Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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More than 200,000,000 persons in India are living upon less than
5 cents a day of our money; more than 100,000,000 are living
upon less than 3 cents; more than 50,000,000 upon less than 1
cent and at least two-thirds of the entire population do not
have food enough during any year of their lives to supply the
nourishment demanded by the human system. As I have already shown,
there are only two acres of land under cultivation for each
inhabitant of India. This includes gardens, parks and pastures,
and it is not evenly distributed. In many parts of the country,
millions are compelled to live upon an average of one-fourth
of an acre of land and millions more upon half an acre each,
whereas an average of five acres of agricultural land per capita
of population is believed to be necessary to the prosperity of
a nation.

Few countries have such an enormous birth rate and death rate.
Nowhere else are babies born in such enormous numbers, and nowhere
does death reap such awful harvests. Sometimes a single famine or
plague suddenly sweeps millions into eternity, and their absence
is scarcely noticed. Before the present sanitary regulations and
inspections were introduced the death rate was nearly double
what it is now; indeed, some experts estimate that it must have
been several times as great, but no records were kept in some
of the provinces, and in most of them, they were incomplete and
inaccurate. India is now in a healthier condition than ever before,
and yet the death rate varies from 31.10 per 1,000 in the cold
provinces of Agra and Oudh to 82.7 per 1,000 in the tropical
regions of Behar. In Bombay last year the rate was 70.07 per
1,000; in the central provinces 56.75; in the Punjab, which has
a wide area in northwestern India, it was 47.7 and in Bengal
36.63.

The birth rate is almost as large, the following table being reported
from the principal provinces named:

Births per Births per
1,000 pop. 1,000 pop.
Behar 50.5 Burmah 37.4
Punjab 48.4 Bombay 36.3
Agra 48.9 Assam 35.4
Central provinces 47.3 Madras 31.3
Bengal 42.9

Even with the continual peril from plague and famine, the government
does not encourage emigration, as you think would be considered
a wise policy, but retards it by all sorts of regulations and
restrictions, and it is difficult to drive the Hindus out of
the wretched hovels in which they live and thrive and breed like
rats or rabbits. The more wretched and comfortless a home, the
more attached the natives are to it. The less they have to leave
the more reluctant they are to leave it, but the same rule applies
to every race and every nation in the south of Europe and the
Turkish Empire, in Syria, Egypt, the East India Islands, and
wherever the population is dense and wages are low. It is the
semi-prosperous middle class who emigrate in the hope of bettering
their condition.

There is less emigration from India than from any other country.
During the last twenty years the total number of persons emigrating
from the Indian Empire was only 316,349, less than come to the
United States annually from Italy, and the statistics show that
138,660 of these persons returned to their former homes during
that period, leaving the net emigration since 1882 only 177,689
out of 300,000,000 of population. And most of these settled in
other British colonies. We have a few Hindu merchants and Parsees
in the United States, but no coolies whatever. The coolies are
working classes that have gone to British Guiana, Trinidad, Jamaica
and other West Indies, Natal, East Africa, Fiji and other British
possessions in the Pacific. There has been a considerable flow
of workmen back and forth between India and Burma and Ceylon,
for in those provinces labor is scarce, wages are high and large
numbers of Hindus are employed in the rice paddies and tea
plantations.

The government prevents irregular emigration. It has a "protectorate
of emigrants" who is intrusted with the enforcement of the laws.
Natives of India are not permitted to leave the country unless
they are certain of obtaining employment at the place where they
desire to go, and even then each intending emigrant must file
a copy of his contract with the commissioner in order that he
may be looked after in his new home, for the Indian government
always sends an agent to protect the interests of its coolies to
every country where they have gone in any considerable numbers.
Every intending emigrant must submit to a medical examination also,
for the navigation laws prohibit vessels from taking aboard any
native who does not show a certificate from an official that he
is in full possession of his health and faculties and physically
fit to earn his living in a strange country. Vessels carrying
emigrants are subject to inspection, and are obliged to take out
licenses, which require them to observe certain rules regarding
space occupied, ventilation, sanitation and the supply of food and
water. Most of the emigrants leaving India go out under contract
and the terms must be approved by the agent of the government.

