61

cumstances I have described, that it is still the most general food of nearly all the hottest countries of Asia,"1 from which at different times it has been transplanted to other parts of the world.62

In consequence of these peculiarities of climate, and of food, there has arisen in India that unequal distribution of wealth which we must expect to find in countries where the labourmarket is always redundant.63 If we examine the earliest Indian records which have been preserved,-records between two and three thousand years old,-we find evidence of a state of things similar to that which now exists, and which, we may rely upon it, always has existed ever since the accumulation of capital once fairly began. We find the upper classes enormously rich, and the lower classes miserably poor. We find those by whose labour the wealth is created, receiving the smallest possible share of it; the remainder being absorbed by the higher ranks in the form either of rent or of profit. And as wealth is, after intellect, the most permanent source of power, it has naturally happened that a great inequality of wealth has been accompanied by a corresponding inequality of social and political power. It is not, there

writers. The best account I have seen of it is in Buchanan's Journey through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, vol. i. pp. 101-104, 285, 286, 375, 376, 403, vol. ii. pp. 103, 104, vol. iii. pp. 239, 240, 296, 297. In the large cities, millet is generally used; of which "a quantity sufficient for two meals may be purchased for about a half-penny." Gibson on Indian Agriculture, in Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. viii. p. 100.

si Marsden's History of Sumatra, pp. 56, 59; Raffles' History of Java, vol. i. pp. 39, 106, 119, 129, 240; Percival's Ceylon, pp. 337, 364; Transac. of Society of Bombay, vol. ii. p. 155; Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 510; Journal of Asi atic Society, vol. i. pp. 228, 247, vol. ii. pp. 44, 64, 251, 257, 262, 336, 344, vol. iii. pp. 8, 25, 300, 340, vol. iv. pp. 82, 83, 104, vol. v. pp. 241, 246; Asiatic Researches, vol. v. pp. 124, 229, vol. xii. p. 148, vol. xvi. pp. 171, 172; Journal of Geograph. So'ciety, vol. ii. p. 86, vol. iii. pp. 124, 295, 300, vol. v. p. 263, vol. viii. pp. 341, 359, vol. xix. pp. 132, 137.

62

Rice, so far as I have been able to trace it, has travelled westward. Besides the historical evidence, there are philological probabilities in favour of its being indigenous to Asia, and the Sanscrit name for it has been very widely diffused. Compare Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 472, with Craufurd's History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. p. 358. In the fourteenth century, it was the common food on the Zanguebar coast; and is now universal in Madagascar. Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century, p. 56; Ellis's History of Madagascar, vol. i. pp. 39, 39, 297304, vol. ii. p. 292; Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. iii. p. 212. From Madagas car its seeds were, according to M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce, p. 1105, carried to Carolina late in the seventeenth century. It is now cultivated in Nicaragua (Squier's Central America, vol. i. p. 38) and in South America (Henderson's Hist. of Brazil, pp. 292, 307, 395, 440, 488), where it is said to grow wild. Compare Meyen's Geography of Plants, pp. 291, 297, with Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale, vol. i. p. 100, vol. ii. p. 80. The ancient Greeks, though acquainted with rice, did not cultivate it; and its cultivation was first introduced into Europe by the Arabs. See Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne, vol. ii. pp. 409, 410.

63 So far as food is concerned, Diodorus Siculus notices the remarkable fertility of India, and the consequent accumulation of wealth. See two interesting passages in Bibliothec. Hist. lib. ii. vol. ii. pp. 49, 50, 108, 109. But of the economical laws of distribution he, like all the ancient writers, was perfectly ignorant.

fore, surprising that from the earliest period to which our knowledge of India extends, an immense majority of the people, pinched by the most galling poverty, and just living from hand to mouth, should always have remained in a state of stupid debasement, broken by incessant misfortune, crouching before their superiors in abject submission, and only fit either to be slaves themselves or to be led to battle to make slaves of others."+

