Darkest India | Page 8

work I remember begging food from a house,
and learning afterwards that what they had given us was positively the
last they had for their own use. Needless to say that it was hastily
returned. During the same visit a cry of "Thief, thief!" was raised in the
night. We learnt next morning that the robbery had been committed by
a man whose wife and child were starving. It consisted of rice, and the
thief was discovered partly by the disappearance of the suspected

person, and partly by the fact that in his house was found the exact
quantity which had been stolen, whereas it was known that on the
previous day he had absolutely nothing whatever in his house! He had
left it all for his starving wife and child, and had himself fled to another
part of the country, probably going to swell the number of criminals or
mendicants in some adjoining city.
I quote these instances as serving to show the impossibility of judging
merely from outside appearances in regard to the existence or
non-existence of destitution of the most painful character, which it is
often to the interest of the local landlords to whitewash and conceal. It
is only on looking under the surface that such can in many cases be
discovered. It has been the actual living among the people that has
made it possible for us to obtain glimpses of their home life, such as
could not otherwise have been the case.
But let me enumerate a few of the classes among whom the Indian
"Out-of-works" are to be found. I do not mean of course to imply that
the entire castes, or tribes, or professions, referred to, constitute them.
Far from it. A large proportion are comparatively well off, and though
entangled almost universally in debt, are included among the 210
millions with whom we are not now concerned. None the less it will be
admitted, I believe, that it is from these that the ranks of destitution are
chiefly recruited. I call attention to this fact, because it helps in a large
measure to remove the religious difficulty which might at first sight
appear likely to stand in the way of our being commissioned by the
Indian public to undertake these much-needed reforms. They are almost
without exception of either no caste, or of such low caste, that
religiously speaking they may justly be regarded as "no man's land."
The higher castes and the respectable classes are mostly able to look
after themselves, and will not therefore come within the scope of our
scheme.
And yet on the threshold of our inquiry we are confronted with an
important and increasing class, of "out-of-works" who are being turned
out of our educational establishments, unfitted for a life of hard labour,
trained for desk service, but without any prospect of suitable

employment in the case of a great and continually increasing majority. I
do not see how it will be possible for us to exclude or ignore this class
in our regimentation of the unemployed. Certainly our sympathies go
out very greatly after them. But beyond registering them in our labour
bureau, and acting as go-betweens in finding employment for a small
fraction of them, I do not see what more can be done. However, the
majority of them have well-to-do relations and friends to whom they
can turn, and except in cases of absolute destitution will not fall within
the scope of the present effort.
Passing over these we come to the poorest classes of peasant
proprietors who, having mortgaged their tiny allotments to the hilt,
have finally been sold up by the money-lender. Add to these again the
more respectable sections of day-laborers. Then there are the destitute
among the weavers, tanners, sweepers and other portions of what
constitute the low-caste community. Out of these take now the case of
the weaver caste, with whom we happen to be particularly familiar, as
our work in Gujarat is largely carried on among them. Since the
introduction of machinery, their lot has come to be particularly pitiable.
In one district it is reckoned that there are 400,000 of them. Previous to
the mills being started, they could get a comfortable competence, but
year by year the margin of profit has been narrowed down, till at length
absolute starvation is beginning to stare them in the face, and that
within measurable distance.
To the above we may add again the various gipsy tribes, who have no
settled homes or regular means of livelihood. Finally, there are the
non-religious mendicants, the religious ones being considered as not
coming within the scope of our present effort, being provided for in
charitable institutions of their own.
Representatives of nearly all the above abound in our cities, and when
both town