The fact that the government and the benevolent people of Europe
and America have twice within the last ten years been compelled to
intervene to save the people of India from perishing of starvation
has created an impression that they are always in the lowest
depths of distress and continually suffering from any privations.
This is not unnatural, and might under ordinary circumstances
be accepted as conclusive proof of the growing poverty of the
country and the inability of the people to preserve their own
lives. Such a conclusion, however, is very far from the fact, and
every visitor to India from foreign lands has a surprise awaiting
him concerning its condition and progress. When three-fifths of
a population of 300,000,000 have all their eggs in one basket
and depend entirely upon little spots of soil for sustenance,
and when their crops are entirely dependent upon the rains, and
when for a succession of years the rains are not sufficient,
there must be failures of harvest and a vast amount of suffering
is inevitable. But the recuperative power of the empire is
astonishing.

Although a famine may extend over its total length and breadth
one season, and require all the resources of the government to
prevent the entire population from perishing, a normal rainfall
will restore almost immediate prosperity, because the soil is so
rich, the sun is so hot, and vegetation is so rapid that sometimes
three and even four crops are produced from the same soil in a
single year. All the people want in time of famine is sufficient
seed to replant their farms and food enough to last them until
a crop is ripe. The fact that a famine exists in one part of
the country, it must also be considered, is no evidence that
the remainder of the empire is not abounding in prosperity, and
every table of statistics dealing with the material conditions of
the country shows that famine and plague have in no manner impeded
their progress. On the other hand they demonstrate the existence
of an increased power of endurance and rapid recuperation, which,
compared with the past, affords ground for hope and confidence
of an even more rapid advance in the future.

Comparing the material condition of India in 1904 with what it
was ten years previous, we find that the area of soil under
cultivation has increased 229,000,000 acres. What we call internal
revenue has increased 17 per cent during the last ten years; sea
borne foreign commerce has risen in value from L130,500,000 to
L163,750,000; the coasting trade from L48,500,000 to L63,000,000,
and the foreign trade by land from L5,500,000 to L9,000,000.
Similar signs of progress and prosperity are to be found in the
development of organized manufactures, in the increased investment
of capital in commerce and industry, in dividends paid by various
enterprises, in the extended use of the railways, the postoffice
and the telegraph. The number of operatives in cotton mills has
increased during the last ten years from 118,000 to 174,000, in
jute mills from 65,000 to 114,000, in coal and other mines from
35,000 to 95,000, and in miscellaneous industries from 184,000
to 500,000. The railway employes have increased in number from
284,000 to 357,000 in ten years.

A corresponding development and improvement is found in all lines
of investment. During the ten years from 1894 to 1904 the number
of joint stock companies having more than $100,000 capital has
increased from 950 to 1,366, and their paid up capital from
L17,750,000 to L24,500,000. The paid in capital of banks has
advanced from L9,000,000 to L14,750,000; deposits have increased
from L7,500,000 to L23,650,000, and the deposits in postal savings
banks from L4,800,000 to L7,200,000, which is an encouraging
indication of the growth of habits of thrift. The passenger traffic
on the railways has increased from 123,000,000 to 195,000,000,
and the freight from 20,000,000 to 34,000,000 tons. The number of
letters and parcels passing through the postoffice has increased
during the ten years from 340,000,000 to 560,000,000; the postal
money orders from L9,000,000 to L19,000,000, and the telegraph
messages from 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 in number.

The income tax is an excellent barometer of prosperity. It exempts
ordinary wage earners entirely--persons with incomes of less than
500 rupees, a rupee being worth about 33 cents of our money.
The whole number of persons paying the income tax has increased
from 354,594 to 495,605, which is about 40 per cent in ten years,
and the average tax paid has increased from 37.09 rupees to 48.68
rupees. The proceeds of the tax have increased steadily from
year to year, with the exception of the famine years.

