180 HAPPY INDIA 



dividing up their holding to find places for their 

 children. If they have no land, and are not tenants 

 of any land, they have to take any offer of the 

 landowner or money-lender and become his slave. 

 It is absurd to blame the Government for that. 

 One of the paradoxes of life is that in most societies 

 the people who can least afford to pay taxes are 

 those who are most heavily taxed. The tax takes 

 the form of a payment of interest on money that has 

 been borrowed, and this money has been borrowed 

 by poor people who cannot afford to repay, and are 

 really too poor to pay interest on the loan without 

 starving themselves. In some parts of India a 

 young man, little more than a child, will borrow money 

 to pay for his wedding feast, well knowing that he 

 will never be able to repay the money he has borrowed 

 or the interest on it, and will become a slave of the 

 money-lender. That is an extreme case, which, 

 however, is quite common in the Madras Presidency. 

 This is described by Professor Gilbert Slater of 

 the Madras University in his book entitled 

 Economic Studies, vol. i. " Some South Indian 

 Villages." But over all India the money-lender is 

 a most important personage. He may lend money, 

 and does lend money for purposes which may yield 

 a good return to the borrower. On the other hand, 

 he may lend money for the purpose of a wedding 

 feast or a dowry to a daughter, or the purpose of 

 meeting a revenue tax, and he charges a high rate 

 of interest, which in a great many cases leads to 

 the ruin of the borrower. I do not know that 



