Throughout our Report, we refer to the importance of co-operative societies in connection with other activities and, in particular, in their relation to agricultural improvement, to education, to irrigation and in fact to anything which affects the cultivator. The function of the Co-operative Department, apart from the provision of credit, is to prepare the ground for the advice of the various experts employed by Government in its several departments. Naturally these departments can work best through co-operatively organised bodies of cultivators rather than through isolated individuals. The co-operative society should be the unit through which the various departments of Government concerned with rural welfare carry on their activities. As examples of the successful organisation of non-credit societies may be mentioned the Better Farming societies in the Punjab, the sale societies in Bombay and the Punjab, and the irrigation societies in Bergal. The desirability of appointing a special officer of the grade of deputy director of agriculture to work under the Registrar deserves to be examined in all provinces. As regards the appointment of specialist officers from other technical departments, much will depend on the stage of development and the particular form of co-operative activity which it is desired to foster.

CHAPTER XIV OF THE MAIN REPORT.

XII. THE VILLAGE

Economic changes are occurring rapidly in India. The development of communications and the consequent quickening and cheapening of travelling facilities are bringing the villages into closer touch with urban centres. This tends to break down the isolation and selfsufficing economy of the village. Contact with the towns introduces new ideas and a desire for better conditions of living.

The close relations between agriculture and public health are obvious and they react upon each other to a remarkable degree. There is no direction in which the rural community needs help more than in the provision of medical facilities and public health amenities. Economic wastage due to disease cannot be over-exaggerated. Malaria slays its thousands and lowers the economic efficiency of hundreds of thousands; plague and cholera sweep the country from time to time; hookworm disease, kala-azar and diseases arising from diet deficiency insidiously reduce the labour power of the cultivating classes. Any enquiry, therefore, into the general condition of agriculture and the position of the cultivator must take account of the public health aspect of his life; of the suitability of his diet; of the sanitary conditions under which he lives and of his general rural environment. In order that, as a result of the "better farming " to which we hope our proposals will lead, the cultivator may have that "better living" which should follow from it, it is necessary to take stock of existing conditions and consider what steps are necessary to improve them. These conditions in the rural areas are certainly bad. Sanitation, in any accepted sense of the word, is practically non-existent. The public latrine is too often the river bank or the margin of a tank. This predisposes to hookworm infestation and to the spread of all diseases incidental to a polluted water supply. The use of the open field, though not in all cases so objectionable, requires that the catchment areas of tanks and streams should be protected from pollution. Unprotected wells and tanks; unswept village streets; close pent windows excluding all ventilation-in such conditions does the average villager live-and yet observes a remarkably high standard of personal cleanliness and tidiness. The tragedy is that such a state of affairs should exist when, with corporate action on the part of the villagers, the evils would be so easily remediable. A common determination to protect wells, to keep villages clean and to avoid as far as possible the pollution of rivers would undoubtedly lead to an enormous improvement of the public health.

To deal successfully with this state of affairs imposes duties both on Government and on the people. It is the duty of Government to investigate basic medical problems and to enunciate and direct sound principles of public health administration. It is the duty of the people to cooperate in giving effect to such recommendations, and generally to assist in improving rural conditions. Much is being done by government and private agency and the general economic trend of events is conducive to, and suggests the possibility of, a rapid improvement in rural

conditions at no distant date. The matter largely rests with the people themselves.

Government discharges its duties through its public health and medical departments. The concern of the provincial public health departments is the establishment throughout each province of such precautionary conditions as render the incidence or spread of disease less likely. In recent years, there has been a great forward movement in this direction and questions of improved water supply and sanitary and conservancy arrangements have received an increasing amount of attention. The most highly developed provincial department is that of Madras which has a district health scheme with 26 health officers and 261 health inspectors.

On the medical side, the greater part of the research undertaken by the central Government is carried out by officers working under the Indian Research Fund Association. The objects of this Association are the promotion and assistance of research, the propagation of knowledge and experimental measures generally in connection with the causation, mode of spread and prevention of diseases, primarily of a communicable nature. Much research work has been done under the auspices of this Association in connection with such diseases as cholera, plague, malaria, kala-azar and in the investigation of problems of diet deficiency.

