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 circumstances 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 L130,500,000 to L163,750,000; the coasting trade from L48,500,000 to L63,000,000, and the foreign trade by land from L5,500,000 to L9,000,000.  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.