162 THE HUMAN FACTOK 



bring into the world. No doubt many moral and 

 social advantages can be and are claimed for this 

 arrangement, but it is a question whether they are 

 not bought at too high a price, since, from the eco- 

 nomic point of view, the joint family has the disad- 

 vantages inherent in any communistic system. In 

 such a system the individual is little affected by the 

 incentive of personal ambition or the spur of dire 

 necessity. Professor Mukerjee,* after claiming many 

 advantages for the institution of the joint Hindu 

 family, admits that on the economic side the system 

 has grave defects, and remarks with regard to it : 

 " New investments of capital are disliked. The system 

 discourages individual initiative, and consequently 

 there is a loss of personal energy. The stimulus to 

 individual exertion not being very great progress is 

 difficult." 



We have now considered as far as possible all the 

 causes which do or conceivably may reduce the 

 standard of energy of the Indian cultivators, and the 

 process is, of necessity, a depressing one. There are 

 many obstacles to progress, but some of them, at 

 any rate, may be surmounted when once their im- 

 portance is recognised ; and there are grounds for 

 definite optimism in the fact that in all tracts there 

 can be found some cultivators who work hard and 

 continuously throughout the year, and whose industry 

 will compare favourably with that of the farmer in 



*"The Foundations of Indian Economics," Chap. III., by 

 Radhakamal Mukerjee (Longmans, 1916), 



