Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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These wages, however, correspond with those received by persons in
other lines of employment. The postmen employed by the government,
or letter carriers as we call them, receive a maximum of only
12.41 rupees a month, which is about $3.50, and a minimum of
9.25, which is equivalent to $3.08 in our money. Able-bodied
and skilled mechanics--masons, carpenters and blacksmiths--get
no more than $2.50 to $3.50 a month, and bookkeepers, clerks
and others having indoor occupations, from $4.10 to $5.50 per
month. Taking all of the wage-earners together in India, their
compensation per month is just about as much as the same class
receive per day in the United States.

The encouragement of manufacturing is one of the methods the
government has adopted to prevent or mitigate famines, and its
policy is gradually becoming felt by the increase of mechanical
industries and the employment of the coolie class in lines other
than agriculture. At the same time, the problem is complicated
by the fact that the greater part of the mechanical products of
India have always been produced in the households. Each village
has its own weavers, carpenters, brass workers, blacksmiths and
potters, who are not able to compete with machine-made goods.
Many of these local craftsmen have attained a high standard of
artistic skill in making up silk, wool, linen, cotton, carpets,
brass, iron, silver, wood, ivory and other materials. But their
arts must necessarily decay or depreciate if the local markets are
flooded with cheap products from factories, and there a question
of serious consequence has arisen.

There is very active rivalry in the tea trade of late years.
China formerly supplied the world. Thirty years ago very little
was exported from any other country. Then Japan came in as an
energetic competitor and sent its tea around everywhere, but
the consumption increased as rapidly as the cultivation, so that
China kept her share of the trade. About fifteen years ago India
came into the market; and then Ceylon. The Ceylon export trade
has been managed very skillfully. There has been an enormous
increase in the acreage planted, and 92 per cent of the product
has been sent to the United Kingdom, where it has gradually
supplanted that of China and Japan. Australia has also become
a large consumer of India tea, and the loyalty with which the
two great colonies of Great Britain have stood together is
commendable. In England alone the consumption of India tea has
increased nearly 70 per cent within the last ten years. This is
the result of careful and intelligent effort on the part of the
government. While wild tea is found in Assam and in several of
the states adjoining the Himalayas, tea growing is practically
a new thing in India compared with China and Japan. It was not
until 1830, when Lord William Benthinck was viceroy, that any
considerable amount of tea was produced in India. He introduced
the plant from China and brought men from that country at the
expense of the East India Company to teach the Hindus how to
cultivate it. For many years the results were doubtful and the
efforts of the government were ridiculed. But for the great faith
of two or three patriotic officials the scheme would have been
abandoned. It was remarkably successful, however, until now the
area under tea includes more than half a million acres, the number
of persons employed in the industry exceeds 750,000, the capital
invested in plantations is more than $100,000,000 and the approximate
average yield is about 200,000,000 pounds. In 1903 159,000,000
pounds were exported to England alone, and the total exports
were 182,594,000 pounds. The remainder is consumed in India,
and more than a million pounds annually are purchased for the
use of the army. Among other consumers the United States bought
1,080,000 and China 1,337,000 pounds. Russia, which is the largest
consumer of tea of all the nations, bought 1,625,000 pounds,
and this was a considerable increase, showing that India tea is
becoming popular there.

The industry in India and Ceylon, however, is in a flourishing
condition, the area under cultivation has expanded 85 per cent
and the product has increased 167 per cent during the last fifteen
years. The cultivation is limited to sections where there is a
heavy rainfall and a humid climate, because tea requires water
while it is growing as well as while it is being consumed. Where
these conditions exist it is a profitable crop. In the valleys
of Assam the yield often reaches 450 pounds to the acre. The
quality of the tea depends upon the manner of cultivation, the
character of the soil, the amount of moisture and sunshine and
the age of the leaf at the time of picking. Young, tender leaves
have the finest flavor, and bring the highest prices, but shrink
enormously in curing, and many growers consider it more profitable
to leave them until they are well matured. It requires about
four pounds of fresh leaves to make one pound of dry leaves,
and black tea and green tea are grown from the same bush. If the
leaf is completely dried immediately after picking it retains
its green color, but if it is allowed to stand and sweat for
several hours a kind of fermentation takes place which turns it
black.

