182 HAPPY INDIA 



that the time will soon come when these local 

 committees might suggest to the would-be borrower 

 that he might put off the occasion for a year or two 

 years, and so gradually raise the age at which marriage 

 takes place. I understand that the Brahmo Somaj 

 advocates later marriages, also that the Parsees 

 marry at a later age. There is no doubt that religious 

 teachers have great influence. They may teach 

 early marriages or they may teach marriages at a 

 later age, but if they teach the latter it is probable 

 they will confer a great blessing on the people, 

 because although India might hold and feed a popula- 

 tion twice the size of its present population, the 

 population should not continue to try to increase 

 at the rate at which it has tried to increase in the 

 last fifty years. It is quite likely that with the 

 increase of production that would follow the means 

 I have suggested and the consequent increase in 

 comfort, the people may appreciate the advantage 

 of enjoying a higher material standard of life than 

 has been possible for most of them hitherto. When 

 they have tasted some of the pleasures that money 

 can buy, they may begin to consider how they can 

 modify their present fashions so that they can get 

 more fun out of life. 



In the early part of the year 1922 an English 

 nobleman of great experience as the Governor of a 

 great Indian Presidency, speaking of the cultivators 

 of the soil in India, said, " They do not live, they 

 only exist." 



India ought not to be a country where the most 



