But I must not close this article without reference to the very different
views which have been lately put forth in this Review under the
sensational title of the "Bankruptcy of India." Mr. Hyndman, after much
study of Indian statistics, has arrived at the conclusion that "India has
been frightfully impoverished under our rule, and that the process is
going on now at an increasingly rapid rate." The revenue raised by
taxation is about 36,000,000_l._, and "is taken absolutely out of the
pockets of the people," three-fourths of whom are engaged in agriculture.
The increase of 12,000,000_l._ in the revenue which has occurred between
1857 and 1876 "comes almost entirely out of the pockets of the
cultivators," and "the greater part of the increase of the salt, stamps,
and excise is derived from the same source." The cost of maintaining a
prisoner in the cheapest part of India is 56_s._ a head, or, making
allowance for children, 46_s._; but the poor cultivator has only 31_s._
6_d._, from which he must also defray the charges "for sustenance of
bullocks, the cost of clothing, repairs to implements, house, &c., and
_for taxation_."
He states the debt of India to be "enormous," amounting to 220,000,000_l._
sterling, principally accumulated in the last few years. The railways have
been constructed at ruinous cost, for which the "unfortunate ryot has had
to borrow an additional five or ten or twenty rupees of the native
money-lender at 24, 40, 60 per cent., in order to pay extra taxation."
Irrigation works "tell nearly the same sad tale. Here again millions have
been squandered--squandered needlessly." Moreover, the land is fast
becoming deteriorated or is being worse cultivated. In short, through a
long indictment of twenty-three pages, of which I omit many counts, he
cannot find a single act of British administration that meets his
approval. All is naught. It is true that the Civil Service of India is
composed of men who have gained their posts by means of the best education
that England can supply, and who from an early period of manhood have
devoted their lives to the practical solution of the many difficult
problems which Indian administration presents. But Mr. Hyndman finds fault
with them all.
The article itself is couched in such an evident spirit of philanthropy
that one feels unwilling to notice pointedly the blunders, the
exaggerations, and the inaccuracies into which the writer has fallen. But
Mr. Hyndman has entered the lists so gallantly with a challenge to all the
Anglo-Indian world, that he of course expects to encounter some hard
knocks, writing, as he does, on a subject with which he has no practical
acquaintance. He has already received "a swashing blow" respecting the
agricultural statistics on which he bases the whole of his argument. On
data supplied to him by an able native writer, whom I know intimately and
for whom I have the highest respect, he has drawn conclusions which are
so manifestly absurd, that all practically acquainted with the subject are
tempted to throw aside his article as mere rubbish. But Mr. Dadobhai, like
himself, has no knowledge of the rural life of India, or of agriculture
generally, or of the practical business of administration. He is a man who
has passed his whole life in cities, an excellent mathematician, of
unwearied industry, and distinguished, even among his countrymen, for his
patriotic endeavours to improve their condition. But the mere study of
books and of figures--especially of the imperfect ones which hitherto have
characterised the agricultural statistics of India--is not sufficient to
constitute a great administrator; and when Mr. Dadobhai, after making
himself prominent by useful work in the municipality of Bombay, was
selected to fill the high office of Prime Minister to the Gaekwar of
Baroda, he was not deemed by his countrymen to have displayed any great
aptitude in statesmanship.[13]
The alarming picture drawn by Mr. Hyndman on data thus supplied attracted
the attention of the greatest authority in England on agricultural
matters; for intrinsic evidence clearly shows that the letters signed
"C.," which appeared in the _Times_ of the 5th of October and the 9th of
October, can proceed from no other than Mr. Caird. His refutation of Mr.
Hyndman's pessimist views is so short, that I give the pith of it here:--
The conclusions arrived at are so startling that though,
like Mr. Hyndman, I have never been in India, I, as an
alarmed Englishman, have tried to test the strength of the
basis upon which they rest. The only _data_ I have at hand
are taken from the figures in the last year's report of the
Punjab. The number of cultivated acres there agrees with
those quoted by Mr. Hyndman--say 21,000,000 acres--and I
adopt his average value of 1_l._ 14_s._ per acre.
