of such vast importance to the finances of the State, that they are well
worthy of special attention. Had the Government been aware of the enormous
financial value to the State of the introduction of English capital, I
feel sure that much greater efforts would have been made to stimulate
European enterprise, and that the progress of India would have been much
accelerated all along the line.

When I started my plantation in 1858, the pay of a labourer was 2 rupees 4
annas (4s. 6d.) a month. It is now, throughout the numerous plantations
in Mysore, from six to seven rupees a month, and a labourer can live on
about two rupees a month. Such a statement made of any country would
indicate a satisfactory degree of progress; but whereas in England it
would simply mean a greater ability in the working classes to live in an
improved condition, and perhaps some improvement in the condition of the
shopkeepers with whom they dealt, in India it means the creation of a
social and ever wide-spreading revolution. For when in India capital is
introduced, and employment on a large scale is afforded to the people, the
poorer of the peasant classes are at once able to free themselves from
debt, and the labourers soon save enough money to enable them to start in
agriculture, coffee culture, or any culture within, their reach. The
result of this, in my experience, has been most remarkable. When I started
in Manjarabad, for instance, the planters relied solely on labour procured
from the adjacent villages. But now the local labourer is almost a thing
of the past, for he has taken to agriculture and coffee culture, and now
only occasionally works for a short time to earn some money to pay his
taxes. When this change began, the planters had of course to go further
afield for labour, but merely to produce over again a similar result by
enabling labourers from distant villages to do what the local labourers in
the coffee districts had done, and thus for labour we have to operate on
ever-widening circles, till at last I have heard it remarked that the