cotton

sugar-cane expert, a fibre expert, a specialist and a scientific officer for the planting districts of Southern India. There are, in addition, the officers of the Civil Veterinary Department, with colleges, research laboratory and district staff. The achievements of this staff are chronicled in seven chapters under the head of the more important crops.

Taking cotton first, the work of the department has consisted in the selection of the best among the varieties grown in the different localities, the multiplication of the same and the distribution of this pure superior seed. The point of superiority aimed at has been an increased percentage of lint, selected varieties of "Roseum in the Central Provinces, of pure "Karunganni and "Nandyal" in Madras, and of the "Aligarh White Flowered" in the United Provinces, have been raised and distributed widely, the raiyats testifying to their superiority by willingly paying from 40 to 100 per cent. more for these seeds than for bazaar seed. Second to this improvement is the trial and introduction of exotic cotton, among which "Cambodia Cotton in Madras is an outstanding example. Long staple cotton can be grown no doubt, but it is quite properly observed that any extension in cultivation can only be the result of better prices, and that if Lancashire manufacturers want India to grow long staple cotton, they must be prepared to pay a much higher price.

Work on wheat has resulted in the production by cross breeding of the wheat called Pusa No. 12, which combines in itself the desirable qualities of strength, i.e., the power in the flour to produce a well-piled loaf and high yielding power. Severa] other crosss-bred wheats, in which are combined the good qualities of English and Indian wheats, are also being evolved and tested and will be available soon, From the new variety Pusa

No. 12 alone, Mr. Mackenna estimates the value of the increased produce over an area of 5 million acres, would increase in the course of next five years to 750 lakhs of rupees. The evolution of these new wheats is due to the patient research work of Dr. and Mrs. Howard of Pusa, and forms a most noteworthy achievement.

Work on rice that has led to material results is from Madras and relates to the experiments on seed rate and the number of seedlings to be transplanted. These have led to a saving to the Madras cultivator of about Rs. 10 lakhs annually. Bonemeal as a manure for rice has been demonstrated to give very good results, but for adoption in any large scale we should await the time when the large exports of bones from the country can be stopped and the bones crushed into bonemeal in the country. The success attained by the Central Provinces Department of Agriculture in popularising transplanting of rice in preference to broadcasting has also been striking, for the area under this method of cultivation has now increased to 30,000 acres.

Work on sugar-cane has related to the importation, trial and distribution of the "Red Mauritius' cane in the Godavari delta as a variety which is resistant to the "Red Rot" disease. The new cane became very popular and has extended to over 9,000 acres. Recent work has been in connection with the production of seedling canes and the trial of these varieties, with a view to finding out a high class cane suitable to the short growing season of Upper India which is predominantly the sugar-cane area of India. This work, which is under the control of Dr. Barber, is being carried on in Coimbatore, and the seedling canes produced in this breeding station will be tested in different sugar-cane farms opened in Upper India.

On the manufacturing side, the sugar-cane engi neer has been engaging himself with questions of

better mills, furnaces, and up-to-date sugar making plants suited to small areas-all with the object of preventing losses and securing greater economy in the manufacture.

Although it is noted that the imports of foreign sugar have increased from 70,000 tons to 800,000 tons a year during the last 25 years, the local manufacture of sugar on a large scale is not touched upon, apparently under the belief that it is a matter for capitalists.

Work more or less of a similar nature has been done in connection with the other principal crops such as tobacco, indigo, jute, coffee and tea. Although in these chapters stress has been laid only on the work of plant improvement, and the distribution of the seed of the improved strains, the suppression of plant diseases notably in the case of the areca and the toddy palm, improvements due to drainage irrigation, green manures, improved implements, fruit packing and so on, all receive attention.

Agricultural education, veterinary matters and cattle are dealt with in the remaining chapters, Mr. Mackenna's remarks re: higher collegiate agricultural education are very outspoken and are somewhat out of the usual trend. "Even in England," he remarks, "the men resorting to a degree course in agriculture in the universities do so with the deliberate intention of obtaining appointments." No disappointment should, therefore, be felt if con. ditions in India are not otherwise. It would be well therefore to look this fact in the face, make the present colleges the training ground for a class of Indian agricultural students, who will be fitted to do work of a superior order by requiring a first class general education for admission and by offering prospects on a level with the other higher branches of the public service.

To the literate sons of landholders open vernacular agricultural institutions, and for the large mass of the illiterate cultivating class carry

instruction to their door by means of demonstrations in their holdings under proper supervision as at present. This summarises a very frank and commonsense discussion of this much-debated matter.

Of the work of the Veterinary Department, Mr. Mackenna writes with enthusiasm, for it has succeeded in a remarkable degree in securing the affection and confidence of the people. The outstanding feature of the work of this department is the preparation of vaccines and sera for inoculation against rinderpest, anthrax and blackquarter and the successful treatment by their means of cattle over very large areas. The devising of some scheme of cattle insurance for mitigating the consequences of the disastrous cattle mortality in the country, and the improvement of the milch and draft cattle of the country, are also touched upon. Fortunately, this period of the agricultural development has coincided with the growth of the co-operative movement in India; and in this as well as in many other directions of the agricultural improvement for a more rapid advance, Mr. Mackenna very properly pleads for a fuller and more sympathetic resort to the help of this movement.