There are four classifications of taxpayers, and the proportion
paid by each during the last year, 1902, was as follows:

Per cent.
Salaries and pensions 29.07
Dividends from companies and business 7.22
Interest on securities 4.63
Miscellaneous sources of income 59.08

The last item is very significant. It shows that nearly 60 per
cent of the income taxpayers of India are supported by miscellaneous
investments other than securities and joint stock companies. The
item includes the names of merchants, individual manufacturers,
farmers, mechanics, professional men and tradesmen of every class.

The returns of the postal savings banks show the following classes
of depositors:

Number.
Wage earners 352,349
Professional men with fixed incomes 233,108
Professional men with variable incomes 58,130
Domestics, or house servants 151,204
Tradesmen 32,065
Farmers 12,387
Mechanics 27,450

The interest allowed by the savings bank government of India is
3-1/2 per cent.

Considering the awful misfortunes and distress which the country
has endured during the last ten years, these facts are not only
satisfactory but remarkable, and if it can progress so rapidly
during times of plague and famine, what could be expected from
it during a cycle of seasons of full crops.

During the ten years which ended with 1894 the seasons were all
favorable, generally speaking, although local failures of harvests
occurred here and there in districts of several provinces, but
they were not sufficient in area, duration or intensity to affect
the material conditions of the people. The ten succeeding years,
however, ending with 1904 witnessed a succession of calamities
that were unprecedented either in India or anywhere else on earth,
with the exception of a famine that occurred in the latter part
of the eighteenth century. Those ten years not only saw two of
the worst famines, but repeated visitations of widespread and
fatal epidemics. It is estimated that during the ten years ending
December, 1903, a million and a half of deaths were caused by the
bubonic plague alone, and that the mortality from that pestilence
was small in comparison with that caused by cholera, fever and
famine. The effects of those epidemics had been to hamper trade,
to alarm and demoralize the people, to obstruct foreign commerce,
prevent investments and the development of material resources.
Yet during the years 1902 and 1903 throughout all India there
was abundant prosperity. This restoration of prosperity is most
noticeable in several of the districts that suffered most severely
from famine. To a large measure the agricultural population have
been restored to their normal condition.

It is difficult in a great country like India where wages are
so small and the cost of living is so insignificant compared
with our own country, to judge accurately of the condition of
the laboring classes. The empire is so vast and so diverse in
all its features that a statement which may accurately apply
to one province will misrepresent another. But, taking one
consideration with another, as the song says, and drawing an
average, it is plainly evident that the peasant population of
India is slowly improving in condition. The scales of wages have
undoubtedly risen; there has been an improvement in the housing
and the feeding of the masses; their sanitary condition has been
radically changed, although they have fought against it, and
the slow but gradual development of the material resources of
the country promises to make the improvement permanent.

The chief source of revenue in India from ancient times has been
a share in the crops of the farmers. The present system has been
handed down through the centuries with very little modification, and
as three-fifths of the people are entirely and directly dependent
upon the cultivation of the land, the whole fabric of society
has been based upon that source of wealth. The census gives
191,691,731 people as agriculturists, of whom 131,000,000 till
their own or rented land, 18,750,000 receive incomes as landlord
owners and the remainder are agricultural laborers. The landlord
caste are the descendants of hereditary chiefs, of former revenue
farmers and persons of importance to whom land grants were made
in ancient times. Large tracts of land in northern India are
owned by municipalities and village communities, whose officials
receive the rents and pay the taxes. Other large tracts have
been inherited from the invaders and conquerors of the country.
It is customary in India for the landlord to receive his rent
in a part of the crop, and the government in turn receives a
share of this rent in lieu of taxes. This is an ancient system
which the British government has never interfered with, and any
attempt to modify or change it would undoubtedly be resisted.
At the same time the rents are largely regulated by the taxes.
These customs, which have come down from the Mogul empire, have
been defined and strengthened by time and experience. Nearly
every province has its own and different laws and customs on
the subject, but the variation is due not to legislation, but
to public sentiment. The tenant as well as the landlord insists
that the assessments of taxes shall be made before the rent rate
is determined, and this occurs in almost every province, although
variations in rent and changes of proprietorship and tenantry
very seldom occur. Wherever there has been a change during the
present generation it has been in favor of the tenants. The rates
of rent and taxation naturally vary according to the productive
power of the land, the advantages of climate and rainfall, the
facilities for reaching market and other conditions. But the
average tax represents about two-thirds of a rupee per acre, or
21 cents in American money.

