44 HAPPY INDIA 



PROSPEROUS BRITISH INDIA. 

 BY WILLIAM DIGBY. 



Any person wishing to understand the economic 

 condition of the Indian people should read a book 

 published in 1901, written by William Digby, and 

 entitled Prosperous British India. This is a sarcastic 

 title. The chief objects of the book are two, one is to 

 show the extreme poverty of the great mass of the 

 Indian people, the other is to show that this extreme 

 poverty is probably due to the exceeding bad govern- 

 ment of the English. He thinks that the English 

 mean well, wish to govern India in the best possible 

 manner, but are too ignorant and too proud to 

 accept the advice and guidance of the Indians 

 themselves, who know a great deal more about 

 their country than it is possible for an ordinary 

 Englishman to know. I have read the book twice 

 with great care. It is, however, the saddest book 

 that it is possible for any man to read about our 

 great Empire, with its three hundred and nineteen 

 million people, the greater part of them living in 

 a poverty so extreme as to be almost beyond the 

 conception of a modern Englishman. 



According to Mr. Digby, the average income of 

 the working classes in India was in the year 1899- 

 1900 equal to one halfpenny a day for each man, 

 woman and child, so that with a family of four there 

 would be twopence a day to keep the lot. In the 

 year 1899 the prices of food were much less than 



