that falls on the hills given off in gentle flow to the benefit of the fields below; whilst, as may be seen in many parts of India, if the forests be denuded the hillsides are soon washed bare, whilst heavy tropical downpours damage by their floods the lowland cultivation and are then exhausted. The primary principle of forest administration in India has thus been, and must be, conservation, since on the prevention of floods and the regulated utilisation of supplies of water depend all the irrigation-works which mean so much to the livelihood of the peoples of India.

The extension of cultivation has undoubtedly resulted in the cutting down of much forest growth, mainly on the plains, owing to the wasteful methods of primitive tribes who cut down and burn jungle to grow their crops. It was in the early sixties of the last century that a trained Forest Department, with preservation in the forefront of its policy, began to be organised. Over one-fifth of the total area of British India is now in the charge of the Forest Department. Of this area, exceeding 250,000 square miles, almost one-half is under direct control. The balance is still "unclassed," i.e. the control consists of very little more than the collection of revenue and general supervision, until the area is either definitely given for cultivation or finally added to the "reserved" forests.

The degree and method of control exercised over the forests varies with the purpose a forest is classified as serving. They are divided into:

(a) Forests the preservation of which is essential on climatic and physical grounds. These are mainly on hillsides.

(b) Forests containing valuable commercial timber, e.g. teak in Burma, the sal forests in Eastern India, the deodar and pines of the North-West Himalayas.

(c) Minor forests supplying inferior timber and serving local needs for firewood, agricultural timber, grazing, etc.

(d)" Pasture" lands. These are really grazing-grounds, but are managed by the Forest Department for convenience.

In many parts of India, especially in the Peninsular area, the management of the third of these classes occupies much of a Forest officer's time. In 1918-19 over 5,000,000 cubic feet of timber, 80,000,000 cubic feet of firewood, and 4,000,000 rupees' worth of fodder grass, etc., were issued from this class of forests. The chief timbers and the forest industries of India are of more general interest than the supply of local requirements. The most famous of the timbers is teak, which for more than a century has been the wood most needed by the Navy. The

estimated amount of teak annually available for world purposes is 280,000 tons, of which Burma supplies 225,000. This tree does not occur there in forests of pure teak, but scattered among other species. Trees are girdled three years before felling, and are then floated down the rivers. Exploitation is done mainly by commercial firms. Plantations of teak have been made elsewhere, notably in Malabar and Chittagong.

Apart from this well-known staple, India possesses many beautiful hard timbers, suitable for parquet flooring, panelling and furniture, railway carriages, etc. Amongst these are padauk, a wood similar to mahogany, from the Andamans and Burma; Indian laurel wood; Indian silver-grey wood, and pynkado, an exceptionally strong wood; red cedar; gurjan; and sisson, a wood of rich brown colour. Among the ornamental Indian woods already known in Europe may be mentioned rosewood, red sanders, sandal-wood, and satin-wood from South India.

The utility of the forests does not end with their effect on cultivation and climate and the extraction of timber. Certain forest industries of high importance are also dependent on them. In the forefront of these comes the collection of lac and the manufacture of shellac, an essential ingredient in a vast number of modern articles ranging from varnishes to gramophone records and felt hats. Grasses are also extracted for the manufacture of paper pulp, and much attention is being given to the utilisation of bamboos for this purpose. Another purely forest industry is now being established on a commercial scale, viz. the collection of resin from the pines on the foothills and lower slopes of the Himalayas. The local factories, whose supply area can be greatly increased if necessary, yield nearly 2,400 tons of resin and 156,000 gallons of turpentine.

In the five years 1864-68 the average annual gross receipts from forests were 3,7 lakhs of rupees, and the expenditure 2,4 lakhs. In the quinquennium 1914-18 these annual average figures had risen to 3,71 lakhs and 2,11 lakhs respectively, with a surplus balance of 1,60 lakhs. India has obviously in her forests not only a property vital to her well-being, but also one immediately profitable, and of incalculable potential value in the future.

Irrigation.-Irrigation is constantly mentioned in connection with cultivation in India; yet it is difficult for anyone familiar only with English practice to realise what this means or entails. Thus, in 1917-18, two out of every nine acres of crop raised in British India were watered artificially, and the total areas

so watered exceeded by 50 per cent. the cultivated area of Great Britain. Taking India as a whole, it may be said that there are certain parts, such as Lower Burma, Eastern Bengal and Assam, where the rainfall is plentiful to excessive. There are other tracts, and these form the majority, where the rainfall in a normal year may be sufficient, but is liable to uneven distribution, or to such serious deficiency as to expose the tract to the danger of famine. Thirdly, there are parts, chiefly in the north, where the rainfall is ordinarily insufficient to mature the crop, and agriculture would be impossible without an irrigation system.

