THE INDIAN LABOURER AND WAGES 5 



matter of very slight concern to the working class of 

 India.* 



Dear bread, too, the apprehension of which causes 

 so much anxiety to a working man in Europe, is to 

 the small farmers who form the majority of the Indian 

 population welcome evidence that their produce will 

 fetch a good price. And to take a historical case : 

 the inflation of the currency, which inflicted a great 

 injury on the English working classes in the reign of 

 Henry VIII., was in the last century a positive boon 

 to the Indian working man, for it gave him a small but 

 much-needed advantage over his creditor the village 

 money-lender. 



But it is not in its relation to economic theories, 

 but in its bearing upon the production of wealth, that 

 the distribution of functions most deserves attention. 

 The part of the entrepreneur may be played by either 

 the landlord, the capitalist, or the labourer, or, as is 

 often the case in Europe, by a fourth person who is 

 only an entrepreneur — one, that is, who leases his 

 land, borrows his capital, and pays wages for labour, 

 and whose only function is to initiate industrial opera- 

 tions. But the efficiency of industry will differ very 

 much according to the class of man upon whom the 

 responsibility of directing it happens to be thrown. 

 The production of wealth is most likely to be large 

 in countries in which, as in Europe, the direction of 

 industry is in the hands of a man who by education 

 and natural ability is specially fitted for the task. In 

 Europe and America the ideal entrepreneur is a man 

 fully conversant with all the processes of production, 

 and always on the alert to discover more efficient or 

 more economical industrial methods ; he grades his 

 workmen to their work according to their individual 

 capacities, and he studies the demand of his market in 



* ' The paramount question— the one which is of prime importance 

 to the vast majority of the people of civilized lands — is, What makes 

 the rate of wages ?' — ' The Distribution of Products,' by Ed. Atkinson. 



