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. Government Press, 1915. And other works. By J. MacKenna. 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 commercial activities of the Company involved developments in such staples as indigo, jute, tea and coffee, important to the foreign merchant rather than the local consumer. Throughout this period the peasant did his best to grow what the market wanted, but his work was done in the old way; and perhaps the only important step towards improvement of methods was the adoption, in the first half of the 19th century, of a policy of stateirrigation works, definitively marked by the opening of the Ganges Canal in 1854. Meanwhile the gradual improvement of the internal administration during the period of the Company's rule resulted on the one hand in increased facilities for the disposal of produce, and on the other hand in the rise into prominence of the question of land-tenure, a question which had to be settled before any great developments in agriculture could be expected to occur. Put very shortly, the essence of the new situation was the appearance of competition for land; under earlier rulers there had usually been enough land for everyone, and the more or less vague customs which embodied the conditions of tenure proved inadequate, in the presence of this new factor, to maintain that security of possession which is the primary condition of successful agriculture as distinguished from the practice of exploitation and exhaustion. The first legislative attempt to secure the peasant in the occupation of his holding was made in 1859, the year following the transfer of authority to the Crown; and subsequent efforts in the same direction occupy no small portion of the Indian Statute-book. When the administration of the country passed to the Crown in the year 1858, the position in regard to agriculture may be described as follows. The old commercial policy of the Company was dead, though survivals of its spirit may still be traced in some circles in England; the need for an agricultural policy had not yet been realised; and commerce and agriculture alike were in the main left free to develop on their own lines. At the same time some of the most urgent material needs of both interests were being met by the action of the State; and the prolonged discussions regarding landtenure had served in some measure to pave the way for the consideration of an agricultural policy, the moulding of which was to continue during the remainder of the century. Meanwhile, however, under the administration of the Crown, the provision of material needs was accelerated; while, with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, fresh commercial possibilities came into being, and India entered into the world's markets not merely as a purveyor of specialities but in order to sell the surplus of her grain and oilseeds and cotton, the staple produce of the ordinary peasants. The recognition that an agricultural policy was needed came as the result of two distinct impulses which we may describe as fiscal and humanitarian. On the fiscal side, the truth of the aphorism, 'Paysans pauvres, pauvre royaume,' was brought home to the Administration by practical experience. The State, like all its predecessors, depended for its revenue on a share of the produce of the soil. The methods of assessment prevailing under Moslem rule had been so far modified that the claim was made not on the gross but on the net produce, that is to say the surplus which remained after providing for the producer's livelihood; and the financial interest of the State required the net produce to be as large as possible. Immediate expenditure for agricultural purposes could be justified by the prospect of an enhanced revenue; and the State was seen to occupy the position of a partner in the industry, and to be charged as a partner with the duty of looking ahead and safeguarding the future. Now the success of the industry was found to be threatened in two ways. On the one hand there were the sudden calamities, still correctly designated famines, which not merely destroyed the produce of the season but resulted in serious loss of capital and not less serious loss of producers, and thus affected production for an indefinite period. On the other hand, there was the gradual decline of agricultural efficiency, due not to any sudden calamity but to some slowly acting, cumulative cause, leading to gradual impoverishment and loss of the peasant's resources. The reality of both these dangers was brought home by repeated experience, but it was naturally the sudden and startling calamities which first forced themselves on the attention of the administration; and it was here that the fiscal impulse to action was reinforced most strongly by the humanitarian. |