MR. KEIR HARDIE'S CHARGE 185 



poverty will no longer be possible as the common 

 lot. And it was to be hoped that the British rule 

 would in time have this happy effect. Tennant 

 evidently thought that it had begun to do so even 

 in his day. " The existence," he says, " of a regular 

 British Government is but a recent circumstance ; 

 yet in the course of a few years complete security 

 has been afforded to all of its' dependants ; many 

 new manufactures have been established, many 

 more have been extended to answer the demands 

 of a larger exportation. We have therefore conferred 

 upon our Asiatic subjects an increase of security, of 

 industry and of produce, and of consequent greater 

 means of enjoyment." 



It is therefore a very grave charge that Mr. Keir 

 Hardie brings against the British Administration 

 when he says, a century after these words were 

 written, that the standard of living among the Hindu 

 peasantry has deteriorated. Happily there does 

 not appear to have been a close relation between 

 facts and Mr. Keir Hardie' s conclusions during his 

 Indian tour, so we may continue to put our con- 

 fidence in the many hopeful indications that exist 

 of a distinct improvement in the ideal of life which 

 has so long prevailed among our poor Indian fellow- 

 subjects. The rise in the wages of both skilled 

 and unskilled labour during even the last thirty 

 years, especially in and near important towns, has 

 been most remarkable. 



It is more to the point to know what the labourer 



