Modern India Part 3

It is a popular impression that the poor of India live almost exclusively upon rice, which is very cheap and nourishing, hence it is possible for a family to subsist upon a few cents a day.

This is one of the many delusions that are destroyed when you visit the country. Rice in India is a luxury that can be afforded only by the people of good incomes, and throughout four-fifths of the country is sold at prices beyond the reach of common working people. Sixty per cent. of the population live upon wheat, barley, fruit, various kinds of pulses and maize. Rice can be grown only in hot and damp climates, where there are ample means of irrigation, and only where the conditions of soil, climate and water supply allow its abundant production does it enter into the diet of the working cla.s.ses. Three-fourths of the people are vegetarians, and live upon what they produce themselves.

The density of the population is very great, notwithstanding the enormous area of the empire, being an average of 167 to the square mile, including mountains, deserts and jungles, as against 21.4 to the square mile in the United States. Bengal, the province of which Calcutta is the capital, on the eastern coast of India, is the most densely populated, having 588 people to the square mile. Behar in the south has 548, Oudh in the north 531; Agra, also in the north, 419, and Bombay 202. Some parts of India have a larger population to the acre than any other part of the world.

The peasants, or coolies, as they are called, are born and live and die like animals. Indeed animals seldom are so closely herded together, or live such wretched lives. In 1900, 54,000,000 people were more or less affected by the famine, and 5,607,000 were fed by the government for several months, simply because there was no other way for them to obtain food. There was no labor they could perform for wages, and those who were fortunate enough to secure employment could not earn enough to buy bread to satisfy the hunger of their families. It is estimated that 30,000,000 human beings starved to death in India during the nineteenth century, and in one year alone, the year in which that good woman, Queen Victoria, a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of empress, more than 5,000,000 of her subjects died from hunger. Yet the population without immigration is continually increasing from natural causes. The net increase during the ten years from 1891 to 1901 was 7,046,385.

The, struggle for life is becoming greater every year; wages are going down instead of up, notwithstanding the rapid increase of manufacturing industries, the extension of the railway system and other sources of wealth and employment that are being rapidly developed.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sam 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 r.e.t.a.r.ds 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 cla.s.s 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 Pa.r.s.ees in the United States, but no coolies whatever. The coolies are working cla.s.ses 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 s.p.a.ce 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 circ.u.mstances 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 130,500,000 to 163,750,000; the coasting trade from 48,500,000 to 63,000,000, and the foreign trade by land from 5,500,000 to 9,000,000.

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 17,750,000 to 24,500,000. The paid in capital of banks has advanced from 9,000,000 to 14,750,000; deposits have increased from 7,500,000 to 23,650,000, and the deposits in postal savings banks from 4,800,000 to 7,200,000, which is an encouraging indication of the growth of habits of thrift. The pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.sing through the postoffice has increased during the ten years from 340,000,000 to 560,000,000; the postal money orders from 9,000,000 to 19,000,000, 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 cla.s.sifications 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 cla.s.s.

The returns of the postal savings banks show the following cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses. 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 ma.s.ses; 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 munic.i.p.alities 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 a.s.sessments 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 compet.i.tion. 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 cla.s.ses invest their savings in gold and precious stones for similar reasons. There is scarcely a family of the middle cla.s.s without a jewel case containing many articles of great value, while both the men and women of the rich and n.o.ble 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 quant.i.ties 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 circ.u.mstances 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 t.i.tle is one of the biggest men in the empire, one of the richest and one of the greatest swells. He is ent.i.tled 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 G.o.ds 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 princ.i.p.al 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 surpa.s.sed 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.

The regalia of the gaikwar intended for state occasions, which was worn by him at the wedding, is valued at $15,000,000. He appeared in it at the Delhi durbar in 1903. It consists of a collar and shoulder pieces made of 500 diamonds, some of them as large as walnuts. The smallest would be considered a treasure by any lady in the land. The border of this collar is made of three bands of emeralds, of graduated sizes, the outer row consisting of jewels nearly an inch square. From the collar, as a pendant, hangs one of the largest and most famous diamonds in the world, known as the "Star of the Deccan." Its history may be found in any work on jewels. There is an aigrette to match the collar, which His Highness wears in his turban.

This is only one of several sets to be found in the collection, which altogether would make as brave a show as you can find at Tiffany's. There are strings of pearls as large as marbles, and a rope of pearls nearly four feet long braided of four strands.

Every pearl is said to be perfect and the size of a pea. The rope is about an inch in diameter. Besides these are necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings and every conceivable ornament set with jewels of every variety, which have been handed down from generation to generation in this princely family for several hundred years. One of the most interesting of the necklaces is made of uncut rubies said to have been found in India. It has been worn for more than a thousand years. These jewels are kept in a treasure-room in the heart of the Nazar Bgah Palace, guarded night and day by a battalion of soldiers. At night when the palace is closed half a dozen huge cheetahs, savage beasts of the leopard family, are released in the corridors, and, as you may imagine, they are efficient watchmen. They would make a burglar very unhappy.

During the daytime they are allowed to wander about the palace grounds, but are carefully muzzled.

Malhar Rao built a superb palace at a cost of $1,500,000 which is considered the most perfect and beautiful example of the Hindu-Saracenic order of architecture in existence, and its interior finish and decoration are wonderful for their artistic beauty, detail and variety. In front of the main entrance are two guns of solid gold, weighing two hundred and eighty pounds each, and the carriages, ammunition wagons and other accoutrements are made of solid silver. The present Maharajah is said to have decided to melt them down and have them coined into good money, with which he desires to endow a technical school.