There are now about 236,000 acres of coffee orchards in India,
about 111,760 persons are employed upon them and the exports
will average 27,000,000 pounds a year. The coffee growers of
India complain that they cannot compete with Brazil and other
Spanish-American countries where overproduction has forced down
prices below the margin of profit, but the government is doing
as much as it can to encourage and sustain the industry, and
believes that they ought at least to grow enough to supply the
home market. But comparatively little coffee is used in India.
Nearly everybody drinks tea.

Three million acres of land is devoted to the cultivation of
sugar, both cane and beet. During the Cuban revolution the industry
secured quite an impetus, but since the restoration of peace and
the adjustment of affairs, prices have gone down considerably,
and the sugar of India finds itself in direct competition with
the bounty-paid product of Germany, France, Belgium, Austria
and other European countries. In order to protect its planters
the government has imposed countervailing duties against European
sugar, but there has been no perceptible effect from this policy
as yet.

The indigo trade has been very important, but is also in peril
because of the manufacture of chemical dyes in Germany and France.
Artificial indigo and other dyes can be produced in a laboratory
much cheaper than they can be grown in the fields, and, naturally,
people will buy the low-priced article, Twenty years ago India
had practically a monopoly of the indigo trade, and 2,000,000
acres of land were planted to that product, while the value of
the exports often reached $20,000,000. The area and the product
have been gradually decreasing, until, in 1902, only a little
more than 800,000 acres were planted and the exports were valued
at less than $7,000,000.

The quinine industry is also in a deplorable state. About thirty
years ago the Indian government sent botanists to South America
to collect young cinchona trees. They were introduced into various
parts of the empire, where they flourished abundantly until the
export of bark ran nearly to 4,000,000 pounds a year, but since
1899 there has been a steady fall. Exports have declined, prices
have been low, and the government plantations have not paid expenses.
Rather than export the bark at a loss the government has manufactured
sulphate at its own factories and has furnished it at cost price
to the health authorities of the native states, the British
provinces, the army and the hospitals and dispensaries.

One of the most interesting places about Calcutta is the Royal
Botanical Gardens, where many important experiments have been
made for the benefit of the agricultural industry of India. It is
one of the most beautiful and extensive arboreums in the world,
and at the same time its economic usefulness has been unsurpassed
by any similar institution. It was established nearly 150 years
ago by Colonel Kyd, an ardent botanist, under the auspices of
the East India Company, and from its foundation it was intended
to be, as it has been, a source of botanical information, a place
for botanical experiments, and a garden in which plants of economic
value could be cultivated and issued to the public for the purpose
of introducing new products into India. It has been of incalculable
value in all these particulars, not only by introducing new plants,
but by demonstrating which could be grown with profit.

[Illustration: GREAT BANYAN TREE--BOTANICAL GARDEN--CALCUTTA]

The garden lies along the bank of the Ganges, about six miles
south of the city, and is filled with trees and plants of the
rarest varieties and the greatest beauty you can imagine. No
other garden will equal it except perhaps that at Colombo. It
is 272 acres in extent, has a large number of ponds and lakes,
and many fine avenues of palms, mahogany, mangos, tamarinds,
plantains and other trees, and its greatest glory is a banyan
tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world.

A banyan, as you know, represents a miniature forest rather than
a single tree, because it has branches which grow downward as
well as upward, and take root in the ground and grow with great
rapidity. This tree is about 135 years old. The circumference of
its main trunk five and a half feet from the ground is 51 feet.
Its topmost leaf is eighty-five feet from the ground. It has 464
aerial roots, as the branches which run down to the ground are
called, and the entire tree is 938 feet in circumference. It
is large enough to shelter an entire village under its foliage.

Several other remarkable trees are to be found in that garden.
One of them is called "The Crazy Tree," because about thirty-five
different varieties of trees have been grafted upon the same
trunk, and, as a consequence, it bears that many different kinds
of leaves. Its foliage suggests a crazy quilt.