We have been accustomed to consider India a great wheat producing
country, and you often hear of apprehension on the part of American
political economists lest its cheap labor and enormous area should
give our wheat growers serious competition. But there is not
the slightest ground for apprehension. While the area planted
to wheat in India might be doubled, and farm labor earns only
a few cents a day, the methods of cultivation are so primitive
and the results of that cheap labor are comparatively so small,
that they can never count seriously against our wheat farms which
are tilled and harvested with machinery and intelligence. No
article in the Indian export trade has been so irregular or has
experienced greater vicissitudes than wheat. The highest figure
ever reached in the value of exports was during the years 1891-92,
when there was an exceptional crop, and the exports reached
$47,500,000. The average for the preceding ten years was $25,970,000,
while the average for the succeeding ten years, ending 1901-02,
was only $12,740,000. This extraordinary decrease was due to
the failure of the crop year after year and the influence of
the famines of 1897 and 1900. The bulk of the wheat produced
in India is consumed within the districts where it is raised,
and the average size of the wheat farms is less than five acres.
More than three-fourths of the India wheat crop is grown on little
patches of ground only a few feet square, and sold in the local
markets. The great bulk of the wheat exported comes from the large
farms or is turned in to the owners of land rented to tenants
for shares of the crops produced.

The coal industry is becoming important. There are 329 mines
in operation, which yielded 7,424,480 tons during the calendar
year of 1902, an increase of nearly 1,000,000 tons in the five
years ending 1903. It is a fair grade of bituminous coal and
does well for steaming purposes. Twenty-eight per cent of the
total output was consumed by the local railway locomotives in
1902, and 431,552 tons was exported to Ceylon and other neighboring
countries. The first mine was opened in India as long ago as
1820, but it was the only one worked for twenty years, and the
development of the industry has been very slow, simply keeping
pace with the increase of railways, mills, factories and other
consumers. But the production is entirely sufficient to meet
the local demand, and only 23,417 tons was imported in 1902,
all of which came as ballast. The industry gives employment to
about 98,000 persons. Most of the stock in the mining companies
is owned by private citizens of India. The prices in Calcutta
and Bombay vary from $2.30 to $2.85 a ton.

India is rich in mineral deposits, but few of them have been
developed, chiefly on account of the lack of capital and enterprise.
After coal, petroleum is the most important item, and in 1902
nearly 57,000,000 gallons was refined and sold in the India market,
but this was not sufficient to meet half the demand, and about
81,000,000 gallons was imported from the United States and Russia.

Gold mining is carried on in a primitive way in several of the
provinces, chiefly by the washing of river sand. Valuable gold
deposits are known to exist, but no one has had the enterprise
or the capital to undertake their development, simply because
costly machinery is required and would call for a heavy investment.
Most of the gold washing is done by natives with rude, home-made
implements, and the total production reported for 1902 was 517,639
ounces, valued at $20 an ounce. This, however, does not tell
more than half the story. It represents only the amount of gold
shipped out of the country, while at least as much again, if
not more, was consumed by local artisans in the manufacture of
the jewelry which is so popular among the natives. When a Hindu
man or woman gets a little money ahead he or she invariably buys
silver or gold ornaments with it, instead of placing it in a
savings bank or making other investments. Nearly all women and
children that you see are loaded with silver ornaments, their
legs and feet as well as their hands and arms, and necklaces of
silver weighing a pound or more are common. Girdles of beautifully
wrought silver are sometimes worn next to the bare skin by ordinary
coolies working on the roads or on the docks of the rivers, and
in every town you visit you will find hundreds of shops devoted
to the sale of silver and gold adornments of rude workmanship
but put metal. The upper classes invest their savings in gold
and precious stones for similar reasons. There is scarcely a
family of the middle class without a jewel case containing many
articles of great value, while both the men and women of the rich
and noble castes own and wear on ceremonial occasions amazing
collections of precious stones and gold ornaments which have
been handed down by their ancestors who invested their surplus
wealth in them at a time when no safe securities were to be had
and savings banks had not been introduced into India. A large
proportion of the native gold is consumed by local artisans in
the manufacture of these ornaments, and is not counted in the
official returns. An equal amount, perhaps, is worked up into
gold foil and used for gilding temples, palaces and the houses
of the rich. Like all orientals, the Indians are very fond of
gilding, and immense quantities of pure gold leaf are manufactured
in little shops that may be seen in every bazaar you visit.

