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FAULTS OF THE OLD SYSTEM.

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several respects, and the consequences which flowed from them. It is the duty of a government to protect its subjects from foreign foe and civil disorder. But a government can only do this effectively if it can call to its aid the united resources of the whole country. The independent action of a number of isolated villages is of no use in repelling a strong enemy. India learnt this to her cost when a Tamerlane, or a Nadir Shah, laid her capital cities in the dust, deluging their streets with blood. As foreign armies marched upon Delhi or any other city they over-ran the villages in their path, destroying crops and property, and converting the tilled land into a desert. The forces of the native rulers did their best to defend the capital towns, but they left the villages to their fate. Even in times of peace the public taxes were spent on the adornment of the cities-Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Bijapur, and others whilst nothing was spent on district canals and roads or public works of local benefit. At times also it was not even a foreign foe, but an unruly band of Pindaris or organized plunderers living in India, who inflicted misery on the villages. The fate of Guntur which perished with all its families in the flames lit by its own inhabitants, in order to escape the hands of the Pindaris, was not unknown to other villages in the Dekhan. In times of famine or pestilence the State took no action to save the lives and properties of the suffering masses. In short, the governments in former days left the villages without any attempt to rescue or assist them, and the consequence was that the word patriotism, or love of country, was unknown in India. If the rulers of the country did not treat their subjects as children, it was

only natural that the people should confine their regard to their village magnates and local leaders, and entertain no feeling of love or devotion for their country at large.

Within the village itself there was no motive for industry or improvement. The cultivators saw their crops removed and a bare subsistence left to them, no matter what care or industry they bestowed upon their fields. The artizans worked without reward for the State, or else for each other in return for a small customary payment in kind. The traders were often obliged to sell their goods at a fixed price, and their operations could not extend to distant places when the country was full of disorder and the roads insecure.

But with all these drawbacks the villagers held together, and bent their heads before the storms which blew over them. By the ties of family feeling and common defence village society was kept united, isolated it is true, but still able to rise up again after numerous falls and disasters. If the villagers lived always in a state of siege, at least they lived, and the village sites survived the revolutions which overtook the province. Their nominal rulers changed constantly, but village life, hard at all times, suffered no very great change, whatever might befall the country or the province. In short, the poorest occupant of a hut in an Indian village may boast that he still occupies the site in the palm grove which his forefathers selected many centuries ago.

7. The Modern Village. The Indian village has ceased to be a state in miniature enclosed within walls and fences. It is an integral part of the province and so of the empire. Its barriers are broken down, and

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the eyes of its inhabitants are fixed upon the outside world, in full confidence that their attention will not be required every night upon the walls of their village defences. All are free to go where self-interest leads them, and the hand of government is visible wherever they go. The raiyats know exactly what assessment they have to pay, and the profits of extra diligence and care go into their own pockets. There is no wasteful dispute about the share of the standing crops belonging to the state, and there is no need to bribe the official gatherer of their rents. Every cultivator or proprietor knows precisely what will be demanded of him, and the State takes no more than the sum which is

entered in the public accounts. The classes owning no land of their own who live by labour, and the artizans of the village, can go where they please in search of employment, and many of them find work for a few months in the great cities, returning home for the rainy season. The village traders supply the merchants who keep their eyes fixed on the world's markets, and they sell the village crops where they can obtain the best prices. The protection of government is felt in every direction by every class, and instead of mud huts the people live in houses of brick and stone. The villagers are neither attacked at home by robbers in the night, nor are their houses laid in ruins by an invading army. When they go forth on their business they travel safely by roads or railways connecting their homes with distant cities. Even the village well is frequently not the sole supply of water. Each village shares with others the benefits of the canals which traverse the country, and the links which unite the villages with the large towns of the province are

THE MODERN VILLAGE.

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numerous. The authority of the village officers is regulated by law, and the civil and criminal courts held at headquarters are open to all. The village

school leads on to the subdivisional school, and that to the district high school. Even the village registrar collects his returns of births and deaths, and regularly sends them on to a central office. Thus every one of the 537,901 villages and towns, in which 221 millions of people live in British India, maintains its identity as a distinct village, but feels at the same time that it is only a living part of the great empire to which it belongs.

8. A Matter of Experience. When once it is understood that the interests of every village are bound up with those of others, every one who can read or write must wish to learn something about the working of the great machine which carries on the public administration. He knows from his own experience that his village belongs to a district, and the district to a province, and he ought to have some idea as to how the provinces were formed, and what are their relations to the empire at large. When he goes out into the country he will probably cross the boundary of a native state, and he will find that he has stepped outside the jurisdiction of British courts. He has to live by the side of people of different creeds and races, and he will take more interest in them if he knows how their ancestors found their way into India, and what qualities they have brought to the common stock of the country. Other questions will be constantly suggested by matters within his daily observation. Whence comes the machinery which is opening the mines under the earth, or driving cotton mills in the

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