The Government assessment is 1,905,000_l._, to pay which
one-sixth of the wheat crop [the produce of 1,120,000] would
have to be sold and exported. There would remain for
consumption in the country the produce of 5,500,000 acres of
wheat and of 12,000,000 acres of other grain, the two
sufficing to yield for a year 2 lb. per head per day for the
population of 17,000,000, which is more than double the
weight of corn eaten by the people of this country. Besides
this, they would have for consumption their garden
vegetables and milk; and beyond it the money value of
845,000 acres of oil-seed, 720,000 acres of cotton and hemp,
391,000 acres of sugar-cane, 120,000 acres of indigo, 69,000
acres of tobacco, 88,000 acres of spices, drugs, and dyes,
19,000 acres of poppy, and 8,800 acres of tea; the aggregate
value of which, without touching the corn, would leave
nearly twice the Government assessment.
Mr. Hyndman has committed the error of arguing from an
English money value at the place of production upon articles
of consumption, the true value of which is their
food-sustaining power to the people who consume them.
When an argument is thus found so completely _pecher par sa base_, it is
needless to pursue it further. But I conceive that Mr. Hyndman, when
studying this overwhelming refutation, must feel somewhat
conscience-stricken when he reperuses such sentences of his own as the
following:--"In India at this time, millions of the ryots are growing
wheat, cotton, seeds, and other exhausting crops, and send them away
because these alone will enable them to pay their way at all. They are
themselves, nevertheless, eating less and less of worse food each year, in
spite, or rather by reason, of the increasing exports." Thus a farmer is
damaged by finding new markets for his produce! And he sells his wheat,
which is the main produce of his arable land in those parts of India where
it flourishes, to buy some cheaper grain which his land does not grow! The
youngest assistant in a collector's establishment could inform Mr. Hyndman
that the food of the agricultural population of India consists of the
staple most suitable to the soil of the district: in the Punjab wheat, in
Bengal and all well-watered lowlands rice, on the tablelands of the Deccan
jowari (_holcus sorghum_) and bajri (_panicum spicatum_), on the more
sterile plateau of Southern India the inferior grain ragi (_eiuesyne
coracauna_).
It must have been under the dominion of the idea produced by Mr.
Dadobhai's statistics as to the thoroughly wretched state of the
agricultural population of India that Mr. Hyndman has been led into
exaggerated statements which his own article shows he knew to be
inaccurate. A dreadful case of misgovernment existed in India, and,
thoroughly to arouse his countrymen to the fact, it was necessary to pile
up the agony. Thus, in one part of his article he states that the
"enormous debt" of India amounts to 220,000,000_l._, but in a later
portion he admits that it is only 127,000,000_l._, and he knows full well
that the amount of 100,000,000_l._ of guaranteed railway debt is not only
not a present debt due from Government, but is a very valuable property,
which will probably bring in some millions of revenue when they exercise
their right of buying up the interests of the several guaranteed
companies.
Again, he speaks throughout his article of the excessive taxation imposed
on the poor, half-starved cultivators; and he gives the following table as
showing the amount "taken absolutely out of the pockets of the people:"--
Land revenue L21,500,000
Excise 2,500,000
Salt 6,240,000
Stamps 2,830,000
Customs 2,720,000
He thus maintains that the portion of the rent paid to Government for
occupation of the land is a tax upon the cultivator, which is about as
true as to state that the 67,000,000_l._ of rental in the United Kingdom
is a special tax on the farmers of this country. The amount derived from
excise is chiefly produced by the sale of intoxicating liquors, the use of
which is forbidden by the social and religious views of the natives; and
any contribution to the revenue under this head is clearly a voluntary act
on the part of the transgressor. The revenue from stamps proceeds chiefly
from what may be called taxes on justice; they are, in my opinion,
extremely objectionable, but weighty objections may be urged against
nearly every tax, and a large portion of this tax falls on the wealthier
class of suitors. The amount contributed by the population under the head
of customs, although it may take money out of the pocket of the rayat,
actually adds to his store; for, unless he could buy in the bazaar a piece
of Manchester long-cloth cheaper than an article of domestic manufacture,
it is manifest that he would select the latter. There remains only the
single article of salt on which the cultivator undoubtedly is taxed, and
which forms the sole tax from which he cannot escape. This tax also is
extremely objectionable in theory, more perhaps than in practice, for it
amounts to about 7-1/2_d._ per head. But even if we take the whole amount
of taxation as shown by Mr. Hyndman, excluding the land revenue or rental
of the land, the average per head is only 1_s._ 6_d._, of which more than
one-third can be avoided at the pleasure of any individual consumer. It is
not, then, a misstatement to aver that the population of India is more
lightly taxed than any population in the world living under an orderly
government.
