The speech was not seriously attacked from any side, except
by Sir W. Wedderburn, who repeated his usual statements as to the "starveling" condition of the ryota, statements which we believe are made in sincerity, but are true only thus far,—that the frightful increase of the popula- tion year by year enlarges the class of labourers without property, the agricultural residuum in fact, who no doubt in any year of scarcity suffer cruelly. Owing, Lord George Hamilton thinks, to the Paz Britannica, but, as we think, to many causes, one of them being a marked increase in the household care of children, the population of British India has since 1871 increased by seventy 'miliaria, nearly twice the whole population of France. Millions of these additions to the total inherit no property, they keep down wages, and they live a hand-to-mouth existence which renders them liable to succumb the moment anything interrupts the normal course of events. It is indispensable, said Lord George, to en. courage manufactures and mining in order to absorb these
masses of new arrivals, who before A.D. 2000 will double the population of India, and the Government was anxiously par. suingthat course. He is, of course, quite right, but the Government should also make it easier to reach the thinly peopled provinces. If Burmah, Assam, and the Central Provinces were easily accessible they could provide for thirty million more agriculturists.
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