Rampur wool (pashm, pashmina). The intrinsic difference between Eastern and Western decorative art is revealed in Oriental carpets, where the angular line is substituted for the flowing, classical “line of beauty." The Oriental carpet is also more artistically dyed, and is decorated according to the true principles of conventional design. As a rule the pile carpets of India and Persia are of floral design, while those of Central Asia, Western Afghanistan, and Baluchistan are geometric. In Persia and India the source of many of the patterns is the tree of life (though some contest this theory), shown as a beautiful flowering plant, or as a simple sprig of flowers. The dari is a carpet of cotton made chiefly in Bengal and Northern India; but the most common cotton carpet is the shatranji, made throughout India, but especially at Agra. The principal patterns are stripes of blue and white, and red and white. In point of texture and workmanship the rugs from Ellore (p. 462), Tanjore, and Mysore are the best. Good rugs and carpets are made in Madras city. Costly velvet carpets embroidered with gold are made at Benares, Delhi, and Murshidabad. The carpets of Malabar are now the only pile woollen carpets made of pure Hindu design. Fine carpets are made at Amritsar. Sikhim and Tibet produce excellent rugs and carpets, unspoiled by the use of aniline dyes, as sufficient dyes are obtained locally. Mirzapur (p. 48) has long been famous for the carpets made there. Central Asian carpets are best purchased at Amritsar, Peshawar, and Quetta. For art manufactures in Burma, see p. 610. CURIOS Visitors to India, like residents in the country, are often on the look-out for curios, which, though rarer than formerly, may still be acquired by searching in bazars, shops, and backshops. They should, of course, if possible obtain the advice and assistance of friends possessed of local experience. When thrown upon their own resources, the traveller should, if he wants a good piece, go to the best dealer and be prepared to pay a decent price. A study of the best Oriental work in European and Indian museums, observation of good specimens, and a perusal of illustrated works on Indian art, will help a purchaser to some extent; but, even when armed with such knowledge as he can gather regarding quality of workmanship and design, he must never forget the maxim caveat emptor. If resort is had to bargaining, the dealer will always reserve to himself a margin of profit in the bargain offered. IRRIGATION The history of irrigation in India stretches back into remote antiquity, many of the modern works being founded upon old native works which have been restored and extended. The storage of water in tanks is very common in Southern India. The works are for the most part of indigenous origin, but much has been done by the British in repairing old tanks and constructing new ones in Madras, the Bombay Deccan, and Ajmer. In many places the Indians have made artificial lakes with dams, which are often of great architectural beauty. In the more level tracts of the South every declivity is dammed up to gather the rain. Innumerable wells cover the whole country; and it is very usual for the upland cultivator to make his own tiny irrigating stream, carrying it along the brows of mountains, round steep declivities, and across yawning gulfs and deep valleys, his primitive aqueducts being formed of stones and clay, the scoopedout trunks of palm-trees, and hollow bamboos. To lift the water a bucket-wheel, worked by men and oxen or buffaloes, is employed where the water is more than 40 ft. below the surface, and the Persian wheel, with a line of earthenware vessels on the ropes which run over it, where the water is nearer the surface in N. India. A good part of the Panjab and the whole of Sind would be scarcely habitable without irrigation; and it is practically indispensable also in the South-east of the Madras Presidency. The greatest British engineering works in India have been in canal irrigation, the water being drawn directly " from the larger rivers, which, drawing their water from lofty mountain ranges, can, even in times of drought, be depended upon for an unfailing supply"; the water is conducted into either a "perennial," or an intermittent-i.e. an "inundation"-canal. A perennial canal is furnished with permanent headworks and weirs, and is capable of irrigating large tracts throughout the year independently of rainfall. Formerly irrigation works were divided into major and minor works. The major were subdivided into productive public works, financed by borrowed capital, and protective public works, financed from current revenue and designed as a protection against famine. Since 1920-21 this system of classification and finance has been altered, and all irrigation works are classed as either productive or non-productive. The seventy productive irrigation and navigation canals working at the end of 1920-21 had a total mileage of 46,745 miles, of which the Panjab had 14,888 and the Madras Presidency 12,190. The total area irrigated by this class of works was 17 m. acres. The fifty-five protective works in operation at the beginning of 1921-22 irrigated m. acres. The minor works comprise a few small works constructed by the British Government, and a large number of indigenous works, which the Government has taken over, improved, and maintained. The capital outlay to the end of 1920-21 was £m. 589 on productive major works; m. 117 on protective major works; and £m. 7 on minor irrigation works, for which capital and revenue accounts are kept (in these statistics Rs.10= £1). In that year there was a net profit on productive major works, and a net loss on protective works. As regards revenue, the Government irrigation works of India yield, as a whole, a return of 7 to 8 per cent. on the capital invested. It follows that, beside making agriculture possible in tracts where, without an assured supply of water, nothing would grow, and protecting large areas from famine and scarcity, the irrigation works of India form also a remunerative investment. Some of the oldest canals continue to be the most profitable. For example, the Eastern Jumna Canal, completed in 1830, and irrigating 395,967 acres, paid 31.8 per cent. on its capital outlay in 1920-21. But the highest return was from the Lower Chenab Canal, completed in 1899-1900, and irrigating 2 m. acres, which paid 44.7 per cent. The average water rate varies from Rs.5 per acre in the Panjab, to R.1 in the Central Provinces. How light these charges are may be easily inferred from the fact that the estimated value of the crops grown on Government irrigated land in 1920-21 amounted to double the total capital expenditure on the works. The total area irrigated by all Government irrigation works in 1920-21 was 