is cheap, on the other hand, it 

 is possible for every part of the wide territories of India to 

 specialize in growing those crops for which the land and 

 climate are most suitable in each place. By this means the 

 produce of capital and labor applied to the land is very 



