THE KAISER'S OWN MAN' 485 possess is tabulated with infinite care. But he is keenly alive to the fact that colonies cannot be founded, or war-ships built, without money; and that money can be obtained only from the Reichstag. The first thing to be done, therefore, he holds, is to capture' the Reichstag at any cost an end must be put to the present strained relations between the Crown and the representatives of the Empire.

EDITH SELLERS.

INDIA

I

A REMEDIABLE GRIEVANCE

THE native press of India tells us that the country is deeply discontented, and that the British rule is consequently in danger. We know that the class to which the writers for that press belong is thoroughly discontented; but we know also that it is a class which is very widely divergent from the vast majority of the people of India in its desires and in its views of administration; while its regard for the truth as displayed in its publications is infinitesimal, if indeed it can be considered to exist at all. This being so its cry has received scant consideration.

But I have now before me a pamphlet by an author of a very different stamp. The Talookdars of Oudh are a select and privileged landed aristocracy, which includes representatives of all the highest castes of Upper India. Of this intensely conservative body the author, the Honourable Seth Rughbur Dyal, Member of the Legislative Council of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, is a member. Though, like all aristocracies, the Indian nobility, of whatever caste, is conservative, yet there is in that country a still more conservative class, that to which all the great banking firms belong, and of this class is the family of Seth Rughbur Dyal. Though a resident and landowner of Oudh, he may on the subject he discusses be taken as a very sufficient representative of the views of the landed proprietors of the North-Western Provinces and the Punjaub—that is, of the most important section of India. When a man of this stamp comes forward publicly to warn Government that discontent exists to a dangerous extent, his warning deserves at least the careful and serious consideration of all who have at heart the interests of the Empire.

Seth Rughbur Dyal takes as his text a passage from an article in the Calcutta Review written twenty-two years ago by Sir Charles Crosthwaite, K.C.S.I., then an officer in the Settlement Department in the North-West Provinces, the line which of all others brings our revenue officers in closest touch with the people of India, the people who live by the land. It is with the case of these people that the author deals, for, as he says truly, India is an agricultural country,

nearly four-fifths of her population looking to the land for their living, while on agriculture Government depends for the bulk of its revenue. The people who live by the land are for our Government the people of India, and they are a silent folk; so, as the Seth points out, it has come about that while much fuss is made over small legislative enactments which will actually affect the lives of an utterly insignificant fraction of the people of India, most serious decisions on questions regarding the land and affecting many millions vitally receive scanty attention.

This text runs, 'The conviction has forced itself on me that our Government is no longer the same to them [the people] that it was. A feeling of distrust that may easily warm into active dislike is growing up. An idea that Government is hard, leans on its own power and strength, and no longer adapts its measures to the wishes or even the good of the people is beginning to prevail.

On that text Seth Rughbur Dyal preaches us a melancholy sermon. He writes

'I feel that a feeling of discontent, a direct result of an inconsiderate land policy of the Indian Government, is fast growing up amongst the masses, and that the existence of this feeling at a time. when the shadow of poverty has nearly extinguished the light of hope from their horizon is a political danger of no small magnitude.' Then he continues

'The poverty of India is increasing day by day and hour by hour; the great source of national wealth-land-has already been saddled with the maximum of taxation; the landowning classes are sinking away under the pressure of penury and want, and a vast mass of groaning, half-starving population is fast becoming a permanent feature of a country which has throughout history been known as one of the most fertile and beautiful spots on the face of the earth.'

It may be stated here that the author says the above was written before the famine.

He goes on to state the causes of the condition of things which he declares to exist, saying that though there are many causes to which it might be ascribed, the most potent of them is 'the exacting Land Revenue system which has been imposed upon India ; ' and again, 'The theoretical perfection of the present Land Revenue system has been achieved at the cost of its practical utility;' and further, 'The experience of ages speaks to us with the tongue of history that unless more elastic and less exorbitant methods are adopted for the collection of the Land Revenue the British Government will not be able to make the people prosperous and contented, whatever other boons it may confer upon them.'

Again, he writes, 'The land policy is the one dark spot in its career [the career of the British Government]. The discontent

which it has bred in the heart of the peasant classes is "the little rift within the lute."