To ascertain the precise value of the average rate of wages in India for any long period, is impossible; because, although the amount might be expressed in money, still the value of money, that is, its purchasing power, is subject to incalculable fluctuations, arising from changes in the cost of production.65 But, for our present purpose, there is a method of investigation which will lead to results far more accurate than any statement could be that depended merely on a collection of evidence respecting the wages themselves. The method is simply this: that inasmuch as the wealth of a country can only be divided into wages, rent, profits, and interest, and inasmuch as interest is on an average an exact measure of profits, it follows that if among any people rent and interest are both high, wages must be low.$7 If, therefore, we can ascertain the current interest of money, and the proportion of the produce of the soil which is absorbed by

66

67

An able and very learned apologist for this miserable people says, "The servility so generally ascribed to the Hindu is never more conspicuous than when he is examined as an evidence. But if it be admitted that he acts as a slave, why blame him for not possessing the virtues of a free man? The oppression of ages has taught him implicit submission." Vans Kennedy, in Transactions of Society of Bombay, vol. iii. p. 144. Compare the observations of Charles Hamilton in Asiatic Researches, vol. i. p. 305.

"The impossibility of having a standard of value is clearly pointed out in Turgot's Réflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses, in Euvres, vol. v. pp. 51, 52. Compare Ricardo's Works, pp. 11, 28-30, 46, 166, 253, 270, 401, with MCulloch's Principles of Political Economy, pp. 298, 299, 307.

Smith's Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. ix. p. 37; where, however, the proposition is stated rather too absolutely, since the risks arising from an insecure state of society must be taken into consideration. But that there is an average ratio between interest and profits is obvious, and is distinctly laid down by the Sanscrit jurists. See Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. i. pp. 72, 81.

Ricardo (Principles of Political Economy, chap. vi. in Works, p. 65) says, "whatever increases wages, necessarily reduces profits." And in chap. xv. p. 122, "whatever raises the wages of labour, lowers the profit of stock." In several other places he makes the same assertion, very much to the discomfort of the ordinary reader, who knows that in the United States, for instance, wages and profits are both high. But the ambiguity is in the language, not in the thought; and in these and similar passages Ricardo by wages meant cost of labour, in which sense the proposition is quite accurate. If by wages we mean the reward of labour, then there is no relation between wages and profits; for when rent is low, both of them may be high, as is the case in the United States. That this was the view of Ricardo is evident from the following passage: "Profits, it cannot be too often repeated, depend on wages; not on nominal but real wages; not on the number of pounds that may be annually paid to the labourer, but on the number of days' work necessary to obtain those pounds." Political Economy, chap. vii., Ricardo's Works, p. 82. Compare Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. i. p. 509, vol. ii. p. 225.

rent, we shall get a perfectly accurate idea of the wages; because wages are the residue, that is, they are what is left to the labourers after rent, profits, and interest have been paid.

Now it is remarkable, that in India both interest and rent have always been very high. In the Institutes of Menu, which were drawn up about B. c. 900,68 the lowest legal interest for money is fixed at fifteen per cent, the highest at sixty per cent."9 Nor is this to be considered as a mere ancient law now fallen into disuse. So far from that, the Institutes of Menu are still the basis of Indian jurisprudence;7° and we know on very good authority, that in 1810 the interest paid for the use of money varied from thirty-six to sixty per cent.71

Thus much as to one of the elements of our present calculation. As to the other element, namely, the rent, we have information equally precise and trustworthy. In England and Scotland, the rent paid by the cultivator for the use of land is estimated in round numbers, taking one farm with another, at a fourth of the gross produce.72 In France, the average proportion is about a third;73 while in the United States of North America it is well known to be much less, and, indeed, in some parts, to be merely nominal." But in India, the legal rent, that is, the

68 I take the estimate of Mr. Elphinstone (History of India, pp. 225-228) as midway between Sir William Jones (Works, vol. iii. p. 56) and Mr. Wilson (Rig Veda Sanhita, vol. i. p. xlvii.).