I have thus far thought it my duty to expose what I believe to be grave
errors in Mr. Hyndman's sensational article. But I should do him great
injustice if I did not admit that he has brought out in vivid colours some
very important facts. It is true that these facts are well known to Indian
administrators, but they are facts disagreeable to contemplate, and are
therefore slurred over willingly; but they have such important bearing on
the proceedings of Government in India that they cannot be too frequently
paraded before the public eye.
The first of these truths is the undeniable poverty of the great bulk of
the population. But here Mr. Hyndman does not appear to me to have taken
full grasp of the fact, or to have ascertained its causes. The dense
population of India, amounting in its more fertile parts to six and seven
hundred per square mile, is almost exclusively occupied in agricultural
pursuits. But the land of India has been farmed from time immemorial by
men entirely without capital. A farmer in this country has little chance
of success unless he can supply a capital of 10_l._ to 20_l._ an acre. If
English farms were cultivated by men as deficient in capital as the Indian
rayats, they would be all thrown on the parish in a year or two. The
founder of a Hindu village may, by aid of his brethren and friends, have
strength enough to break up the jungle, dig a well, and with a few rupees
in his pocket he may purchase seed for the few acres he can bring under
the plough. If a favourable harvest ensue, he has a large surplus, out of
which he pays the _jamma_ or rent to Government. But on the first failure
of the periodical rains his withered crops disappear, he has no capital
wherewith to meet the Government demand, to obtain food for his family and
stock, or to purchase seed for the coming year. To meet all these wants he
must have recourse to the village money-lender, who has always formed as
indispensable a member of a Hindu agricultural community as the ploughman
himself.
From time immemorial the cultivator of the soil in India has lived from
hand to mouth, and when his hand could not supply his mouth from the
stores of the last harvest he has been driven to the local saukar or
money-lender to obtain the means of existence. This is the first great
cause of India's poverty. The second is akin to it, for it exists in the
infinite divisibility of property which arises under the Hindu system of
succession, and which throws insuperable obstructions to the growth of
capital. The rule as to property in Hindu life is that all the members of
a family, father, grandfather, children, and grandchildren, constitute an
undivided partnership, having equal shares in the property, although one
of them, generally the eldest, is recognised as the manager. It is in the
power of any member to sever himself from the family group, and the
tendency of our Government has been to encourage efforts of what may be
called individualism. But the new stock is but the commencement of another
undivided family, so strong is the Hindu feeling in favour of this
time-honoured custom. It is obvious that where the skill, foresight, and
thriftiness required for the creation of capital may be thwarted by the
extravagance or carelessness of any one of a large number of partners, its
growth must be seriously impeded.
It will be seen, if the above arguments are sound, that the obstructions
which oppose themselves to the formation of capital arise out of
immemorial usages, and are irremediable by any direct interference of
Government. But whatever may be the causes of this national poverty, the
fact is undoubted, and it cannot be too steadily contemplated by those who
desire to rely on fresh taxation for their favourite projects, whether it
be for improved administration, for magnificent public works, or for the
extension of our dominions. Mr. Hyndman also points out the great
expensiveness of a foreign government, and his remarks on this subject are
undoubtedly true. The high salaries required to tempt Englishmen of
suitable qualifications to expatriate themselves for the better part of
their lives, and the heavy dead weight of pensions and furlough charges
for such officials, form, no doubt, a heavy burden on the resources of
India. The costliness of a European army is, of course, also undoubtedly
great. But these are charges which, to a less or greater degree, are
inseparable from the dominion of a foreign government. The compensation
for them is to be found in the security they provide against a foreign
invader or against internal disturbances, and the protection they afford,
in a degree hitherto unknown in India, to life, property, and character.
