October, 1912.] 



275 



In India, as in every other country, the teaching of experience is that 

 excessive artificial fostering produces a weakling growth. Government 

 has shown the way. There are in every province the beginnings of a 

 healthy movement, which grows more self-conscious every year, and 

 which is gradually attracting the interest of the educated classes. The 

 future rests with the people of India. An officially run movement on a 

 wide scale is a thing unthinkable. A popular movement, appealing 

 consciously to the interests of the agricultural classes, under general 

 official guidance, but supported by the energy of numbers of local organi- 

 sers, is eminently practicable. That is the ideal aimed at. It is certain 

 that without that propelling popular force the movement can never have 

 vitality or spontaneity. 



India is Predominantly an Agricultural Country. 



Agriculture in its many phases is by far the most important interest, 

 and merits the greatest share of attention. Much has been done and more 

 attempted to improve the situation, but the picture is still dark enough. 

 The agriculturist, the pillar of the State, is paradoxically its weakest 

 member. To the Maha jan's credit one may, almost without exaggeration, 

 apply the celebrated phrase attributed to Louis XVI. that it "supports 

 agriculture as the rope supports the hanged." From first to last the 

 ordinary ryot is dependent on that credit ; he is scarcely even a free agent. 

 His methods of cultivation are primitive and cften wasteful, and in 

 disposing of what crops he gets he can only accept such prices as the 

 middleman chooses to offer. Weak and isolated, he is in no position to 

 improve his fortunes. And the economic conditions are rendered harder 

 to assail by the conservatism of centuries and the improvidence that 

 accompanies blank poverty. The picture has been painted a hundred times. 



Co-operation a Factor for Unity. 



It is possible that four years' work in connection with co-operative 

 societies affects one's sense of proportion. But there is no one who has 

 taken part in the work who does not regard co-operation as incom- 

 parably the most promising means of attacking the agricultural problem. 

 And a perusal of these monographs confirms that conviction. To com- 

 pare agricultural Europe of the present day with the same Europe of 

 the early 19th century is to gain fresh hope for India. If rural India is 

 backward and her outlook discouraging, there was a time when con- 

 tinental Europe was little better. In the change, astonishing both in its 

 magnitude and rapidity, that has taken place in the West co-operation 

 is probably the most important factor. Rural credit has been reorganised. 

 The co-operative society enables the small farmer to cultivate scientifi- 

 cally, to get good seed and manures and agricultural machinery at cheap 

 rates, to sell his crops to the best advantage while avoiding the profit of 

 the middleman, to manufacture his dairy produce and sell it in the best 

 market, to improve the breed of his livestock and to insure his posses- 

 sion against all risks. These are only a few of the directions in which 

 the co-operative principle has been applied. The movement encourages 

 agricultural education and reaps the benefit in improved cultivation and 

 a stronger and more intelligent force within itself. The societies form 

 rjractically a huge unpaid agency for making known and bringing into 

 practical use in all parts of the country the improvements of agricultural 

 science and economy, 



Unless such a development is regarded as attainable in India our 

 present work is meaningless, We are still a long way off it, and before 



