184 POLICY FOE WESTEKN INDIA 



permanent obstacle to improvement ? Surely not. 

 The poverty of the people is at least as much the 

 result of their ineffective methods as the cause of 

 them. Even admitting that there is a vicious circle 

 of poverty, inefficiency and stagnation amongst large 

 classes of the peasantry, this vicious circle can be 

 broken in India as it has been broken elsewhere ; and 

 the machinery required to do this is being slowly 

 forged by the development of the agricultural and 

 co-operative departments. What then are the eco- 

 nomic causes which bar the way to progress ? 



If the arguments set forth in Chapter IV. and 

 Chapter VIII. have been followed the nature of some 

 of these obstacles will be apprehended. The case 

 may be briefly stated as follows. In farming there 

 are two fundamental units, the farm and the farmer. 

 For agricultural progress it is necessary that the farm 

 should be a fixed and permanent unit, so that it may 

 admit of permanent improvement and adequate 

 development, and that the farmer should be a fluid and 

 movable unit, so that the right men may get to the 

 right places. Speaking generally, we find that in India 

 the exact reverse is the case ; that the farm, on the 

 one hand, is subject to a continuous series of economic 

 earthquakes, and that the farmer, on the other hand, 

 is fixed and rooted. 



To turn first to the farm. The evil results of 

 excessive subdivision and fragmentation of land have 

 been fully dealt with in Chapter IV. No orderly 

 development, no effective improvement can take 



