October, 1910.] 



340 



Miscellaneous. 



he grows the rice which forms the staple 

 of his food. His little hut stands on the 

 high land, and in the more thinly popul- 

 ated districts this high land is mostly 

 under chena, one-tenth or less being at 

 any oue time under actual crop. In the 

 more densely peopled districts this land 

 is usually occupied by a thick jungle of 

 many kinds of useful trees and plants, 

 conspicuous among which are the coco- 

 nut, the areca-nut, the mango, the jak, 

 the plantain or banana, and others. In 

 this wilderness he grazes one or two 

 poor specimens of cattle, which are 

 rarely fenced in. After the harvest 

 these are turned into the rice fields. 



The peasant has but few wants that 

 cannot be supplied by his own fields, or 

 by the labour of himself or his women 

 folk. Cotton fabrics for his scanty 

 clothing, kerosine oil for his lamp where 

 he has become too advanced for coconut 

 oil, a few simple curry stuffs, such as 

 dried fish, feuugreek, &c, a few brass 

 and earthenware utensils, simple tools 

 and furniture made by the village car- 

 penter and blacksmith, lime for chewing 

 with his betel, and perhaps a little 

 arrack or other spirit at times, sum up 

 most of his requirements. 



For many of these he wants actual 

 money, but the sale of a little rice, of a 

 few coconuts or betel leaves, will pro- 

 vide him with sufficient. He is very im- 

 provident in most cases, and is in debt 

 for advances on his crops to the local 

 money-lender, to whom he has to pay a 

 very heavy rate of interest, rarely less 

 than 50 per cent. 



To live a strenuous life for the sake of 

 gain or of social advancement is foreign 

 to the habits of mind and body of the 

 peasant. Let him but make sufficient 

 for his wants, to bring up his children, 

 and to pay the interest or renewals on 

 his debts, and he is generally content. 

 He does not aim at creating trade : his 

 caste, unalterable by riches or poverty, 

 is commonly high, he likes to take his 

 ease and pleasure with his family and 

 friends. And lastly, but probably most 

 important of all, he has not the capital 

 nor the land necessary for such a specul- 

 ative occupation as growing crops upon 

 which he cannot actually live, but which 

 he has to sell in a market whose fluctu- 

 ation is beyond his knowledge or control, 

 aud in which, therefore, he is largely at 

 the mercy of the middlemen or combin- 

 ation of middlemen who buy his crops. 

 Not that he is averse to making money, 

 but he cannot afford to risk even a small 

 sum, most often probably has not the 

 sum to risk. This is the true explanation 

 of much of his obstinate conservatism, 



a conservatism by the side of which 

 that of the small northern farmer is 

 change and progress of the swiftest. 



By the removal of the stimuli to pro- 

 gress, a country may fall back to the 

 stage which we have been considering, 

 and such a state of affairs may for ex- 

 ample be seen at this day in the West 

 Indian Island of Montserrat. From a 

 report lately written by the Hon. Mr. 

 Francis Watts we may quote as follows : 

 " It may be interesting to draw attention 

 to the circumstances of the people living 

 in the northern district of Montserrat. 



. . . Lying beyond Church Hill there 



exists a somewhat isolated aud self con- 

 tained community, largely consisting of 

 peasants cultivating land udou a share 

 system. These people suffered severely 

 in the huricane ; all their houses and 

 practically all their belongings were des- 

 troyed. They have now built up the 

 elements of a small peasant community, 

 which has no means of wage earning, 

 but which grows its owu food and 

 obtains the small amount of money 

 necessary for the purchase of clothes, 

 tools, and the like, from its small ex- 

 ports from the district. These exports 

 consist of sugar, grown and manufac- 

 tured on a share system ; of vegetables 

 taken to the village markets in other 

 parts ot the island, of small numbers 

 of cattle, horses, and small stock ; 

 and of vegetables and fruit, chiefly 

 bananas, shipped to Antigua. All 

 these exports are small, but they suffice 

 for the modest requirements of the 



district The conditions of life 



here are on a low plane comparatively 

 but they are interesting as illustrating 

 what results from a peasant proprietary, 

 cut off from the power of wage-earning 

 by the absence of regular estates employ- 

 ing labourers. The habit of wage earn- 

 ing has been weakened or lost. This is 

 seen by the fact that when a short time 

 ago the Montserrat Company planted 

 a small area in cotton in this district, 

 difficulty was found in obtaining labour, 

 and comparatively high rates had to 

 be paid. The resources of such a dis- 

 trict are few, civilizing influencss are 

 apt to weaken, roads are likely to be 

 poorly kept, public works, in the way of 

 bridges, buildings, or improvements, will 

 be difficult to secure, and the govern- 

 mental administration will have to come 

 down to a similarly low level. Such 

 conditions remind me of those prevailing 

 at Tortola, where, while there is 

 practically no poverty, life is on a low 

 level, and progress is slow or absent. 



"A district so constituted is liable to 

 rapid fluctuation in its prosperity. A 

 drought means starvation and distress 



