HAPPY INDIA 17 



by any other people, and of taking a high place 

 in all the arts and sciences, philosophy and states- 

 manship, of the world. Hundreds of years ago it 

 was celebrated for its manufactures of cotton and 

 silk. Indian muslins were much talked of. The 

 Indians built great temples and grand palaces for 

 their kings, and cultivated their soil with great 

 skill and success. People in Europe heard of the 

 great wealth of the Indians, and it was of the 

 Indian cities they talked and the wealth of their 

 princes and magnates. 



Whether or not in those days there were poor 

 poverty-stricken, starved people I do not know ; 

 probably there were. I have not seen records show- 

 ing poverty more than three hundred years old, but 

 books and poems are not written to celebrate poverty 

 and starvation. A traveller in India to-day sees 

 many signs of wealth great cities and great shops, 

 great manufactories, fields of corn and rice, many 

 millions of well-to-do people, lots of fat men and 

 women driving about in carriages. It is true he 

 can also see men and women who are exceedingly 

 thin and have no carriages in which to drive, whose 

 clothing is exceedingly scanty and who look as if 

 they have not sufficient food. But that applies to 

 every country in the world. 



The English came to India as traders hundreds 

 of years ago, and parts of India were governed by 

 English one hundred and fifty years since, and 

 the greater part of British India came under British 

 control one hundred years ago, being nominally 



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