Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 135

INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY
95
another profession without dishonouring themselves. I
found countless widows and other women out of work,
and consequently destitute, who used formerly to maintain
by cotton-spinning. Wherever
same melancholy picture confronted me.
their families
I
went the
This collapse in the cotton industry has indirectly
affected trade in all its branches by stopping the circula-
tion of money, and the cultivators can no longer reckon
on the manufacturers who, in the days of their prosperity,
were wont to buy up their surplus grain, and even to lend
them money when they were in arrears with their taxes.
This has led the cultivators to the hard necessity of relin-
quishing their grain to, and thus becoming the prey of,
remorseless usurers.
Such is the deplorable condition into which the poor
Hindus have sunk
;
and
it
grows worse daily, thanks to
the much- vaunted improvements in machinery which some
nations glory in. Ah
if only the inventors of these in-
dustrial developments could hear the curses which this
multitude of poor Hindus never tire of heaping upon them
If only, like me, they had seen the frightful misery which
has overtaken whole provinces, owing entirely to them and
their inventive genius, they would no doubt, unless they
were entirely wanting in human pity, bitterly repent having
carried their pernicious innovations so far, and having
thereby enriched a handful of men at the expense of millions
of poor people, to whom the very name of their com-
petitors has become odious as the sole cause of their utter
!
!
destitution
And
!
no one venture to assert that the unfortunate
Hindus can, if they choose, find a recompense in the fertility
of their soil.
The sight of vast plains lying fallow and
let
may induce the superficial observer to accuse the
natives of indolence or the Government of mismanagement,
but he is not aware that the greater part, if not the whole,
of these vast plains are sterile, bare, and incapable of
cultivation through want of water during most of the year.
In Southern India, at the present time, there are few lands
in the neighbourhood of wells, tanks, and rivers which
are not under cultivation, even on the summits of the
highest hills
and if by any chance a few fields still lie
waste
;