Benares is the center of the opium traffic of India, which, next
to the land tax, is the most productive source of revenue to
the government. It is a monopoly inherited from the Moguls in
the middle ages and passed down from them through the East India
Company to the present government, and the regulations for the
cultivation, manufacture and sale of the drug have been very
little changed for several hundred years. There have been many
movements, public, private, national, international, religious
and parliamentary, for its suppression; there have been many
official inquiries and investigations; volumes have been written
setting forth all the moral questions involved, and it is safe
to say that every fact and argument on both sides has been laid
before the public; yet it is an astonishing fact that no official
commission or legally constituted body, not a single Englishman who
has been personally responsible for the well-being of the people of
India or has even had an influential voice in the affairs of the
empire or has ever had actual knowledge and practical experience
concerning the effects of opium, has ever advocated prohibition
either in the cultivation of the poppy or in the manufacture of
the drug. Many have made suggestions and recommendations for
the regulation and restriction of the traffic, and the existing
laws are the result of the experience of centuries. But anti-opium
movements have been entirely in the hands of missionaries, religious
and moral agitators in England and elsewhere outside of India,
and politicians who have denounced the policy of the government
to obtain votes against the party that happened to be in power.

This is an extraordinary statement, but it is true. It goes without
saying that the use of opium in any form is almost universally
considered one of the most dangerous and destructive of vices,
and it is not necessary in this connection to say anything on
that side of the controversy. It is interesting, however, and
important, to know the facts and arguments used by the Indian
government to justify its toleration of the vice, which, generally
speaking, is based upon three propositions:

1. That the use of opium in moderation is necessary to thousands
of honest, hard-working Hindus, and that its habitual consumers
are among the most useful, the most vigorous and the most loyal
portion of the population. The Sikhs, who are the flower of the
Indian army and the highest type of the native, are habitual
opium smokers, and the Rajputs, who are considered the most manly,
brave and progressive of the native population, use it almost
universally.

2. That the government cannot afford to lose the revenue and
much less afford to undertake the expense and assume the risk of
rebellion and disturbances incurred by any attempt at prohibition.

3. That the export of opium to China and other countries is
legitimate commerce.

The opium belt of India is about 600 miles long and 180 miles
wide, lying just above a line drawn from Bombay to Calcutta. The
total area cultivated with poppies will average 575,000 acres.
The crop is grown in a few months in the summer, so that the land
can produce another crop of corn or wheat during the rest of the
year. About 1,475,000 people are engaged in the cultivation of the
poppy and about 6,000 in the manufacture of the drug. The area
is regulated by the government commissioners. The smallest was in
1892, when only 454,243 acres were planted, and the maximum was
reached in 1900, when 627,311 acres were planted. In the latter
year the government adopted 625,000 acres as the standard area,
and 48,000 chests as the standard quantity to be produced in
British india. Hereafter these figures will not be exceeded. The
largest amount ever produced was in 1872, when the total quantity
manufactured in British India was 61,536 chests of 140 pounds
average weight. The lowest amount during the last thirty-five
years was in 1894, when only 37,539 chests were produced. In
addition to this from 20,000 to 30,000 chests are produced in
the native states.

The annual average value of the crop for the last twenty years
has been about $60,000,000 in American money, the annual revenue
has been about $24,000,000, and the officials say that this is a
moderate estimate of the sum which the reformers ask the government
of India to sacrifice by suppressing the trade. In addition to
this the growers receive about $5,500,000 for opium "trash,"
poppy seeds, oil and other by-products which are perfectly free
from opium. The "trash" is made of stalks and leaves and is used
at the factories for packing purposes; the seeds of the poppy
are eaten raw and parched, are ground for a condiment in the
preparation of food, and oil is produced from them for table,
lubricating and illuminating purposes, and for making soaps,
paints, pomades and other toilet articles. Oil cakes made from the
fiber of the seeds after the oil has been expressed are excellent
food for cattle, being rich in nitrogen, and the young seedlings,
which are removed at the first weeding of the crop, are sold in
the markets for salad and are very popular with the lower classes.