69 Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 140-142, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. p. 295. The subsequent Sanscrit commentators recognize nearly the same rate of interest, the minimum being fifteen per cent. See Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. i. pp. 29, 36, 43, 98, 99, 237, vol. ii. p. 70.

70 In Colebrooke's Digest, vol. i. p. 454, and vol. iii. p. 229, Menu is called "the highest authority of memorial law," and "the founder of memorial law." The most recent historian of India, Mr. Elphinstone, says (Hist. of India, p. 83), "the code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence; and the principal features remain unaltered to the present day." This remarkable code is also the basis of the laws of the Burmese, and even of those of the Laos. Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 271, vol. iii. pp. 28, 296, 332, vol. v. p. 252.

11 See, in Mill's History of India, vol. i. p. 317, the report of a committee of the House of Commons in 1810, in which it is stated that the ryots paid "the heavy interest of three, four, and five per cent per month." Ward, writing about the same time, mentions as much as seventy-five per cent. being given, and this apparently without the lender incurring any extraordinary risk. Ward on the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 190.

72

Compare the table in Loudon's Encyclopædia of Agriculture, p. 778, with Mavor's note in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, p. 195, Lond. 1812, and M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire, 1847, vol. i. p. 560.

73 This is the estimate I have received from persons well acquainted with French agriculture. The rent, of course, varies in each separate instance, according to the natural powers of the soil, according to the extent to which those powers have been improved, and according to the facilities for bringing the produce to market. But, notwithstanding these variations, there must be in every country an average rent, depending upon the operation of general causes.

74

Owing to the immense supply of land preventing the necessity of cultivating those inferior soils which older countries are glad to use, and are therefore willing to pay a rent for the right of using. In the United States, profits and wages (i. e

lowest rate recognized by the law and usage of the country, is one-half of the produce; and even this cruel regulation is not strictly enforced, since in many cases rents are raised so high, that the cultivator not only receives less than half the produce, but receives so little as to have scarcely the means of providing seed to sow the ground for the next harvest.75

The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is manifest. Rent and interest being always very high, and interest varying, as it must do, according to the rate of profits, it is evident that wages must have been very low; for since there was in India a specific amount of wealth to be divided into rent, interest, profits, and wages, it is clear that the first three could only have been increased. at the expense of the fourth; which is saying, in other words, that the reward of the labourers was very small in proportion to the reward received by the upper classes. And though this, being an inevitable inference, does not require extraneous support, it may be mentioned that in modern times, for which alone we have direct evidence, wages have in India always been excessively low, and the people have been, and still are, obliged to work for a sum barely sufficient to meet the exigencies of life.75

the reward of the labourer, not the cost of labour) are both high, which would be impossible if rent were also high.

15 See Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India, 1832, pp. 59-61, 63, 69, 92, 94. At p. 69, this high authority says of the agricultural peasantry of Bengal: "In an abundant season, when the price of corn is low, the sale of their whole crops is required to meet the demands of the landholder, leaving little or noth ing for seed or subsistence to the labourer or his family." In Cashmere, the sovereign received half the produce of the rice-crop, leaving the other half to the cultivator. Moorcroft's Notices of Cashmere, in Journal of Geog. Society, vol. ii. p. 266.

As

Heber (Journey through India, vol. i. pp. 209, 356, 357, 359) gives some curious instances of the extremely low rate at which the natives are glad to work. to the ordinary wages in India in the present century, see Journal of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 255, vol. v. p. 171; Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Sys tems, pp. 105, 106; Sykes's Statistics of the Deccan, in Reports of the British Association, vol. vi. p. 321; Ward's View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 207; Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law, vol. ii. p. 184. On wages in the south of India, the fullest information will be found in Buchanan's valuable work, Journey through the Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, vol. i. pp. 124, 125, 133, 171, 175, 216, 217, 298, 390, 415, vol. ii. pp. 12, 19, 22, 37, 90, 108, 132, 217, 218, 315, 481, 523, 525, 562, vol. iii. pp. 35. 181, 226, 298, 321, 349, 363, 398, 428, 555. I wish that all travellers were equally minute in recording the wages of labour; a subject of far greater importance than those with which they usually fill their books.