27 m. acres, which is 137 per cent. of the entire cropped area: in 1878-79, it was only 10'5 m. acres. The Government works are not the only irrigation works in the country. In a normal year about 11 per cent. of the cropped area is irrigated from Government works; about 5 per cent. from wells; and about 6 per cent. from other sources, such as private canals, tanks, water raised directly from rivers, and so on. The Government and private works are therefore of about equal importance. By far the largest irrigation work so far executed in India is the Triple Canal Project, completed in 1917, by means of which the surplus waters of the Jhelum are transferred to the Lower Bari Doab. The three canals-Upper Chenab, Lower Bari Doab and the Upper Jhelum--irrigate 1.8 m. acres; and the Upper Chenab is the largest perennial irrigation canal in the world. A huge extent of waste land has been brought into cultivation. Other great irrigation projects are in hand, in Oudh, Sind, and the Panjab. FAMINE The importance of irrigation will be fully realised from the figures of the last great famines from which the country has suffered. In 1896-7 the areas affected were 194,000 sq. m. in British dia and 82,000 sq. m. in the Indian States, the population of the two areas being 45,000,000 and 7,000,000, of whom 4.250,000 were on State relief works in June 1896. In 1899-1900, famine extended to 175,000 sq. m. (population 25,000,000) and 300,000 sq. m. (population 30,000,000) in British India and Indian States, and no less than 6,500,000 people were in receipt of relief in August 1900. The distress of 1907-8 affected an area of 66,000 sq. m. and a population of 30,000,000. In 1919, with a crop failure as bad as in 1899, the number on relief was only one-tenth of the number in 1900. And again in 1920-1921 the proportion on relief was less than 3 per cent. of the population of the stricken area. The recurrence of famine is accepted as a normal feature in the administration of India, and due provision is made beforehand for providing relief whenever that may be required in consequence of the failure of the periodical rains on which the crops depend. Famines occurred in India long before the British entered the country, and contemporary writings show that the mortality was terrible, even to so late as 1769-70, when one-third of the people of Bengal died, it is said. After the famine of 1876-8 (chiefly in Madras and Bombay) the Famine Commission of 1880 was, appointed, and there have been other Commissions in 1898 and 1901. The whole subject of famine-relief administration has been thoroughly investigated, elaborate codes of instructions have been prepared for each Province, the symptoms of impending scarcity are carefully watched, the means of communication have been greatly improved, so that trade and the supply of food to meet demand have been enormously facilitated, with the result that food is now always made available in any famine-stricken tract: relief works are provided, on which famine labourers can earn a subsistence wage, and gratuitous relief is given to all incapable of working. Famine mortality is, therefore, checked so far as human efforts can arrest it; but much sickness and disease may often occur in times of scarcity. By the canals and other irrigation works the crops are annually secured over large tracts of country. THE MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA It is impossible to enter in detail upon so wide a subject, covering the conditions of the daily life of 319 millions of human beings spread over an area of 1.8 m. sq. miles; but the broad fact that the material conditions of the people have greatly improved under British rule stands plain beyond disputation. Famine is the test of economic welfare in India, and the increasing resistance that the people have been able to offer to that calamity signifies a strengthening of the average Indian's economic position. Various statistics indicate a greater spending capacity in the people. In 1899 it was estimated that the average income per head was Rs.30; and on the 23rd February 1921 the Honourable Mr E. (now Sir Edward) M. Cook mentioned in the Council of State that on the same basis of calculation it was about Rs. 50 in 1920. He further pointed out that the method adopted in both these cases was defective, and that a more comprehensive estimate showed Rs.80 as the average income. The most careful estimate that has hitherto been made in this direction comes from Madras, according to which the average annual income in that Presidency works out at a little over Rs. 100 per head. As against this rise in income must be set the rise in prices, since the purchasing power of Rs.100 in 1920 was only 40 per cent. greater than that of Rs.30 in 1889. Nevertheless, there is considerable indirect evidence as to a growing prosperity. . . . The remarkable popularity of railway travel, as witnessed by the phenomenal multiplication of third-class passengers during the last two decades, would seem to indicate that more money is available over and above the bare necessities of life than was previously the case. The recently increased absorption of rupees, which two years ago threatened the whole currency system with inconvertibility, combined with the growing employment of silver for purposes of adornment by classes of the population previously, and within living memory, accustomed to brass, would seem to point in the same direction. Further, the steady substitution of a monetary for a national system of economy, with its accompaniments of a preference for imported cloth, for imported mineral oil, and for imported domestic utensils, would seem to show that those who advance India's claim to increasing prosperity have something more than personal prejudice upon which to base their contention" (Moral and Material Progress Report, 1921, p. 194). It is a more reasonable objection to say that the rate of progress has been very slow; but it must be remembered that the economic betterment of 319 million human beings is not a problem that can be effectively solved within a brief span of time. The Government has now started on a policy of active stimulation of economic development. Many regard the rate of growth of the Indian population with considerable misgivings. In the decade 1901-1911, it increased by about 21 millions, or by 7'1 per cent. The decennium 1911-1921 saw an increase of only 12 per cent., but that is because the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, which was responsible for nearly 125 million deaths, wiped off almost the whole of the natural increase of the period. According to the registration figures, the survival rates varied between 65 and 106 per mille in the period 1910-17, thus showing a steady increase from year to year. This leads |