But Mr. Hyndman's diatribes are useful in pointing to the conclusion that
all the efforts of Government should be directed towards the diminution of
these charges, where compatible with efficiency, and his striking contrast
of the home military charges in 1862-63, which then amounted to 28_l._
3_s._, and now have risen in the present year to 66_l._, deserves most
serious consideration.
There is only one other statement of Mr. Hyndman which I desire to notice.
He declares the general opinion of the natives to be that life, as a
whole, has become harder since the English took the country, and he adds
his own opinion that the fact is so. Mr. Hyndman, as we have seen, knows
but little of the actual life of the agricultural population, and of their
state under native rule he probably knows less. But I am inclined to think
he fairly represents a very prevailing belief amongst the natives. A vivid
indication of this native feeling is given in the most instructive work on
Hindu rural life that I have ever met with.[14] Colonel Sleeman thus
recounts a conversation he held with some natives in one of his rambles--
I got an old landowner from one of the villages to walk on
with me a mile and put me in the right road. I asked him
what had been the state of the country under the former
government of the Jats and Mahrattas, and was told that the
greater part was a wild jungle. "I remember," said the old
man, "when you could not have got out of the road hereabouts
without a good deal of risk. I could not have ventured a
hundred yards from the village without the chance of having
my clothes stripped off my back. Now the whole country is
under cultivation, and the roads are safe. Formerly the
governments kept no faith with their landowners and
cultivators, exacting ten rupees where they had bargained
for five whenever they found their crops good. But in spite
of all this _zulm_ (oppression) there was then more _burkul_
(blessings from above) than now; the lands yielded more to
the cultivator."
Colonel Sleeman on the same day asked a respectable farmer what he thought
of the latter statement. He stated: "The diminished fertility is owing, no
doubt, to the want of those salutary fallows which the fields got under
former governments, when invasions and civil wars were things of common
occurrence, and kept at least _two-thirds of the land waste_."
The fact is that, under an orderly government like ours, the causes
alluded to above as impeding the growth of capital become very much
aggravated. Population largely increases, waste lands are brought under
the plough, grazing grounds for stock disappear, and the fallows, formerly
so beneficial in restoring fertility to the soil, can no longer be kept
free from cultivation. All these considerations form portions of the very
difficult problems in government which day by day present themselves to
the Indian administrator. But does Mr. Hyndman think they are to be solved
by recurrence to the native system of government; by the substitution of a
local ruler, sometimes paternal, more frequently the reverse, for the
courts of justice which now administer the law which can be read and
understood by all; by civil contracts being enforced by the armed servant
of the creditor, instead of by the officers of a court acting under
strict surveillance; by the land assessment being collected year by year
through the farmers of the revenue according to their arbitrary will,
instead of being payable in a small moderate[15] sum, unalterable for a
long term of years? If he thinks this--and his allusion to the system of
the non-regulation provinces favours the conclusion--he will not find, I
think, an educated native in the whole of India who will agree with him.
There are great harshnesses in our rule, there is a rigidity and
exactitude of procedure which is often distasteful to native opinion,
there are patent defects arising out of our attempts to administer
justice, there is great irritation at our constant and often ill-conceived
experiments in legislation, there is real danger in the fresh burdens we
lay upon the people in our desire to carry out apparently laudable
reforms. But with all these blemishes, which have only to be distinctly
perceived to be removed from our administrative system, the educated
native feels that he is gradually acquiring the position of a freeman, and
he would not exchange it for that which Mr. Hyndman appears to desiderate.
E. PERRY, _in Nineteenth Century_.