The net result of the ten years' work reviewed in the brochure, Mr. Mackenna has tried to assess in a somewhat telling manner. On the material side, leaving aside the virtual saving from destruction of certain crops which will be hard to properly estimate, the money-value of the increased out-turn, due to the other improvements, is put down roughly at 3 crores of rupees with an annual expenditure on the debit side of 50 lakhs on the department; while on the moral side the mutual understanding and friendship that has grown up between the officers of the department and the cultivator is an invaluable asset-results which amply justify H. M. the King Emperor's utterances quoted on the titlepage.

MY DEAR WILSON,

T has become almost a fashion of late for Westerners to complain of the commercial immorality of the Japanese. When that fact is constantly dinned into our ears, we cannot refrain from saying, Well, my good friends, you had better examine yourselves first in a very searching manner before you find fault with us! Is it worth while blaming others for those very qualities which may not be conspicuous by their absence in us? Is not the commercial immorality of your people at the bottom of most of your wars? Do you never come across dishonest men in your own country or Continent? Are the ways of your commercial men in the East ever altogether above reproach?

I know some of you Westerners have got an idea that all Asiatics are dishonest. Were you to know how many stories and legends there are in our literatures about the incredible trials which men went through for the sake of Truth, you would alter you opinion of us. And then in actual, every-day life, is it not acknowledged by all those who know the East well, that a Chinaman's commercial morality is superior to that of any Western race? It is also said that the average Turk is very honest as compared with many of his Christian neighbours. Did not Greek traveller, who visited India some years after the invasion of Alexander the Great, write that the Hindus were very honest, and that they left the doors of their houses open even at night, because they had full faith in the integrity of their neighbours?

a

I do not wish to imply by any means that our

tradesmen are, and have always been, perfectly blameless in their dealings with others. Far from it. But you must know what circumstances gave rise to this general Western prejudice against all Japanese businessmen.

When Japan was first opened to the world, a great many Westerners settled down at Yokohama. For certain reasons, our Government did not allow the Samurai (our middle-class) to go there at that time, and so our 'hommes declassés' overflooded that port. It goes without saying that these men were not the traditional cream but the traditional dregs of our society. We had never considered them trustworthy, and, therefore, it ought not to surprise anyone if they were not quite honest in their dealings with the Europeans and Americans who resided there. These men and their descendants have monopolized most of the petty trade in our country even now. When blaming them, you should not forget that our large business-firms are as honest as those of any other country. It is the whales and not the fry who rule the empire of the ocean!

By the way, do you know what some of our old Yokohama tradesmen, who are still alive, say when charged with cheating the Westerners ? They actually defend it on the principle of paying them back in their own coin!' Couple this defence of theirs with the bitter experiences which many of our countrymen have had in the West, when dealing with your waiters, tailors, and cabbies, and then imagine what some of us are likely to think of Western honesty?

Yours Sincerely,

J. OKAKURA,

NE result of the Great War has been that a very large number of people are seeking for the first time, seriously to understand what are called 'foreign affairs,' the relations in which England stands to other States and the causes which have helped to produce the present-world convulsion." This sentence of our author's preface states the main purpose of his book*; we may add that the purpose has been to a great extent secured. After reading this book we feel that it is not too much to go back a whole century if we desire to have a fairly complete explanation of the present war. At the same time the method of "describing the forces moulding Europe as a whole" rather than of dealing with the history of each nation separately has the great advantage of bringing together the various elements that go to make up European politics, and of thereby making the subject more intelligible to the reader.

Nevertheless the book is not free from the defects usually attending on such a method. It is a little book written on a very large subject; it is a sketch and as such proceeds chiefly by generalisations; it is readable but it is not always accurate. The impression one experiences in reading it is that the author, well meaning and sincere as he evidently is, seems in several questions to know only one side or to assume that there is no other to be known. His bibliography intensifies this impression. Thus on

the French Revolution his chief authority is A. Aulard. But that author is notorious not only for his partisanship but also for dishonesty in having tampered with several of the documents

Modern Europe, 1789-1914, by Sidney Herbert: Harrap & Co., London.

placed at his disposal by the Paris archives. This unconscious one-sidedness rests, I think, partly on a belief from which our author is not altogether free, that success in history-or what appears success to him—is a criterion of morality. This is exemplified in the very different way in which he treats the two similar topics of the Ku Kulturkampf in Germany and the Law of Separation of Church and State in France. The Kulturkampf proved clearly a victory for the champions of liberty against the Iron Chancellor, and the account given of it in this book is singularly penetrating. How is it Mr. Herbert has not perceived that the battle over the Law of Separation in France was fought practically on the same principles? In each case it was the struggle of Cæsar against the Church, a Church-it is the avowal of Bismarck-too strong to be beaten.

The same one-sidedness, and which I feel harder to excuse, is found in the treatment of the Dreyfus case. We do not ask that the author should adopt our views but we have a right to expect that an author undertaking to write on such a topic should state both sides of the case: else we have to say that he is not playing the game.

If it is unhistorical to use only one set of documents, it is perhaps worse to make affirmations without proof when the matter is of importance. Thus we are told (P. 95) that "after the destruction of Bohemian independence in the Thirty Years' War, the Czech language was abandoned to the uneducated classes, and that the Jesuits took a prominent part in the wholesale destruction of works in the Vernacular." The Jesuits have been given more than their share of unproved accusations, yet authors have generally recognised their aptitudes in fostering