India now ranks second among the manganese ore producing countries
of the world, and has an inexhaustible supply of the highest
grade. The quality of the ores from the central provinces permits
their export in the face of a railway haul of 500 miles and sea
transportation to England, Belgium, Germany and the United States,
but, speaking generally, the mineral development of India has
not yet begun.

V

TWO HINDU WEDDINGS

There was a notable wedding at Baroda, the capital of one of the
Native States of the same name, while we were in India, and the
Gaikwar, as the ruling prince is called, expressed a desire for us
to be present. He has a becoming respect for and appreciation of
the influence and usefulness of the press, and it was a pleasure
to find so sensible a man among the native rulers. But, owing
to circumstances over which we had no control, we had to deny
ourselves the gratification of witnessing an event which few
foreigners have ever been allowed to see. It is a pity winter
is so short in the East, for there are so many countries one
cannot comfortably visit any other time of year.

Baroda is a non-tributary, independent native state of the first
rank, lying directly north of the province of Bombay, and its
ruler is called a "gaikwar," which signifies "cowherd," and the
present possessor of that title is one of the biggest men in the
empire, one of the richest and one of the greatest swells. He
is entitled to a salute of twenty-one guns, an honor conferred
upon only two other native princes, the Maharajah of Mysore and
the Nizam of Hyderabad. He is one of the ablest and one of the
most progressive of the native princes. His family trace their
descent back to the gods of mythology, but he is entirely human
himself, and a handsome man of middle age. When we saw him for
the first time he had half a dozen garlands of flowers hanging
around his neck, and three or four big bouquets in his hand,
which, according to the custom of the country, had been presented
to him by affectionate friends. It was he who presented to the City
of Bombay the beautiful statue of Queen Victoria which ornaments
the principal public square. It is one of the finest monuments to
be seen anywhere, and expressed his admiration of his empress,
who had shown particular interest in his career. The present
gaikwar was placed upon the throne in 1874 by Lord Northbrook,
when he was Viceroy of India, to succeed Malhar Rao, one of those
fantastic persons we read about in fairy stories but seldom find
in real life. For extravagant phantasies and barbaric splendors
he beat the world. He surpassed even those old spendthrifts of
the Roman Empire, Nero, Caligula and Tiberius. He spent a million
of rupees to celebrate the marriage ceremonies of a favorite
pigeon of his aviary, which was mated with one belonging to his
prime minister. But the most remarkable of his extravagant freaks
was a rug and two pillow covers of pearls, probably the greatest
marvel of all fabrics that were ever woven since the world was
made.

The carpet, ten feet six inches by six feet in size, is woven
entirely of strings of perfect pearls. A border eleven inches wide
and a center ornament are worked out in diamonds. The pillow covers
are three feet by two feet six inches in size. For three years
the jewel merchants of India, and they are many, were searching
for the material for this extraordinary affair. It cost several
millions of dollars and was intended as a present for a Mohammedan
lady of doubtful reputation, who had fascinated His Highness.
The British Resident at his capital intervened and prohibited
the gift on the ground that the State of Baroda could not afford
to indulge its ruler in such generosity, and that the scandal
would reflect upon the administration of the Indian Empire. The
carpet still belongs to the State and may be seen by visitors
upon a permit from one of the higher authorities. It is kept at
Baroda in a safe place with the rest of the state jewels, which
are the richest in India and probably the most costly belonging
to any government in the world.

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