Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/299

 RELATING TO INDIA Industal Declinz in India. By Allahabad: The Star Press, /s. 2-8. Professor BALKRISHNA. 1917. pp. 408. Price Professor Balkrishna advocates fiscal autonomy for India and a preferential tariff vithin the empire, as he belieyes that the free trade policy of the English nation has re- suited in killing the indigenous industries of India and iu impoverishing the people on account of a want of variety xn their occupations. . '.fhe author looks upon the decay of industries, and the decline of towns with a eeling of despair; and though he does not bring forward a constructive plan of reform in this roll,me, he produces data of .facts mainly from the Census Reports of India to establish his contention of gressive ruralization one can be ruralization; pessimistic in m all pleased at the bnt we think this respect. pro- the provinces of India. No phenomena of this so called Professox Balkrishna is very Towns can evolve but slowly, industries as coal, cotton, tea, and the progress of such jute, mineral oil, railways--a side of the picture ignored by the author--cannot in our opinion be called dHn. The Indian mills as well as foreign competition have killed the hand-weaving industry, which was more or less specialized in certain localities and snpplied the needs of a limited local market, and we cannot think of any other substantial industry having been killed by foreign competition; as a matter of fact in our opinion India was never industrially great. The note of despair that domi- nates the book becomes eloquent when in Chapter VI estimates regarding the average annual income of the agriculturist on the basis of the n yield of agricultural produce are given at the extraordinary low figure of Rs. 19 a year per head. Along with this we commend to our reader a recent calculation by Professor E. A. Horne who puts the average annual income at Rs. 423 The difference is in part account- ed for by the fact that Professor Balkrishna estimates the total annual ne yield for India, after the cost of produc- tion has been deducted, at a 'very low figure, and estimates for his divisor, the rural population, at 90 per .cen of the total population--a very improbable figure. Bengal Economic Jourmd. Vol. II. (191S), pt. 1, p. 89.