No person can cultivate poppies in India without a license from
the government, and no person can sell his product to any other
than government agents, who ship it to the official factories at
Patna and Ghazipur, down the River Ganges a little below Benares.
Any violation of the regulations concerning the cultivation of
the poppy, the manufacture, transport, possession, import or
export, sale or use of opium, is punished by heavy penalties,
both fine and imprisonment. The government regulates the extent
of cultivation according to the state of the market and the stock
of opium on hand. It pays an average of $1 a pound for the raw
opium, and wherever necessary the opium commissioners are authorized
to advance small sums to cultivators to enable them to pay the
expense of the crop. These advances are deducted from the amount
due when the opium is delivered. The yield, taking the country
together, will average about twelve and a half pounds, or about
twelve dollars per acre, not including the by-products.

The raw opium arrives at the factory in big earthen jars in the
form of a paste, each jar containing about 87-1/2 pounds. It
is carefully tested for quality and purity and attempts at
adulteration are severely punished. The grower is paid cash by
the government agents. The jars, having been emptied into large
vats, are carefully scraped and then smashed so as to prevent
scavengers from obtaining opium from them, and there is a mountain
of potsherds on the river bank beside the factory.

Each vat contains about 20,000 pounds of opium, lying six or
eight inches deep, and about the consistency of ordinary paste.
Hundreds of coolies are employed to mix it by trampling it with
their bare feet. The work is severe upon the muscles of the legs
and the tramplers have to be relieved every half hour. Three
gangs are generally kept at work, resting one hour and working
half an hour. Ropes are stretched for them to take hold of. After
the stuff is thoroughly mixed it is made up into cakes by men
and women, who wrap it in what is known as opium "trash," pack
it in boxes and seal them hermetically for export. Each cake
weighs about ten pounds, is about the size of a croquet ball,
and is worth from ten to fifteen dollars, according to its purity
under assay.

The largest part of the product is shipped to China, but a certain
number of chests are retained for sale to licensed dealers in
different provinces by the excise department. In 1904 there were
8,730 licensed shops, generally distributed throughout the entire
empire. But it is claimed by Lord Curzon that the average number
of consumers is only about two in every thousand of the population.

The revenue from licenses is very large. No dealer is permitted
to sell more than three tolas (about one and one-eighth ounces)
to any person, and no opium can be consumed upon the premises
of the dealer. Private smoking clubs and public opium dens were
forbidden in 1891, but the strict enforcement of the law has been
considered inexpedient for many reasons, chief of which is that
less opium is consumed when it is smoked in these places than when
it is used privately in the form of pills, which are more common
in India than elsewhere. Frequent investigation has demonstrated
that opium consumers are more apt to use it to excess when it is
taken in private than when it is taken in company, and there are
innumerable regulations for the government of smoking-rooms and
clubs and for the restriction and discouragement of the habit.
The amount consumed in India is about 871,820 pounds annually.
The amount exported will average 9,800,000 pounds.

Opium intended for export is sold at auction at Calcutta at the
beginning of every month, and, in order to prevent speculation,
the number of chests to be sold each month during the year is
announced in January. Considerable fluctuation in prices is caused
by the demand and the supply on hand in China. The lowest price
on record was obtained at the June sale in 1898, when all that
was offered went for 929 rupees per chest of 140 pounds, while
the highest price ever obtained was 1,450 rupees per chest. The
exports of opium vary considerably. The maximum, 86,469 chests,
was reached in 1891; the minimum, 59,632, in 1896.

The consumption in India during the last few years has apparently
decreased. This is attributed to several reasons, including increased
prices, restrictive measures for the suppression of the vice, the
famine, changes in the habits of the people, and smuggling; but
it is the conviction of all the officials concerned in handling
opium that its use is not so general as formerly, and its abuse
is very small. They claim that it is used chiefly by hard-working
people and enables them to resist fatigue and sustain privation,
and that the prevailing opinion that opium consumers are all
degraded, depraved and miserable wretches, enfeebled in body
and mind, is not true. It is asserted by the inspectors that
the greater part of the opium sold in India is used by moderate
people, who take their daily dose and are actually benefited
rather than injured by it. At the same time it is admitted that
the drug is abused by many, and that the habit is usually acquired
by people suffering from painful diseases, who begin by taking
a little for relief and gradually increase the dose until they
cannot live without it.

