INDIA IN, 1929-30.—A. Statement pee fared for presentation to. Paria Ment wy ide reauiee 26th. Section ot"the, Government" of India Aet ana 8'°Gea. "V. Chap. 61) Entetias" Government Enda Cintra "Publication Branch, The Government of India Act, 1919, requires that within the first 28 Parliamentary days after May 1 every year the Seoretary of State shall lay. before the Houses Parliament. the Pinancial Account relating. to India, and that this Account shall be accompanied by a Statement prepared from detailed Feports from each Province in such form as best exhibits the moral and al_progress and condition of So we have "India in 1020- he atest in this series of annual reports, approved and_pre-dented to Parliament this year.
Ie"prepared bya member of the await of the Bureau of Public Inforniation of the Government of India, under the authority apd with the approval of the. Secretary" of State." Bat, as it is thus a personal I work, it must not be understood that the approval fitlier of the Secretary of State or of the Government of India extends to. every particular expression opinion. On this occasion it forms 2 titling and, fascinating comple ent to the Report of the Indian Statutory Commission. As. the Inter "dveribe "basic conditions and the principles of government in India, x0. "India. In 1929-30" desferibes these "conditions and prin-tiples in every-day operation. The hook is incapable of effective sum-itself a summary activities of 8 people aking. the old Census' fig which "ity based), covering Whole range. of Cenival, Provincial Bnd Local Government."
Ject-matter for the political rather than for the news columns. But an arbitenry selection may be fxerclaed to draw attention to some features. of particular. interest, oF beating oR current dis eu ions.
Nearly 290,000,000 out of the 320,000,000 inhabitants are engaged in agriculture.
"The, total area There are 217 000/000" live stock, in. British: India lone, consisting of 150,000,000 oxen trid buttalves, 62,000,000 sheep and the rest being horses, ponies, donkeys and camels. The use of cattle. and buffaloes for raught purposes accounts for their tremendous. number. Fifty-two pee feet. of the total cultivated aren is held' by peasant proprietors, 18 per cent. by permanently settled and 30 cent. by temper tad proprietors. The. difference Between permanent and temporary settlement. is. that the terms of tenure in the one ease-are permanily fixed and in the other case fare subject to periodical revision, Tndia has the credit of being first part of the Empire in. which the preservation of forests was Seriously taken" in band. But a recess of deforestation must have shin. progress many" centuries before steps. were taken to prevent {eth various parts of the country the traveller, Will, observe many examples of the deplorable. results of reckless of ignorant misuse of fhature's provision of forest, trees ind. the lesser growths of brush-'Wood and scrub; ravines and barren Tands willie noticed. from which falling screen and sand is steadily encroaching on acres of good" alt, and in now sterile ills faint traces IMI Helen of, minut, ec, Yon channels" where springs a streams long since dried up enabled vanished -pepulation to. reap harvest. from ground which a present yields nothing better, than bactris of dwarf trees, But the me Secessibility of the majority of forests {0 all_ practical means of transport ust continue to prevent their full" economic exploitation. Perhaps the most interesting of the subsidiary forest products Bamboo, which, as the result ernie) remarkable research work at
can now be "thanufacthred™ into the'Poretry Instat, Dona Dor paner pulp of satisfactory quality. Tn'view of the immense areas over yrtanee, of this dibeovery is great.
The net profits derived from the country's forests in 1928-0 amounted to Rs-i2¥ crores, and at present not more than about: one-third of the vast grea under the control of the Forest Department is dedicated to the production of saleable timber.
For the past quarter of a century. owe in British India has been developed on the lines laid down by the Irrigation Commission in 1901. Since that date the progress made is prie of the most remarkable achievements of the British Raj. During 1928-9 the total area, apart from the Indian States, irrigated by Government works amounted to 30,7 million acres, or 12 per cent. of the entire cropped area. The total length of main and branch jeanals and. distributaries in use jaunted to about 75,000 miles, ud the estimated value of the crops supplied by water from Government works to Re, M1 crores. The total capital outlay amounted to Rs, 123 crores. The gross revenue was Rs, 118 crores and the working penses Rs- 5.1 crores, the net return on capital being' 5.5 per cent. The greatest of the irrigation works At present under construction are the Sukkur Barrage in Sind and the Sutlej Valley project in the Panjab. The Sukkur is one of the largest works in the world, and it is noted that it should be complete The total area affected tivated will ultimately be doubled. The 'Sutie) project. will: bring 33 million acres of desert waste und cultivation,. 'When allowance' is made for the natural expansion of existing schemes It. is" probable there will be an ultimate area of 50 million acres under irrigation by Government work. Daring the com paratively short period of their ex-Istence the Agricultural "Depart. ments have also been instrumental increasing the" eupacity thousands. of existing wells and constructing an immense number of new ones.
Not more than 104 per cent. the population are employed in dustry, mainly in unorganized industries connected with the supply JOf personal "and household neces sities and the simple implements of work, and not more than 1-per ent.
organised modern industrial con: Jeerns. But in point of fact the ex-Sstence in India of approximately 16,800,000 persons. who may classed as industrial' workers entitles her to be listed as one of the eight "mest important industrial [States in the world. As yet, India jean searcely' be. said io" possess an far ban proletariat." The Indian factory hand is generally a migratory individual who, visits the industrial tareas at certain seasons, and for time, in order that he "may eumilate iti capital but We has intention of settling down in the areas, nor does he bring his family with him. "So in Bombay you ind that only' 16 per cent. of the pope lation has been born in the city and that malas outnumber females by 1,000 to 824. The peculiar. condi-rise to many special pro-and aspects. Thus, while, broadly speaking, it would-be' trae say "that Ghemployment' does indeed occur sporadically in Tndia Jamong particular classes of the in-{duattiat population, frequently. the problem is not so much to find work [for the workless as to find workers or the work: When we talk of Jemployment in India what we usual-have in mind is not. unemployment among the. artisans and manual labourers of the towns, but unemployment among the educated middle "classes, and. there. (sno {doubt that this constitutes a danger-fous and. deplorable. problem whose feeavity la steadily increasing." Admittedly, the state of the labouring classes {n large industrial towne 1s fin many ways unsatisfactory, but in race of the manifold difieulties, has been shown that much ereditable improvement has been brought labour "by Government, employers fand philanthropic organisations. Among a number of other reforms effected under the Factories Acts provision has been made for the introduction of a regularized 60- hour week, the raising of the minimum age of children employees from 9 to 12, a considerable widen-ting of the official definition of the word "factory" and a complete prohibition of night work for women land children. During the period under review the factories in India numbered 7,863, an increase from 7,515. The factory population [showed a slight decrease at 1,520, 315, against 1,589,382. Thd {total number of women em in factories decreased slightly to 252,938 and of children front!57,562 to 50011. Fencing for dangerous machinery received considerable attention during the your. Percepible progress was also made' in housing and: sanitation, Marked improvement took place during the year in the ventilation and lighting of factories. On the other hand, the development of welfare work
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.