Art. 3.-THE FUTURE OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE. 1. Reports of the Indian Famine Commissions. Spottiswoode, 1880, 1901. 2. Report on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture. By Dr J. A. Voelcker. Spottiswoode, 1892. 3. Report on Agricultural Banks. By F. A. Nicholson. Madras: Government Press, 1895. 4. People's Banks for Northern India. By H. Dupernex. Calcutta: Thacker, 1900. 5. Report of the Indian Irrigation Commission. Spottiswoode, 1903. 6. Proceedings of the Board of Agriculture in India. Calcutta Government Press, 1905. 7. Report of the Committee on Co-operation in India. Simla Government Press, 1915. 8. Agriculture in India. By J. MacKenna. Government Press, 1915. And other works. Calcutta: THIS article is concerned with the livelihood of about 200,000,000 human beings. They live and work under almost every conceivable variety of conditions; in climates where the rainfall may be five inches or fifty feet, and where the records of temperature and humidity may fluctuate between equally divergent limits; on bare and shifting sands, on rich alluvial plains, on the thin soils of rocky plateaux, or the deep margins of the river beds. They produce most of the staples alike of tropical and temperate regions; and their material and moral equipment varies as widely as the fruits which their efforts secure. The question may well be asked whether any general statements can be made regarding the operations of men who work under such varying conditions; and the objection is so far valid that no such statement can be made which is not subject to exceptions and qualifications of greater or less importance. But, allowance being made for these, it is possible to set forth a certain number of general propositions which are applicable to the greater part of the country, and which, taken in the aggregate and considered along with the peculiar social and intellectual environment, serve to distinguish the Indian system from the agriculture of Vol. 226.-No. 449. 2 A most other portions of the world. The most important of these propositions may be stated as follows. In the first place, the outlook of the Indian peasant is fundamentally vegetarian. He does not, as a rule, eat flesh of any sort; and the production for the market of meat and other animal substances, including even milk and butter, is mainly in the hands of special classes of the people and does not enter into the business of the ordinary agriculturist. Secondly, capitalist farming is an exception; the bulk of the land is occupied in small holdings, cultivated largely by the labour of the peasant and his family. Thirdly, agriculture is even now largely in the self-supporting stage; a supply of food for the household is still the peasant's primary object, although the importance of raising produce for sale is steadily increasing. Fourthly, the climate of the greater part of the country renders artificial irrigation either necessary or desirable, if not for the ordinary staples, at least for the success of the more costly and remunerative crops. Fifthly, the agricultural industry has been subject to frequent periods of entire disorganisation consequent on the failure of the seasonal rains, and resulting, in the past, not only in the terrible mortality which formerly marked the progress of a famine but also in the destruction, more or less complete, of the meagre capital employed by the peasant. As the result of this and other causes, agricultural capital has been scarce and dear throughout the centuries which are to any extent open to our observation. Lastly, and on a somewhat different plane, the industry grew up in conditions where iron was a rare and costly product *-a fact of which the results are seen not merely in the nature of the indigenous appliances but in the difficulty experienced by the peasants in maintaining the new implements now placed in their hands. These and other conditions, operating through a period which must be counted by centuries, though its limits cannot be precisely defined, have combined to * Some writers speak in glowing terms of the indigenous iron industry as it existed before it was killed by imports from Europe. It is true that iron was manufactured of good quality and in considerable amount, but to the peasant its cost was prohibitive. In the late 16th century, from 20 to 40 lbs of wheat were required to purchase a pound of iron nails; at present prices a pound of nails is worth about two pounds of wheat. produce the Indian peasant as the English found him in the 18th or 19th century, and substantially as he is today. He is usually hard-working, and within limits he is highly skilled, but those limits are closely drawn. He knows the kind of produce which he and his neighbours need, and he has learned by experience how these needs can be profitably met, but the wider markets of the world are a mystery to whose workings he can only submit; he is ill equipped to cope with the movements in prices or in the cost of labour and power which have resulted from the entry of India into the commercial circle of the nations; and he is faced at every turn by the want of working capital which makes enterprise impossible, or by the high cost of borrowing which absorbs the entire profit. So long as he is producing for himself on the old lines, he is on fairly safe ground; he can make some sort of a living by raising the common food-crops-rice in the humid areas, barley, millets and pulses elsewhere, with wheat in more favoured localities —and, if the vagaries of the rainfall make his efforts of no avail, he can now look with confidence to the State for temporary aid, and is to that extent in a better position than his forefathers. But, when he begins to produce for a distant market, his fate is too often that of the earthen vessel among the brass; his ignorance places him at the mercy of the astute and well-informed buyers; and changes in demand or in production in other countries may bring his enterprise to naught. It will readily be understood that, in this environment, changes in the course of agriculture are likely to result from external stimulus rather than internal inspiration. The history of the subject is still unwritten, but, taking the period from the establishment of the Moghul Empire in the 16th century to the termination of the rule of the East India Company in 1858, it is not possible to point to the occurrence of any important change in agricultural processes, while changes in products resulted less from conscious effort towards improvement than from the developments of foreign commerce. Thus the communication with America established through the Portuguese led to the introduction of a variety of important crops, including maize, tobacco, ground-nuts and potatoes; while, at a later period, the |