Identifier: mylifework00smit (find matches)
Title: My life-work;
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Smith, Samuel, 1836-1906
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Publisher: London : Hodder and Stoughton

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atlyby the huge rise in the price of cotton, and by the great specula-tion that was started in Bombay in financial and industrial com-panies. Several of them were then millionaires, and it was awonderful sight to witness the stream of rich equipages that pouredinto the old Fort (as Bombay then was) from Malabar Hill. Foran hour at a time they did not stop ; it reminded one of HydePark during the season. This wonderful prosperity continued fortwo years longer. It led to a wild outbreak of speculation un-paralleled in India. The shares of the famous Back Bay Com-pany went up to 1000 premium. The trading communitybecame intoxicated with sudden fortunes. And tlien the bubbleburst ! The American War came to an end ; a terrific decline inprices occurred ; and merchants, banks, and financial companiestoppled over in a mass of hopeless wreckage. The British panic of1866 synchronized with this collapse. Credit was withdrawn onall sides, and for years there was little else but enforced liquida-
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FIRST VISIT TO INDIA 6i tion. But few fortunes survived this crisis, and many millionaireshad to commence life again, sadder and wiser men ! One lesson I learned from my travels in India : that was, theextreme poverty of the mass of the Indian people. Travellersnowadays fly over the country on luxurious railways, hardly seeinghow the natives live. They only meet the British official class,or the Anglicized natives ; but this is the mere crust of India.The vast mass of the people live in small rural villages, whollysustained by the soil; nearly nine-tenths of the whole popu-lation do so. The real problem of Indian rule is to protectthe small cultivator or Ryot (or Rayat), and free him, if possible,from the danger of famine on the one side, and the rapacious money-lender on the other. The policy which will secure our hold onIndia is the same which under Lord Cromer has done so muchfor the Egyptian fellaheen. Irrigation, moderate land assess-ment, and protection from the money-lender : t

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