principal languages are given in the following ment of tribal languages, has formed the subject statement: of a considerable amount of discussion and suggestion during the last decade and a good deal has been written on the possibility of a lingua franca for India. The combined speakers of Eastern and Western Hindi considerably exceed in number the strength of any other individual language in India, and if we add to these two languages Bihari and Rajasthani, which so resemble Hindi as to be frequently re turned under that name in the census schedules, we get well over 100 millions of speakers of tongues which have some considerable affinities and cover a very large area of northern and central India. In their pure forms these four languages may be scientifically distinct; but this is not the popular view. There is a common element in the main languages of northern and central India which renders their speakers, without any great conscious change in their speech mutually intelligible to one another, and this common basis already forms an approach to a lingua franca over a large part of India. Infirmities. These are classes under four main heads-insanity, deaf-mutism, blindness and leprosy. The appended statement shows the number of persons suffering from each infirmity at each of the last five censuses and the proportion per hundred thousand of the popula The necessity of a common medium of conversation and intercourse, which has given rise to bi-lingualism and the consequent displace-tion: There had been a continuous decline in the total number as well as in the proportion of persons recorded as afflicted up to 1901. This fall has been ascribed, partly, to a progressive improvement in the accuracy of the diagnosis and, partly, to an actual decrease in the prevalence of the infirmities, owing to the improvement in the material condition of the people to better sanitation and (especially in the case of blindness) to the increasing number of cures effected with the aid of modern medical and surgical science. In the decade ending 1901 the relatively high mortality of the afflicted in the two severe famines must have been a considerable factor in the decline shown at that census, but the method of compilation adopted in 1901 and in the previous census was defective, and, certainly in 1901, many of the persons afflicted must have escaped notice in the course of tabulation. Compared with the year 1891, there was a slight decrease in the total number of persons recorded as afflicted in 1911, the proportion per hundred thousand persons falling from 315 to 267. The small increase in the present decade, amounting to 26,455 persons or one per 100,000 may be due to improvement in record and tabulation but is certainly unexpected. Caste. The enormous complexity of the caste system makes it impossible to give more than the briefest results here; the curious must be referred to the extensive literature on the subject, and to the whole chain of census reports where it is discussed in various aspects. All we can do here is to give the census figures of the main castes, with a comparison with 1911 Variation in certain main castes. CASTE. 1921 PERSONS. 1911 9,481,194 998,222 1,264,379 1,015,738 1,041,246 1,334,756 2,085,427 866,020 1,033,879 1,590,690 14,568,472 7,643,742 11,448,786 1,254,150 2,029,495 1,189,274 865,511 1 340,631 1,515,794 2,995,598 2,195,168 2,972,928 6,887,655 2,799,623 1,281,515 1,726,546 2,711,960 1,126,095 1,047,585 3,327,179 1,102,695 2,133,313 1,129,799 1,726,977 3,164,968 900,062 3,423,942 4,512,182 3,707,090 2,968,440 1,703,556 1,517,587 786,431 1,920,462 3,325,712 2,067,521 1,939,869 1,044,557 4,972,954 926,426 2,082,547 India Provinces States and Agencies : 163,918 10,139 174,057 197,639 113,012 100,420 148,525 9,124 157,649 178,130 96,529 86,196 15,393 1,015 16,408 19,509 16,483 14,224 OCCUPATIONS. India is essentially an agricultural country and agriculture proper supports 224 millions of persons or 71 per cent. of the population of the Empire. If we add the pastoral and hunting occupations the percentage rises to 73, while a considerable proportion of the unfortunate'y large number of persons in the category of vague and unclassifiable occupations are probably labourers closely connected with the occupations of the land. Industries support 10 per cent, of the population, but the bulk of these are engaged in unorganised industries connected with the supply of personal and household necessities and the simple implements of work. Organized industries occupy only 1 per cent. of the people. In trade and transport, on which less than 6 per cent. and 2 per cent., respectively, depend a not inconsiderable number are connected with the disposal of the various kinds of agricultural products. The administration and protection of the country engage only 4.825,479 persons, or 14 per cent. of the population, and the remainder are supported by domestic, miscellaneous and un productive occupations. Though the extent to which agriculture predominates in individual provinces varies, there is no region in which it does not in some form easily take the first place. In spite of the trade of Calcutta and the Compared with 1911 the agriculturists have numerous industrial and mining concerns of increased a little faster than the total population, Bengal and Bihar and Orissa the population though fishermen and hunters are fewer. Miners of the eastern provinces is overwhelmingly have risen in number with the recent expansion agricultural and contains a higher percentage of the industry. Industries have substantially of persons supported by the land than any other tract of India. Of industrial workers the largest proportions in the local population are in the Punjab, the United Provinces and Bombay. Of these three provinces, however, agriculture dominates the economic life of the first two, where the Industrial occupations, though they engage a substantial number of persons, are mostly of the cottage industry type. In Bombay the development of organized industry is of some economic importance, but is at present largely confined to a few of the biggest cities. In the category of unclassified occupations the majority of persons are labourers whose particular form of labour is unspecified and the rest mostly unspecified clerks. decreased and of the principal forms of industry the textile workers have dropped considerably, as also have potters and workers in wood and metal. An increase under transport by rail is countered by a drop under transport by road. Trade has increased, trade in textiles showing a slight rise and trade in food a slight drop. The number employed in public administration is practically stationary, but