114 HAPPY INDIA 



recent legislation the Indian people are now given 

 a greater voice in the management of their affairs 

 than they had ten years ago. It may be that with 

 the assistance of these new Indian Councils the 

 Government will pluck up courage to put an income 

 tax upon the rent receivers. But one thing is cer- 

 tain : that the Government must not expend great 

 sums of money in increasing the fertility of the soil, 

 and then give away the extra produce to rent 

 receivers who do nothing to earn the rent. The 

 problem no doubt is difficult to solve, because if the 

 cultivator of the soil makes a good income by his 

 cultivation, it may be he might like to retire from 

 hard work and sub-let his holding to someone else 

 who has no land, and then he, the retiring cultivator, 

 can live upon the rent that he gets from his sub- 

 lessee. So that if landowners are abolished to-day, 

 they may be re-established to-morrow. Now, it is 

 not the object of this book to enter upon political 

 problems which may excite great controversies, and 

 therefore I do not propose to make any sugges- 

 tions under this heading of the division of the extra 

 wealth that may be obtained by the improvements 

 which I suggest. I merely state the problem and 

 leave it to those who can give their lives to the ques- 

 tion to work out the best solution. 



Of this I am certain, that if the total wealth of 

 the country, that is to say the total production of 

 the soil is increased, then all the cultivators and all 

 the labourers, whether they have land or whether 

 they are landless, will practically to a great extent 



