6

PEOPLE WILL NOT ADMIT IMPROVEMENT' 457

years' (p. 43). Looking at the Ghat cultivators further south, Mr. Cumine says the greater portion cannot get enough to allay hunger in the hot weather. Mr. Rand says one-fifth cannot, and according to Mr. Candy onefourth cannot. Mr. Crawford entirely opposes this view. He quotes, indeed, the statement he made to the Famine Commission, that on the slopes and spurs of the Sahyadris "there is not a single monsoon, however favourable, in which the people do not suffer, without a murmur, most of the hardships incidental to a famine." But he declares that the labourer of the South Konkan now rarely suffers from a deficiency of food' (p. 45). Mr. Crawford seems to think this a not unhappy position; but it does not appear that he himself ever expressed any violent desire to accommodate his own mode of living to that of the Ratnagiri 'lower stratum,' even as an experiment.

In SIND, nearly wholly an irrigated Province, the standard of living varies from £1 10s. 9d. to £3 4s. Od. per annum. 'From nearly all quarters the district officers report with some confidence a marked improvement even in the last fifteen years. The people themselves will not admit it.' 'On the whole, notwithstanding some drawbacks incidental to character, the Sindi has a good future before him, and, for many a year, in the absence of war or special calamity, the fear of general pauperism or acute distress will be far removed' (p. 47).

The District reports are full of interesting details. Even of Gujarat the Prosperous, it is said: 'In none of the districts do the statistics show deaths traceable to want. But the reporting officers declare them quite untrustworthy. The Collector of Broach thinks that some of the numerous deaths assigned to fever are caused by bad or insufficient clothing, food, and housing' (p. 69). In this opinion the Collector is supported by the highest medical authority in India, who, about this time, in his Health Report, declared that fever in many cases was merely a synonym for insufficient food and clothing.

The reader will observe, Even in the last fifteen years.'

Probably one million out of four millions of 'fever' deaths reported in so-called non-famine years are really deaths from starvation.

Mr. Kennedy says that, though better off than at the commencement of British rule, the people are less wellto-do than at the time of the last Revenue settlement' (p. 95).

I stay my hand, though the material for quotation and comment is yet abundant. That member of Parliament would do India a great service who should compel the publication of the various volumes from which, save three of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, I have gleaned but scantily, leaving much for workers who may wish for more facts than I have recorded.

'The Government assessment on dry lands in the settled districts varies from twelve to twenty-eight per cent. of the gross produce, and that on the wet lands from sixteen to thirty-one per cent., and not, as is often asserted, from five to ten per cent. in the one case, and from ten to 16.6 per cent. in the other. . . . Taking at random the Settlement Report of Nellore for the year 1898-99, we find that 38.22 per cent. of the lands sold had to be bought in by Government, and that in the previous year this percentage was so high as 56.28. Mr. A. Rogers, the well-known critic of the Madras Settlement System, an ex-member of the Civil Service, and the greatest living authority on land revenue settlements in India, in a letter addressed to the Secretary of State in 1893, pointed out that, of the 1,963,364 acres sold by auction between the years 1879-80 and 1889-90, so much as 1,874,143 acres had to be bought in by Government for want of bidders, that is to say, very nearly sixty per cent. of the land supposed to be fairly and equitably assessed could not find purchasers.'-The Hindu newspaper.

'It is not till he has gone into these subjects in detail that a man can fully appreciate how terribly thin the line is which divides large masses of people rom absolute nakedness and starvation.'-W. C. BENETT, 'Oudh Gazetteer,' vol. i. p. 515.

A REPRESENTATIVE INVESTIGATION 461

THE PANJAB: A LAND OF MANY RIVERS, WIDESPREAD IRRIGATION, YET MUCH NEED.

The Director of Land Records and Agriculture in the Panjab gave to the misleading1 circular from the Government of India, a widespread and representative area for investigation. He had fifty-four copies which he sent to high officials at Delhi, Jullundur, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Derajat, and Peshawar. Both European and Indian officials were engaged in the duty: twenty were Britons, eight were Indians (five Muhammadans, three Hindus).

At the Delhi Divisional Conference in 1888, resolutions were passed, which (1) asserted that the opinion as to the 'greater portion' of the population suffering from

I use the adjective as a protest against the manner in which, in the Government circular, the question for inquiry was misdescribed. The Government instituted the inquiry to ascertain whether the assertion that the greater proportion of the population of India suffer from a daily insuffi. ciency of food was wholly untrue or partially untrue.' No one, with any pretensions to knowledge had, before 1887, said that over one hundred millions of India suffered from 'a daily insufficiency of food.' That was the Government gloss. Probably it might be said now-1901-and truly said. Indeed, practically the same thing was said eight years ago.

2 The places and names are as follows:

Delhi.-Messrs. Machonachie, Purser, Douie, Kensington, Anderson, and M. Abdul Ghani, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner.

Jullundur.-Mr. Francis, Colonel Birch, and Maya Das, Extra-AssistantCommissioner. Messrs. O'Brien, Harris, and M. Azim Beg, Extra-AssistantCommissioner.

Lahore.-Messrs. Clark and Karm Chand, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner, Hutchinson, R. Dane, and Bhagwan Das, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner. Rawalpindi.-Messrs. Wilson and Ghulam Farid, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner, Major Roberts, and Kazi Ali Ahmad, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner, Mr. Gardiner, and Ghulam Ahmad, Extra-Assistant-Commissioner. Derajat.-Messrs. Dames, Ogilvie, Steel, and Ghulam Murtaza, ExtraAssistant-Commissioner.

Peshawar.-Messrs. Udny and Cunningham.