Miscellaneous. 



[DECEMBER, lOOO. 



ings of the cultivator to be increased. 

 The Government recently appointed Mr. 

 Mehta to survey the handloom industry, 

 and from the useful report which he has 

 prepared I gather that this branch of 

 work is capable of development on the 

 two conditions of improved methods and 

 co-operative agencies. In the production 

 of eri silk also, which is being urged by 

 a Government expert, there is a possible 

 opening for easy and profitable labour 

 for women and children. 



" I have endeavoured to show the 

 vital importance of the products of the 

 land in regard to the feeding of the 

 people and to the export trade. If you 

 turn to the import trade the one great 

 item indicating a deficiency of produc- 

 tion is sugar. The value of the imports 

 of which reached the record figure of 

 1\ millions sterling in 1908-1909. I have 

 no doubt that this figure can be reduced. 

 Government by its great irrigation 

 works and by giving financial assistance 

 to 



Sugar Cane Growers 

 is doing all in its power to increase the 

 production of this important food staple. 

 Meanwhile you, as thinking people, will 

 readily understand that to boycott 

 foreign sugar can only inflict hardship on 

 the poor and promote a particularly 

 despicable kind of fraud. From the 

 economic point of view the step is use- 

 less because the high profits of sugar 

 cane growing in this Presidency suffice 

 tc stimulate its development. The 

 political object which has been recent- 

 ly defined in a letter to the London 

 Times by a hi>?h Indian authority to 

 draw the attention of the British public 

 to the partition of Bengal is obiviously 

 futile in the case of sugar, since the 

 total abolition of the imported would 

 not affect the public in the slightest 

 degree and would fall mainly upon the 

 Asiatic cultivators of Java and Mauri- 

 tius, and in a less degree upon the best 

 growers of Central Europe. The old 

 saying that the greatest of benefactors 

 is the man who can make two blades of 

 grass grow where one grew before, 

 applies with peculiar force to India, 

 and the best service which could be 

 rendered the country at the present 

 time is to increase agricultural pro- 

 duction. For various reasons the great- 

 est of Indian industries is backward 

 in many respects. The methods are 

 antiquated and inadequate, even where 

 the condition of rainfall aud of irriga- 

 tion are favourable. The average wheat 

 product of England is 32 bushels per 

 acre ; in the Bombay Presidency it is 

 21 bushels on irrigated and 8 bushels on 

 unirrigated land. In parts of the 



Deccan weeds run riot in the fields, and 

 the cultivator may be seen sowing his 

 crop among them. There are even 

 places where the land has been aban- 

 doned to weeds which grow strongest in 

 the soil, and cultivation is thus driven 

 to soil of inferior quality. Even in a year 

 of good rainfall like the present, the 

 aggregate production will not approach 

 what is possible. The tillage of the land 

 is insufficient and the selection of seed 

 is not understood. The uses of manure 

 are little appreciated, and night-soil, 

 which is a source of large profit to the 

 Japanese, is unutilised. 



The Breeding op Stock 

 is mainly left to chance with the 

 necessary result of deterioration and 

 waste. Healthy and diseased animals 

 intermingle with consequent but pre- 

 ventive ioss. 



"In such conditions as these improve- 

 ment of the land which has been a 

 marked feature in Japan is necessarily 

 absent, and there is probably a growing 

 infertility in many places. The Japan- 

 ese who rank amongst the best natural 

 cultivators of the world have the ad- 

 vantages of a good rainfall. Having 

 been cut off from communication with 

 the outer world for centuries, and 

 possessing a soul naturally poor, they 

 have been thrown on their own re- 

 sources. Cattle being exceedingly few 

 the land must be worked by hand and 

 the 



Increasing Pressure op a 

 Population 

 which has risen from 27| millions in 1898 

 to 47| millions in 1905, called forth ener- 

 gies and the innate resourcefulness of 

 the people who make the utmost out of 

 a fertility which their labours have 

 created and who can afford to waste 

 nothing. 



" Sir F. Nicholson justly states in an in- 

 teresting report.— 'Tillage and manure, 

 strenuous spade labour, and the utili- 

 zation of all waste are the main secrets 

 of Japanese husbandry.' In spite of 

 the heavy burden of taxation which 

 in the case of agricultural land was 

 suddenly increased by 120 per cent, to 

 meet the requirements of the Russian 

 War, the Japanese cultivator holds his 

 own. And now that the pressure of 

 population continues to increase, while 

 the cultivable area cannot be expanded, 

 he is showing the wonderlul adapta- 

 bility of his race by quickly adopting the 

 new methods which science can indicate- 



" This important Conference has been 

 assembled in the hope of doing some- 

 thing to help the cultivator and to 

 advance the general prosperity which, 



