SMALL HOLDINGS IN INDIA AND THEIR REMEDIES 477
we cannot, atleast by this means, but will help to create a register that will be false to the true situation.
This being our criticism of the means for preventing sub-division and fragmentation it will not take us long to state our view as regards the project of consolidation. Consolidation and its conservation are so intimately connected that the one cannot be thought of without the other. Now if we cannot conserve a consolidated holding, is it worth our while to consolidate, however feasible the project may be ? This work of Sysiphus will not fail to fall to our lot unless we make effective changes in our social economy.
As the evils of this surplus and idle labour which will be added on to by the consolidation and enlargement of holdings are likely to outweigh their advantages’, the proposals do not find much favour at the hands of Prof. Gilbert Slater. [26]
As against Prof. Slater we hold that the evils are avoidable and it is because we are anxious to avoid them that we wish to advocate different remedies for bringing about the enlargement of holdings. Consequently, we maintain that our efforts should be primarily directed towards this idle labour. [27]
If we succeed in sponging off this labour in non-agricultural channels of production we will at one stroke lessen the pressure and destroy the premium that at present weighs heavily on land in India. Besides, this labour when productively employed will cease to live by predation as it does to-day, and will not only earn its keep but will give us surplus; and more surplus is more capital. In short, strange though it may seem, industrialization of India is the soundest remedy for the agricultural problems of India. The cumulative effects of industralization, namely, a lessening pressure and an increasing amount of capital and capital goods will forcibly create the economic necessity of enlarging the holding. Not only this, but industralization by destroying the premium on land will give rise to few occasions for its sub-division and fragmentation. Industrialization is a natural and powerful remedy and is to be preferred to such ill-conceived projects as we have considered above. By legislation we will get a sham economic holding at the cost of many social ills. But by industrialization a large economic holding will force itself upon us as a pure gain.
“The village in the Melting Pot” Journal of the Indian Economic Society. Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 10.
Prof. Jevons does speak of removing the surplus agricultural population to towns. The author is happy to note that Prof. Jevons had recognised that there is the evil of surplus population. What he has failed to recognize is that this evil is the faithful parent of all other evils that affect our agriculture. When it is recalled that industrialization of India is the one theme against which Prof. Jevons never fails to argue with all the aid of his knowledge and influence, his remedy of removing the surplus population to towns sounds starnge; for migration to towns is simply euphemism for the industrialization of India. On the other hand Prof. Jevons has forgotten that there are few towns in India. If we believe, as does Prof. Jevons, that there is the evil of surplus population the only logical and inevitable conclusion, however unplatable it be, is the creations of more towns i.e,, industrialization.