The commonest sources of irrigation are wells and tanks. Exact numerical statistics are difficult to obtain, but probably nearly 30 per cent. of the crops of India are irrigated from wells. Tanks may range from small ponds to comparatively big storage works with sluices and outlet-channels from which water can be drawn to the fields. But it is in the construction of canals upon rivers that the achievements have been most remarkable. These are usually divided into two classes: those drawing their supplies from perennial rivers, and those which depend upon water stored in artificial reservoirs. The former are mainly found in connection with the snow-fed rivers rising in the Himalayas, which afford an inexhaustible supply of water; the latter are more common in the Peninsula proper, where it is necessary to impound the river-water in huge storage works which often form lakes of several square miles for use in the dry season. Of this class is the Periyar lake, constructed for the supply of the Madura district in Madras, where water was deficient. At a height of 3,000 feet above the sea-level a masonry dam 175 feet high was thrown across the Periyar river in its course to the western sea. An immense lake was thus formed, and this, by the construction of a long channel, which in its course tunnels the watershed, is used for irrigating 200,000 acres in the Madura district. The general characteristics of this class of work are the same everywhere costly and solid head-works on the rivers, and carefully aligned large canals as main distributaries, with many minor channels taking from them. It is in this class of work, involving great technical skill and requiring large sums of capital, that Government has played the largest part.

The work was begun in 1835-36, when first the Cauvery and then the Godavari systems were constructed. After this, construction of irrigation works by private companies was tried, but proved a financial failure, and it was decided that it

should be undertaken by the State out of loan funds. Since then progress has been rapid and constant. The main distributary canals, alone, under the charge of Irrigation Officers, are now 13,000 miles in length. An area of 270,000 acres has on an average been added every year for the last twenty-five years to the total area irrigated in the Punjab alone, i.e. an addition to the irrigated area in one province of a tract comparable in extent to the six northern counties of England. Not only have crops been thereby rendered safer and land previously under cultivation more productive, but land which for centuries had defied the labour and ingenuity of the cultivator now carries a large population and grows heavy crops of cotton and wheat. For instance, ten years ago the land now occupied by the Lower Bari Doab Colony was desert without a vestige of cultivation. The waters of the rivers which skirt it, the Ravi and the Sutlej, had already been fully utilised and had none to spare; the Chenab, the river next in the north, was in like condition. But farther north still was the Jhelum river with water to spare. Some of this water was used to compensate the Chenab, whilst Chenab water was brought across the Ravi to convert the Lower Bari Doab from a desert to a tract yielding annually £2,000,000 of cotton and over £1,000,000 of wheat, besides other crops. Part of this land is specially reserved for officers and soldiers of the Indian Army who have had a distinguished military career. Such is the romance of irrigation in India, and such is the scale on which it is conceived.

Several new projects of first magnitude have been prepared, perhaps the most important of which is the Sukkur Barrage in Sindh. This will involve the construction of a barrage across the Indus, nearly a mile long between abutments-by far the biggest work of its kind so far undertaken. From this barrage seven canals will take off, estimated to irrigate over 5,000,000 acres, some 3,000,000 of which are now almost entirely uncultivated. Its completion will throw open to cultivation a tract of country resembling Egypt in many of its characteristics, which it is hoped may rival it in its cotton-growing capacity.

The area irrigated varies with the character of the season, but, taking the year 1919-20, the total area irrigated by all classes of works in British India amounted to a little over 27,000,000 acres. The total length of main and branch canals and distributaries from which this irrigation was effected amounted to 66,754 miles. The estimated value of the crops

irrigated by Government works amounted to £156,000,000, or double the total capital expenditure on the works.

The return for irrigation expenditure is obtained by a charge for the water, a moderate one, usually levied on an acreage basis, or varying with the crop raised. In 1920-21 the Government had invested on major irrigation works £70,600,000, which, after making all charges for maintenance, interest and loss on works of an unproductive character and built only as a protection against famine, yielded a net profit of over 4 per cent. It has been truly said of these works, "No similar works in other countries approach in magnitude the irrigation works in India, and no public works of nobler utility have ever been undertaken in the world."

III

INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE

INDIA, though ancient in handicrafts, is young industrially. From the time that the merchant adventurers of the West made their first appearance in the country, its delicate muslins, wrought by hand, were one of the most prized articles of commerce, and frequent mention is made of the excellence of its velvets and brocades, and the skill of its workers in precious metals and ivory. Even at the present day there is a large internal demand for handwoven cottons, silks and printed goods. In 1918 it was estimated that there were still two to three million hand looms at work in India. But for a number of reasons India's industrial development on modern lines was slow. Doubtless the absence of an energetic and enterprising middle class, to which the industrial revolution in England was mainly due, and the difficulty experienced in the first instance of adapting Western discoveries to tropical conditions, were contributing factors; but the main reason for the slowness of the development, both of India's industries and foreign trade, was the lack of internal communications and the cost and duration of the voyage to the west of Europe, which was the birthplace of the modern industrial system. As soon as railways were introduced in India, large steamships took the place of sailing-vessels, and as the opening of the Suez Canal shortened the sea journey between Europe and India, there was a marked advance, not only in the trade relations with foreign countries, but in the growth of modern manufacturing industries. Though the valleys of the Narbada and the Tapti had been