1 led to a large extension of jute cultivation, specially in eastern districts. For nearly three years, from 1887 to 1890, the present writer was, the District Officer of the great jute-growing district of Mymensingh, having an area of six thousand square miles and a population of over three millions, and the demand for jute was so great that it supplanted rice in nearly one-half of the district. Flourishing jute mills have been started in Narainganj and Serajganj and other places. Cultivation has largely extended since the permanent settlement, the profits of this extension have remained with the agricultural classes, and the position of the tenant has been secured by three several rent laws against unreasonable evictions and enhancements by landlords. It can be said of the Bengal cultivator, what can be said of probably no other cultivators in India, that he is fairly well off, not much indebted to the money-lender, and not much subject to harassment by the zemindar; that he is self-relying, resourceful, provident, and capable of tiding over a bad harvest or a great calamity. Every Bengal administrator can call to mind instances of the selfreliance of the Bengal cultivator. To cite one instance, when a great cyclone and storm-wave from the sea completely destroyed the crops of the southeastern coast of Bengal in 1876, the present writer was sent as an executive officer to an island in the mouths of the Ganges which had suffered most. For ten months after the catastrophe the people of the island supported themselves on imported grain purchased out of their previous savings, and then they obtained a good and plentiful harvest. No relief was asked for, and no relief was given, except to a limited number of orphans and helpless widows. A catastrophe like that in Madras would have been followed by a famine in South-Eastern Bengal there was hardly any distress. The permanent settlement of land revenues has saved the people from a recurring increase in the State demand, has left them with some resources, and has virtually saved the province from famines. The recurring increase of the State demand in other parts of India keeps the agricultural population in perpetual poverty and in the hands of the money-lender, and makes famines not only possible but inevitable. MANUFACTURES AND INDUSTRIES While agriculture prospers in Bengal, the same cannot be said of manufactures and industries. The competition with the steam and machinery of England has virtually ruined the great weaving industry of Bengal, and hundreds of thousands of weavers in Bengal have left their looms and taken to cultivation or to petty trade for their living. The beautiful lac dyes which used to give employment to thousands have died out within our own time after the discovery of aniline dyes in Europe, and work in leather and tanning, and even the manufacture of such common articles as cheap umbrellas and sticks, are fast dying out. The whole nation in Bengal is virtually clothed from Lancashire looms, and the cotton mills and factories started in Bengal have not yet secured any considerable success. The very extension of railways in India, which within certain limits has done incalculable good to the country, has helped to kill off native industries by bringing imported articles from England and Germany, Holland and Austria, into every village bazaar. And the carrying trade from village to village and from district to district by means of bullock carts and country boats has declined, under our own observation, during the last forty years, with the growth of the railway traffic, the profits of which come to Europe. Nevertheless the railway, at least along the main lines, has been a gain to India on the whole. But now that the main lines are completed, the further construction of petty lines should be left to private companies without any guarantee of profits from the revenues of the country. Coal is worked in Bengal mainly by English capital; and while it gives employment to labour in the backward parts of the province, the profits are remitted to the capitalist in Europe. The cultivation of tea and indigo has largely increased within recent years, but is mostly carried on with European capital, and the profits come to Europe. The special law which regulates the supply of labour in tea gardens in Assam is disliked by the people, and has been called the "slave law" of Bengal; while the conditions under which cultivators in Bengal grow indigo for the indigo planters cause much dissatisfaction to the people, and have not unoften led to disturbance. TRADE AND COMMERCE When, therefore, we speak of the vast increase in the trade and commerce of India within recent decades, we are liable to make statements which are misleading. We are told that the total value of India's exports and imports has increased from twenty millions to over two hundred millions within the last sixty years. We have no desire to minimise the benefits arising from increase in trade under all circumstances; but statesinen who point to these figures as an index to the increasing wealth of India commit a lamentable and almost ludicrous blunder. The fact should be remembered that among the many blessings which England has undoubtedly conferred on India, the encouragement of Indian industries is not one; that the increase in the value of imports into India really means that the inanual industries of India are dying out in an un equal competition with the steam and machinery of England; and that the increase in the value of exports from India means that vast quantities of food and raw material have to be sent out from India to pay for, imported European goods, as well as for the "home charges" of the English Government, which amounts annually to about twenty millions sterling. EDUCATION The results of English and vernacular education in Bengal have, on the whole, been satisfactory. There are several successful colleges in Bengal, some of which are conducted by British missionaries or by native Indian gentlemen, and a large number of graduates are turned out by the Calcutta University year after year. Most of them settle down to the practical work of life, and are fairly well equipped for their work by the education they receive; while a few have distinguished themselves in literature, science, and law. Among those who have within recent years won a name for themselves in Bengal may be mentioned Baukim Chandra Chatterjea in literature, Rajendra lal Mitra in philology and antiquarian research, Keshab Chandra Sen in religious reform, Dwarkanath Mitra in law, Jagadish nat Bose in science, and Surendra nath Banerjea in his eloquence and life-long work for the political advancement of his countrymen. There are schools in every district which are affiliated to the Calcutta University, and teach up to the matriculation standard, and thousands of young Bengalis matriculate year after year. In every inportant village there is a vernacular school, called a pathshala; and in some of the more advanced districts nearly a third of the boys of the school-going age attend school. I FEMALE EDUCATION Female education is not making very great progress, judged by any European standard; but considering the customs of the East, the results are not altogether unsatisfactory. Girls in Bengal are generally married between the ages of ten and thirteen, though among the Musalmans of East Bengal and among the people of Orissa they may remain unmarried till they attain their womanhood. In a country where early marriage is almost universal, anything like a thorough education in schools is impossible; but, nevertheless, the number of girls who receive elementary education between the ages of seven and twelve is steadily increasing. Nearly all women of the upper classes read and write at the present day, their education does not by any means end with their marriage, and some Bengali ladies have even distinguished themselves in poetry and fiction within recent years. For the rest, women in Bengal, as in England, are the great readers of poetry and fiction; every meritorious work, as it issues from the press, is taken up by them, and every novelist looks to them rather than to men for the sale of his works. We are no doubt old-fashioned in India, judged by the European standard, but every word has a relative signification, and the "new woman" in Bengal is the subject of as much criticism and of satire as her more advanced sister bearing the same title is in Europe. MARRIAGE LAWS AND SOCIAL REFORMS Polygamy, though allowed both by Hindu and Mohamedan laws, is rare among the educated classes, and is also rare among the labouring and cultivating classes. The remarriage of widows, permitted among the Mohamedans, is disliked by the Hindus; and though |