He states that a considerable portion of the agricultural population is ill-fed and ill-clad, and always hovering on the verge of starvation,' and regarding the whole avers that 'indebtedness has become one of the most conspicuous features of the agricultural classes in India.'

The author then proceeds to show that this impoverished state of India is due to a variety of causes. First of all it is due to an enormous increase of the population . . . The primeval blessing of being fruitful and multiplying has turned into a bitter curse and is the cause of a considerable amount of misery existing in the country.'

Secondly, he says there is the cost of foreign agency and the home charges; thirdly, the rise in exchange and the enormous cost of military expeditions; fourthly, the backwardness of India in industrial pursuits; fifthly, the 'heavy land revenue,' which, he says, 'has crippled our resources and paralysed our industries,' and which is the most considerable factor in the economic problem of India.'

The Seth's advice is that the Government should curtail its expenditure and make a permanent settlement of the land revenue. In closing this necessarily very brief statement of his views I may make one more quotation from his pamphlet, viz. 'Exaggeration is one of the most conspicuous features of Oriental writers.'

Now, after allowing the large deductions' which must be made from statements in words or writing by most persons of Eastern race, the picture drawn by Seth Rughbur Dyal is a sufficiently gloomy one. He has touched upon various subjects of deep interest-the food supply of the country, the condition of the labouring classes, the possible extension of industries other than agricultural in India— which tempt discussion, but I would in this article confine myself strictly to the question of discontent among the landholding classes.

If marked discontent exists among the landholding classes of Upper India, there must, as the Seth says, be political danger. The India which, as regards the feelings of the people towards us, is of especial importance is rural India; and a very large proportion of the people of rural India own land, though it be but a minute fractional share in the joint estate of a brotherhood. There may be much bitterness between the landlords and the tenants about rent and other matters, but in any real difficulty caste and clanship would range them together; and the landlords and tenants make up not only the backbone but the bulk of the agricultural population. So far as the agricultural labourers are worth reckoning they may be ranged on the side of their employers.

Does this discontent exist? Seth Rughbur Dyal, writing not as

an irresponsible journalist, but as a man of high position, connected with the Government, and having ample means of knowing the facts, warns us that it does, and his words may have weight with that portion of the British public which distrusts its own countrymen. As an officer of the Indian Government who spent thirty-five years in its service, and the greater part of whose duty was in connection with the land, I have no doubt as to the correctness of the Seth's statement, and I take it that most revenue officers of experience will also agree with him.

Agreeing with Seth Rughbur Dyal as to the existence of discontent, I must differ from him to a great extent as to its cause, and the remedy for it. There are two matters which would account for some bias in his views. Just after the annexation of Oudh the British Government made a settlement of the land revenue on the usual terms, which may be roughly stated as a demand of something over 50 per cent. of the rental for a term of thirty years. Under the British Government the condition of Oudh improved very rapidly and very greatly, so that for years past the Oudh landlords have been enjoying 70 or 80 per cent. of the actual rentals of their estates, instead of their fixed share of 45 or so per cent. The term of settlement having expired, a new one is being made on the same or rather on more favourable terms to the landlords than before; but at the best the landlords find their incomes greatly reduced, and not unnaturally think how profitable for them a permanent settlement would be.

The other point which would doubtless bias the Seth's mind somewhat is that he belongs to a great family of bankers, hereditary lenders of money.

Seth Rughbur Dyal argues that the share of the rental taken by the State is too large, and that our demand is heavier than that taken by the rulers who went before the British Government; but his argument as set forth in his pamphlet appears to me to fail entirely in proof of this. I do not think it necessary to go into details on this point, because I do not think that this charge of excessive demand of land revenue is often made against us. During my long service I have had innumerable discussions on revenue matters with natives of India of every degree, from the noble who owned vast tracts in several districts to the peasant who had only a few acres. Talking privately with an officer for whom they have no dislike and in whom they feel some trust, such persons will criticise the acts of Government freely; but the argument that their land revenue was too heavily assessed has always in my experience been infrequent and in the great majority of cases in which it was advanced it was urged not against our rules for assessment, but against our alleged mistake in their application.

The Seth then says that our system of collecting the land revenue