INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7447, 23 May 1911, Page 2

INDIA UNDER BRITISH RULE

The best proof that the situation in Tudia is full of cause for hope is (says "Tb© Times") found in the increasing revenue, in the growth of prosperity, and m that’rapid rise of population disclosed, which is in the main, the direct outcome of prosperous conditions. Within ten • days of tho numbering, of the people the provisional results have been announced. The total population .is .declared at 315 000,000, snowing an increase- of 20,500,000. equal to Pearly half tile popu-, larion of the United Kingdom, during the last decade. At the 1901 census, taken after n period of famine and bad seasons, the population only showed an increase of 7,000,000. In one-fourth of the. British territory and in several native States tbe population ten years ago was lower than in 1891. • This time it is tolerably certain that the numbers - aru higher in every State and f province. ~ Had it not ; been for the ravages of plague, which j have swept away millions, the total, 1 would have been considerably larger. The question will at once arise whether India can continue to support a population which in a ' favourable decade, and despite the toll taken by pestilence, increases so rapidly. The reply is that, vost though these numbers arc, the country can support them, and far more. The pressure of population is still far legs than in England. Two-thirds, of the people of India live within a quarter of its area. There are vast . unoccupied lands, which have still to be populated. The’ waste areas of Assam have become a by-word. Branch railways are constantly opening up new' territory; irrigation is always bringing derelict land under cultivation. The growth of indigenous manufactures will in time .absorb millions of the inhabitants. The problem of the Indian population is to distribute the people more evenly. The process is slow, but the difficulty is not insoluble, and everv fresh migration increases prosperity. The‘growth of numbers is not a subject for alarm, but rather for. congratulation. The result of the Indian census makes it additionally dear that when King George is. crowned in Westminster Abbey next June he will be crowned as monarch of one-fourth of the entire human race. ;