In 1895 an unusually active agitation for the suppression of the
trade resulted in the appointment of a parliamentary commission,
of which Lord Brassey was chairman. They made a thorough
investigation, spending several months in India, examining more
than seven hundred witnesses, of which 466 were natives, and
their conclusions were that it is the abuse and not the use of
opium that is harmful, and "that its use among the people of
India as a rule is a moderate use, that excess is exceptional
and is condemned by public opinion; that the use of opium in
moderation is not attended by injurious consequences, and that no
extended physical or moral degradation is caused by the habit."

XXX

CALCUTTA, THE CAPITAL OF INDIA

Calcutta is a modern city compared with the rest of India. It has
been built around old Fort William, which was the headquarters
of the East India Company 200 years ago, and is situated upon the
bank of the River Hoogly, one of the many mouths of the Ganges,
about ninety miles from the Bay of Bengal. The current is so swift
and the channel changes so frequently that the river cannot be
navigated at night, nor without a pilot. The native pilots are
remarkably skillful navigators, and seem to know by instinct
how the shoals shift. For several miles below the city the banks
of the river are lined with factories of all kinds, which have
added great wealth to the empire. Old Fort William disappeared
many years ago, and a new fort was erected a mile or two farther
down the river, where it could command the approaches to the
city, but that also is now old-fashioned, and could not do much
execution if Calcutta were attacked. The fortifications near
the mouth of the river are supposed to be quite formidable, but
Calcutta is not a citadel, and in case of war must be defended
by battle ships and other floating fortresses. It is one of the
cities of India which shows a rapid growth of population, the
gain during ten years having been 187,178, making the total
population, by the census of 1901, 1,026,987.

The city takes its name from a village which stood in the
neighborhood at the time the East India Company located there.
It was famous for a temple erected in honor of Kali, the fearful
wife of the god Siva, the most cruel, vindictive and relentless
of all the heathen deities. The temple still stands, being more
than 400 years old, and "Kali, the Black One," still sits upon her
altar, hideous in appearance, gorgon-headed, wearing a necklace
of human skulls and dripping with fresh blood from the morning
sacrifice of sheep and goats. She brings pestilence, famine, war
and sorrows and suffering of all kinds, and can only be propitiated
by the sacrifice of life. Formerly nothing but human blood would
satisfy her, and thousands, some claim tens of thousands, of
victims have been slain before her image in that ancient temple.
Human offerings were forbidden by the English many years ago,
but it is believed that they are occasionally made even now when
famine and plague are afflicting the people. During the late
famine it is suspected that an appeal for mercy was sealed with
the sacrifice of infants. Residents of the neighborhood assert
that human heads, dripping with blood and decorated with flowers,
have been seen in the temple occasionally since 1870. It is the
only notable temple in Calcutta, and is visited by tourists, but
they are allowed to go only so far and no farther, for fear that
Kali might be provoked by the intrusion. It is a ghastly, filthy,
repulsive place, and was formerly the southern headquarters of
that organized caste of religious assassins known as Thugs.

A little beyond the Temple of Kali is the burning ghat of Calcutta.
Here the Hindus bring the bodies of their dead and burn them on
funeral pyres. The cremations may be witnessed every morning
by anyone who cares to take the trouble to drive out there. They
take place in an open area surrounded by temples and shrines
on one side, and large piles of firewood and the palm cottages
of the attendants on the other. The river which flows by the
burning ground is covered with all kinds of native craft, carrying
on commerce between the city and the country, and the ashes of
the dead are cast between them upon the sacred waters from a
flight of stone steps which leads to the river's brink. There is
no more objection to a stranger attending the burning ceremonies
than would be offered to his presence at a funeral in the United
States. Indeed, friends who frequently accompany the bodies of
the dead feel flattered at the attention and often take bunches
of flowers from the bier and present them to bystanders.

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