the army has risen while the police has fallen heavily. Law and medicine have gained at the expense of religion, and though instruction has spread letters have fallen. Rentiers are fewer and domestic servants as many. Beggars and vagrants, the raw material of crime and disease, have decreased but criminals, the finished article, nave risen in numbers. Occupation or means of Livelihood. Collieries. Of a total of 288 thousand supported by collieries 205 thousand are actual workers. The most important coal mines lie in the provinces of Bihar and Orissa and Bengal. The Jherria coal-field in Manbhum, the importance of which is due to its accessibility and the superior quality of its coal, alone produces over fifty per cent. of the total annual output of coal in India. According to the industrial census the total population employed in the coal mines of Manbhum was 82,619, of whom 347 were managers, 1,519 belonged to the supervising and technical staff and 1,482 to the clerical staff, while 32,843 were skilled and 46,428 unskilled workers. Textiles-Cotton. Of the industries the textile industriege by far the most importants the number of persons occupied in industries connected with cotton being returned as 5,872,000 or just three-quarters of the whole number of those supported by textile industries. The bulk of the organized establishments are in the western tracts, where the large cities owe a considerable portion of their prosperity to the development of the textile industries and the cotton-growing country is covered with mechanically worked gins and presses for the preliminary treatment of the raw material. Of the 2,037 establishments connected with cotton manufacture, employing in all 434,000 persons, no less than 737 establishments, with 277,000 employees or 64 per cent. of the personnel, belong to the western Presidency and its States. Jute. The spinning, pressing and weaving of jute support a population of 493,099, as compared with 362,369 ten years ago. There are a few mills and presses in Assam, Bihar and Orissa, and Madras, but the industry is practically confined to Bengal. Nature of Ownership. --Of the total number of 15,606 etablishments 677 are owned by Government, 3.292 by registered companies and 11,637 by private persons. The Government owned concerns are mostly railway and engineering workshops and other concerns such as brick and tile factories connected with the construction of roads and building and printing presses. The tea and rubber plantations are mostly the property of companies. Out of the 795 tea plantations in Assam 632 belong to companies. On the other hand the coffee plantations of Madras, which are much smaller concerns than the tea gardens, are mostly privately owned, only 23 out of 127 belonging to companies in Madras and 10 ont of 242 in Mysore. The collieries are mostly company-owned, but of the 42 manganese mines of the Central Provinces half are owned by companies and half by private persons. Of the 392 cotton ginning mills in Bombay 333 are private owned, but of the cotton weaving mills 129 out of 345 are owned by companies. Similarly the jute presses are mostly private, while 60 out of the 62 jute mills of Bengal are company owned. Practically all the printing presses are private concerns, and so are a large number of the general workshops and such concerns like flour and rice mills and brick and tile works, which are mostly on a small scale. European companies own the majority of the tea gardens of Assam and Bengal, but as has already been seen Indian enterprise is growing in regard to the private ventures. Indigo in Bihar and Orissa, coffee in Madras and rubber in Travancore are mostly in European hands but the coffee plantations of Mysore are largely owned by Indians. Most of the large collieries of Bengal are held by European companies, but 65 out of the 73 private concerns belong to Indians. The cotton industry of Western India is almost entirely Indian; while the jute mills of Bengal are in European hands though the small presses are mostly owned by Indians. The rice and flour mills and the brick and tile factories, with the exception of a few large concerns, are in the hands of Indians. Women as Workers. The adult women (unskilled) number 508 per 1,000 adult men and the proportion of the children of both sexes under 14 years old is 140 per 1,000 adults. By far the majority of women labourers, viz.. 329 out of 540 thousand, are on the plantations, where their proportion per 100 men is as high as 94, the children being 190 per 1,000 adults. Women and children are also numerous in the textile and mining industries and in the former there are 408 adult women (unskilled) per 1,000 men and in the latter 521. Nearly 30 per cent. of the women employed in textile industries are recorded as skilled. About 61 per cent. of the total number of children employed in organized industries are boys and the girls almost equal the boys on the plantations and in the mines and form about one-fifth of the child labour in the textile industries. In the larger industries (20 persons and above) both female and child labour has dropped since 1911, the proportion of women (unskilled) being 515 now against 561 in 1911 per 1,000 men and the proportion of children per 1,000 adults 141 against 191 in 1911. The figures vary curiously in different industries and suggest that they are not altogether trustworthy. Women have increased in the plantations and textiles and declined in the mines. Children have decreased in the plan tations and textiles and increased in the mines. Both women and children find considerable employment in the establishments connected with glass, pottery, cement and building and to a less extent in those of food and dress. some Occupation of Europeans - Of the 103,405 male Europeans, 63,538 belong in capacity to the category of Public Force, i.e., the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police; over 9.000 to Transport, i.e., largely railway officials and about 6,000 to Public Administration; 4,600 to Mines and Industries; 5,900 to professions; 4,600 to trade, while there are about 4,200 imperfect entries, a number which together with the known deficiency in the census of Europeans generally somewhat detracts from the value of the details. The abnormal constitution of the foreign European population is exhibited by the small number of dependants viz., 62,000, as against 111,000 workers, whereas the number of Anglo-Indian dependants is just about double the number of their workers. Nearly one-third of the Anglo-Indian males are employed on Transport, i.e., chiefly Railway, and the remainder mostly find employment as clerks and upper subordinates. |