CHAPTER XII THE PRESENT ECONOMIC CONDITION OF INDIA: THE REAL INCOME OF THE PEOPLE The Diminishing Income-A Typographical Sketch. Presidencies and Provinces to be Separately Considered as to Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Income. First: a Non-Agricultural Estimate for India as a Whole. Government Greatly to be Condemned for Leaving such a Task to Outsiders. Decreased Income in 1899 (Treated as a Good Year') Compared with 1881-2, nearly £60,000,000. Statement and Analysis of the Whole Non-Agricultural Income of India-Seventy-two Items and a Total of £85,000,000. BENGAL: Presidency and Provincial Estimates: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and Ascertained. Area under Cultivation during Five Years. Land Revenue in 1898-1899, £15,000,000 Less than in 1882. Government Estimates of Rice-Yield Averages: 126 lbs. Per Acre Too High; of Wheat 208 lbs. Per Acre Too Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income. Mr. Grierson on the District of Gaya: the Pioneer's THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and Ascertained. Casual Character of '82 Estimate: the Contradiction between Board of Revenue Statements and the Baring-Barbour Figures. Government Collection 15, 20, and 31 per Cent. of Gross Produce respectively; Famine Commission State per Cent. Only All Round. Proportions of Wet and Dry Cultivation with Statement as to Yield. Estimate of Famine Commission of 1880 Too High by £12,139,863. 'Choppings and Changings' in Money Nomenclature (first £, then Rs., then Rx., and finally £ Sterling again) render Statements for Different Years Difficult of Calculation. Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income. 'If We Can Eat Food Once in Two Days, We Will Not Ask For More.' THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and Ascertained. Wide Difference between Condition of People prior to 1876 and in 1882. A Poona Middling Maratha's Requirements Day by Day: Requires £2 7s. 1d. per annum; if Agriculturist has only £1 6s. 2d. Sir James Peile on Out-turn and (Indirect) Testimony to Greater Prosperity in Feudatory States. Lord Curzon's Yield Estimate-740 lbs. Per Acre; Actual (Wheat), 533 lbs. Mr. Wingate's Examples of Juwar: The Over-Estimation of Wheat-Yield in Sind 331 lbs. Per Acre. Indebtedness of Ryots in Four Deccan Districts Annually New Debts are Incurred to 93 per Cent. of Land Revenue: the Moneylender Provides the Revenue Land Revenue Bill of 1901: Non-Official Members' Emphatic Protest. Minus Difference between Value of Yield in 1882 and 1898-99: £9,788,652. Nevertheless the Viceroy in Council Declares an Increase of £3,602,655 Per Annum over 1882! Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income; Latter Comparatively Large; owing to Manufactories at Bombay and Ahmedabad. Average Income: £1 18s. 8d. per Head per Annum. SYLLABUS TO CHAPTER XII THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and Ascertained. The Legend as to the Great Prosperity and Easy Land Individual Rack-Renting Higher Here than in Any Other Another Over-Estimate of Out-turn: 104 lbs. per Acre Difficulty in Ascertaining Proportion Revenue bears to Even Here, where there is Much Irrigation, Figures for Average Income: £1 3s. 84d. per Head per Annum, 16s. 3 d. Lower than Viceroy's Estimate of March, 1901. THE PANJAB: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and Ascertained. Fifty per Cent. Cultivated Areas under Irrigation, Never- What Over-Assessment and Rigidity of Our System Have A Significant Blue Book Entry: 'Property.' 'Rs.200 in Debt. No Grain or Property.' Illustrative Incidents-All Painful. Share of Gross Produce Claimed by Government. Jullundur Wit-According to 'The Little Friend of All Yet One More Over-Estimate of Yield-This Time 100 lbs. Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income Average Income per Head per Annum: 17s., as Against THE CENTRAL PROVINCES: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and The Most Prosperous of the Provinces Nineteen Years Terrible Suffering and Unmerited Poverty the Conse- 537 A Monumental Re-Assessment and a Gross Breach of Faith in Reducing Settlement Period from Thirty Years to Twelve Years. Rents Increased by Four Hundred to Five Hundred per Cent. Still Another Estimated Over-Yield-This Time of 228 lbs. per Acre. Description of the Crime Committed in the Settlement of 1896 Mr. Pedder's and Sir James Peile's Estimate of Value of Crops Per Acre. Income of Cultivator not 2s. 8d. Increase, but Diminished by a Very Considerable Amount, Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income. Average Income per Head per Annum: £13s. 3d. Against £2 as Alleged 'on the Highest Authority' in March, 1901 BURMA, UPPER AND LOWER: Diagram Showing Average Income-Guessed and No Comparison Statistics for 1882 Available. Large Rice Cultivation and Export Justifies High Estimate of Average Yield. Average Income per Head per Annum : £1 14s. 14d. ASSAM: Many Particulars Furnished during Inquiry, Generally Proving Comparative Prosperity of Inhabitants. Food-Prices in 1859 and 1877-88 Enormously Increased. Tea Cultivation the Agricultural Mainstay. Statement and Analysis of Non-Agricultural Income. Average Income: £1 14s. 03d. per Head per Annum, or 5s. 11 d. Less than Declared Average for All India. THE INCOME IN 1900 OF ALL INDIA-GENERAL SUMMARY. Figures Submitted Justify Author's Estimate in Open Letter to the Viceroy, April, 1901. Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Incomes per Head according to Presidencies and Provinces, but Division of Workers Largely a Division in Name Only. Further Analysis: 835,000 Princes, Maharajahs, Professional Men, Business Men, and Others, Absorb £200,000,000 of Total Annual Income, leaving Thirteen Shillings and Elevenpence Halfpenny Per Head Per Annum, For Each Inhabitant of British India. How These Facts Fail to Square with the Empress's Proclamation of 1858: 'In Their Prosperity will be Our Strength.' PRESENT NON-AGRICULTURAL INCOME 539 In Face of the Foregoing, WHAT IS ENGLAND'S DUTY? of Ninety Years Ago. The Lamentation of a Bengali Publicist. Professional and Mercantile Classes in Utter Despair as to The Great and Touching Faith of the Indian People as to Appendices: GOD SAVE INDIA! I. The Incidence of Land Revenue in Bombay, by the Hon. II. The Inquisition Inseparable from the Ryotwar System. IV. "The Slow, Systematic, Starvation of India.' AVING seen what the condition of the people of HAVIN India was six years subsequent to the first estimate of the average income, and, being thoroughly assured, after the two recent disastrous famines, each with a money loss to the people of India of at least £120,000,000, or, together, nearly a whole year's income from every part of India, that it cannot now be better, it may be as well to take the Presidencies and Provinces separately, note what is the agricultural and what the non-agricultural income, setting forth the grounds on which the respective statements are based. But, before doing this, it is necessary to indicate in detail what appears to be the present non-agricultural income for the whole of India. Since 1882, when it was put at Rs.9 per head of the whole population, 15,000 miles of new railways have been opened for traffic, 16,000,000 additional acres have been brought under cultivation, while upon irrigation has been expended the capital sum of £9,659,172. Thousands of miles of new roads have been made. Industries of all kinds have sprung into existence, not, it is true, counting for very much when the extent of India is considered, but additions--for what they are worth. Yet, a most generous calculation |