Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎528v] (181/238)

394 Proceedings of the East India Association.
17s. of the average agriculturist—might have had some force had the
difference been commensurate with any conceivable difference in climate
or cost of necessaries; but when it comes to multiplying by fifty-two
—or, more properly, by 122—the disproportion between the suggested
cause and the effect becomes rather ludicrous. The clearest admission,
however, of the actual wretchedness involved in Indian poverty was made
the other day by Lord George Hamilton in the very argument by which he
sought to extenuate it. He argued that the food to be provided out of this
i^d.—he should have said id.—a day per head was less than might be
supposed, because the proportion of children to adults is so abnormally
large in India. But why is it so ? Because, in his own words, the birth
rate and death-rate are higher than in Europe. And what is there to
account for a high death-rate under the pax Britannica, unless it be
general and chronic poverty? Mr. Digby makes out that the average
length of life is twenty-three and a half years, as against forty years in
Great Britain, and the last statistical abstract shows a death-rate of
thirty per 1,000, as against eighteen per 1,000 in the whole United
Kingdom.
2. Amount and Incidetice of Taxation. —My contention has not been
answered, that the ratio between land assessment and gross produce cannot
by itself prove anything as to the moderation or severity of the former ;
consequently that, in so far as the authorities choose to rest their case
upon this, they practically admit that they have been working all along in
the dark. I hold with Mr. BademPoweil that, whether we choose to call
the land revenue “tax ” or “rent,” it operates as a tax upon agricultural
incomes, so that unless we know the net income we cannot tell whether
it is oppressive or not.
Mr. Thorburn ridicules the attempts made on both sides to arrive at this
income, but his own opinion as to what he calls the “ light rigidity ” of the
system must rest on similar data or on nothing. He would have us imitate
the “ elasticity ” of the old native methods, taking less than at present in
bad years (which is well), and proportionately more in good years (which
may not be so well). He is impressed rightly enough with the advantage
of diminishing the cultivator’s dependence on the money-lender; has he
sufficiently considered the danger of not leaving sufficient margin of profit
from a good crop to encourage thrift and enterprise ?
Mr. Pennington quotes expert opinion to the effect that low rents are
found in Madras to encourage slovenly farming. If there is any truth in
this, it must surely be because the system is such that the reward for pro
ducing larger crops by greater skill and industry will be to have the rent
raised at the next assessment. If raiyatzvari holdings were permanently
settled, with or without provisoes for intercepting unearned increments, it
would be seen whether the raiyat is accessible to the motives which have
made his French counterpart the hardest of workers and the keenest of
bidders for Government securities, and the experiment would surely be
worth making at the sacrifice of some of the revenue now spent on
inefficient schools.
3. The Need for Increased Expenditure in other Directions. —The only