HAPPY INDIA 131 



is no reservoir of poison from which the mosquito 

 can carry it to other people. I am aware that there 

 are difficulties in accepting every statement that is 

 made to one, but the fact remains that this experi- 

 enced medical man considered that in that part of 

 Bengal there was very little malaria indeed, and 

 in another part of Bengal, where the river did not 

 flood the country, many of the districts suffered 

 severely, and some places were depopulated in conse- 

 quence of the malaria, which so reduced the strength 

 of the cultivators that they were unable to cultivate 

 the soil. A man who has not got to work hard may 

 go on having malaria for many years and survive, 

 but if he has got to work hard, then comes the 

 difficulty : he cannot work hard, and therefore he 

 cannot earn his living, and so the combination of 

 starvation and malaria hastens his end. 



An old Indian gentleman told me in December 

 1914 : " When I was a boy I lived in the country 

 below Calcutta ; food was plentiful and cheap, 

 we had plenty of milk, and fish in abundance in the 

 river. Now food is dear, milk is scarce, there are 

 no fish, malaria is rampant, the people are dying." 

 There is truth in this statement, and it can be ex- 

 plained. The following explanation is what I 

 gathered in conversations with Englishmen of high 

 position stationed in Calcutta : 



The present scarcity of milk is due to the increase of 

 population causing a demand for land for cultivation, and 

 in this way reducing the area available for cattle grazing. 



This demand for land causes an increase of rent charged 