See

On the other hand, the riches possessed by the upper classes have, owing to this mal-distribution of wealth, been always enormous, and sometimes incredible. Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 297; Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. ii. p. 119; Travels of Ibn Batuta, p. 41; Ward's Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 178. The autobiography of the Emperor Jehangueir contains such extraordinary statements of his immense wealth, that the editor, Major Price, thinks that some error must have been made by the copyist; but the reader will find in Grote's History of Greece (vol. xii. pp. 229, 245) evidence of the treasures which it was possible for Asiatic rulers to collect in that state of society. The working of this unequal distribution is thus stated

This was the first great consequence induced in India by the cheapness and abundance of the national food." But the evil by no means stopped there. In India, as in every other country, poverty provokes contempt, and wealth produces power. When other things are equal, it must be with classes of men as with individuals, that the richer they are, the greater the influence they will possess. It was therefore to be expected, that the unequal distribution of wealth should cause an unequal distribution of power; and as there is no instance on record of any class possessing power without abusing it, we may easily understand how it was that the people of India, condemned to poverty by the physical laws of their climate, should have fallen into a degradation from which they have never been able to escape. A few instances may be given to illustrate, rather than to prove, a principle which the preceding arguments have, I trust, placed beyond the possibility of dispute.

To the great body of the Indian people the name of Sudras is given;78 and the native laws respecting them contain some minute and curious provisions. If a member of this despised class presumed to occupy the same seat as his superiors, he was either to be exiled or to suffer a painful and ignominious punishment." If he spoke of them with contempt, his mouth was

by Mr. Glyn (Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 482): "The nations of Europe have very little idea of the actual condition of the inhabitants of Hindustan; they are more wretchedly poor than we have any notion of. Europeans have hitherto been too apt to draw their opinions of the wealth of Hindustan from the gorgeous pomp of a few emperors, sultans, nawabs, and rajas; whereas a more intimate and accurate view of the real state of society would have shown that these princes and nobles were engrossing all the wealth of the country, whilst the great body of the people were earning but a bare subsistence, groaning under intolerable burdens, and hardly able to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, much less with its luxuries."

"Turner, who travelled in 1783 through the north-east of Bengal, says: "Indeed, the extreme poverty and wretchedness of these people will forcibly appear, when we recollect how little is necessary for the subsistence of a peasant in these regions. The value of this can seldom amount to more than one penny per day, even allowing him to make his meal of two pounds of boiled rice, with a due proportion of salt, oil, vegetables, fish, and chili." Turner's Embassy to Tibet, p. 11. İbn Batuta, who travelled in Hindostan in the fourteenth century, says: "I never saw a country in which provisions were so cheap." Travels of Ibn Batuta, p. 194.

"The Sudras are estimated by Ward (View of the Hindoos, vol. iii. p. 281) at "three-fourths of the Hindoos." At all events, they comprise the whole of the working-classes; the Vaisyas not being husbandmen, as they are often called, but landlords, owners of cattle, and traders. Compare Institutes of Menu, chap. ix. sec. 326-333, in Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. iii. pp. 380, 381, with Colebrooke's Digest. vol. i. p. 15, from which it appears that the Vaisyas were always the masters, and that the Sudra was to "rely on agriculture for his subsistence." The division, therefore, between "the industrious and the servile" (Elphinstone's History of India, p. 12) is too broadly stated; and we must, I think, take the definition of M. Rhode: "Die Kaste der Sudras umfasst die ganze arbeitende, oder um Lohn dienende Classe des Volks." Relig. Bildung der Hindus, vol. ii. p. 561.

70" Either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king shall cause a gash to be made on his buttock." Institutes of Menu, chap. viii. sec. 281, in Works