Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/480

458 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL The system of communal h?rding of cattle aggravates tl?e ?[ndian farmer's losses from cattle disease; horned cattle are not killed for food before reaching the period of natural decay, and every herd contains a large proportion of worn out decrepit animals awaiting disease and death, sources of infection to the sounder stock. Enclosures will at least make segregation possible. The Hindus of Southern India have begun to replace the wealth which their country lost when so large a part of its manu- facturing in metals and textiles was transferred to England. The State having limited its demand to about one-sixth of the produce of land has created indirectly--what long ago it failed to create directly a class deriving an income from the rent of land; for some unirrigated and most of the irrigated land pays a rent as great as, or greater than, the Goveroment assessment. This class spent its surplus unproductively until lately, but ?t is finding this surplus increase, and is saving thereout for industrial enterprise. The home market is almost unrivalled, and in trade with Burmah and Africa the Hindu starts with every advantage. We may well hope that even this vast and increasing population may during the coming thirty years find a livelihood, at a higher standard of com- fort than their grandfathers, if they improve the efficiency of their agriculture whilst creatihg new and expanding old industries. To this improvement I believe enclosure to be a condition precedent; most of the waste that can be tilled at a profit is taken up, and the fertility of much of the land is impaired. Providenti.ally the black clay most suitable to cotton and the greater millet needs no manure, water used for irrigation often carries a fertilizing silt on to the land, and every tropical rain storm is in itself a top dressing. Unless good reason be found for some other policy, I hope to see a fair and full estimate of cereal produce recorded; the adequate allowances for v?cissitudes of season made (and these in distr?cts liable to drought need to be liberal); the commutation price fixed for each thirty-year settlement at the true average re- corded price of the thirty years during which t he expiring settle- ment was current. I deny the assumption of the farmer's inability to realize a fair price, and the costs of placing his produce on the market are no longer great. At each revision the extent to which, in the several districts, the various classes of land are tilled by the registered holders or tilled by sub-tenants who pay rent to such holders, and the pro- portion of rent to assessment, should be the subject of inquiry.