35 A Sportswoman in India 



Even before their invasion the old civilisations 

 decayed ; their conquest was easy by reason of their 

 decay. Records in India two and three thousand years 

 old point back to a state of things similar to the 

 present day. Then, as now, wages were low, and 

 interest and rent were high. Nine hundred years 

 before Christ the lowest legal interest was 15 per 

 cent., the highest 60 per cent. In the present 

 century it varies from 36 to 60 per cent. 



Then as regards rent. In England and Scotland 

 the cultivator pays, in round numbers, for the use of 

 the land about one-fourth of the gross produce ; in 

 France it is about one-third ; but in India it is 

 estimated at one-half. If interest, rent, and profits 

 (which vary according to the rate of interest and rent) 

 are high, it follows that wages must be low, wages 

 being the residue left to the labourers out of the 

 wealth of a country, after interest, rent, and profits 

 have been paid. 



Physical causes have not only governed the distri- 

 bution of wealth in India, they have governed the 

 intelligence of her people. In Europe the tendency 

 of advancing civilisation has been, in continual con- 

 tention with the difficulties of a colder climate, to 

 develop the reasoning faculties of the inhabitants. 

 Their imaginative powers have been allowed little 

 scope. 



But in the East the reverse is the case : the imagina- 

 tion of the Oriental tramples on his reason, and is 

 continually stimulated by physical agents, in the shape 



