Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/352

 888 H. $1AlgLEY J'EF'Olq VI.--OBJECTS OF DEVELOPMENT 1. Development creates w E, viromnt, and results' are foreseabl.--Anyone who attempts a comprehen- sive study of economic development cannot fail sooner or later to be confronted with insistent as to the ultimate measures economic the environment of the questions objects to be aimed at in devising of development. The immediate object of development is very greatly to change population of the district to are regularly purchased because they have permanently created new wants. The character of these new wants will depend on the kinds of goods offered in the villages. Have they an educative or a degrading effect ? Again we know that i{ we can increase the means of subsis-' fence, as by distributing improved seed and agricultural implements, the population tends rapidly, other things being equal. to increase, often Also we know that education developes new wants and thus raises the stan- dard of life, and that this acts as a preventive check on the growth of population. know too as to the effects There is of changes much that we of prevailing occupation on the character of a population. The foregoing examples will be sufficient to prove that at the present day it is possible to devise a of agriculturalists. The cheap manufactured goods are tried in the villages out of curiosity, and gradually many be developed;and to this change the population is sure to react in certain ways whih we can forecast,' and also in many ways which we cannot foresee. We know, for example, that by bringing a railway into a district we usually increase the prices of all agricul- tural produce and lower the prices of manufactured gools, thereby destroying the village handicrafts, and at the same time causing a huge growth of manufacturing towns and a dead level rural society almost entirely composed