In the Bombay presidency, a village medical aid scheme has been devised under which rural schoolmasters are trained to deal with minor ailments and to administer first aid. In some provinces, schemes have been adopted under which private practitioners are given subsidies to induce them to settle in rural areas. Various schemes have also been evolved for the training of village midwives and nurses. Schemes of this nature have great potentialities and should be given all possible encouragement. Some local governments are already making annual grants to local authorities for the improvement of the potable water supplies. We consider such improvement a matter of paramount importance and in view of the heavy cost of water borne epidemics, we suggest that all governments may well regard expenditure on this object as constituting a sound policy of insurance.

In the course of our tour, we have been much impressed by the great awakening of non-official interest in the health and welfare of the country-side. It is from this manifestation of public interest that we derive our greatest encouragement and hope. This awakening is general and not confined to any particular province. As typical examples of such efforts, we would mention the Poona Seva Sadan Society, the Co-operative Anti-Malaria Society in Bengal, and the rural reconstruction work of the Y. M. C. A. in southern India.

Of all the diseases of India, malaria is the most widespread and its effects on the efficiency of the rural community are disastrous. The principal prophylactic in the treatment of this disease is quinine and cinchona febrifuges and not the least of Government's responsibilities in the control of malaria is connected with its policy in regard to the manufacture of this

drug. At present, all the cinchona plantations with one exception and the factories for the manufacture of quinine are owned by the provincial governments of Bengal and Madras. If the question of malaria is to be seriously tackled, we are strongly of opinion that the development of cinchona cultivation in all provinces which contain areas suitable for its growth, the manufacture of quinine and the control of its distribution, so far as price within India is concerned, should be taken over by the Government of India. In view of the all-India importance of the question it is not one which should be left to local governments, however efficiently they may in the past have carried out their obligations in the matter. In view of the great importance of extending cinchona cultivation and cheapening quinine, we consider that much more scientific investigation is called for than has been undertaken in the past.

In concluding our remarks on public health we desire to emphasise the urgency of the need for developing the rural medical and public health services to the utmost possible extent and with the utmost speed.

The problems of human nutrition, which have only recently come into prominence are being investigated by Colonel McCarrison who is working under the Research Fund Association at Cconcor. He lays emphasis on malnutrition as a problem facing those engaged in agricultural research. In his enquiries, Colonel McCarrison invokes the aid of the agricultural departments. The problems of human and animal nutrition are likely to assume such importance that we.consider it desirable that work on human nutrition and on the nutrition of farm animals should be carried out in the closest co-operation, or, in other words, that there should be team work by workers with a knowledge of different branches of the science of nutrition. Continuity is also essential. The various workers on nutrition problems should be formed into a Committee on Nutrition which would meet at regular intervals to discuss common questions. This would assure the requisite close touch between workers in different branches of the subject. In view of the importance of the subject, we recommend that a Central Institute of Human Nutrition should be established. Although it is not necessary that both branches of nutrition work-human and animal-should be carried out in the same building, it is desirable, in order to secure the closest possible connection between the research workers in both these branches, that the respective institutes should, if possible, be at no great distance from each other.

In connection with diet, we are much impressed by the possibilities of a development of the fish industry in India and would commend this matter to the attention of local governments.

So far we have dealt mainly with what may be called the health aspects of the cultivator's life. We now propose to consider what help can be given to the villagers to enable them both to adjust themselves to charging conditions and to reap the fullest advantages from the various technical services with which they are now coming increasingly into contact.

Throughout our investigation, we have constantly been impressed with the thought that mere material improvement alone will not bring

lasting benefit to the agricultural population. Increase in yield by better seed and better cultivation; security of the harvests gained by the expansion of irrigation; immunity from losses due to pests or pestilence higher prices from improved communications and conditions of marketing everything, in short, which we have advocated for the material advancement of the people will merely postpone the effects of the growing pressure of the population on the soil. No lasting improvement in the standard of living of the great mass of the population can possibly be attained if every enhancement in the purchasing power of the cultivator is to be followed by a proportionate increase in the population.

In this Report, we have in their proper places stressed the importance of primary education, adult education and that more special form, the education in the economics of daily life, provided in some provinces through the agency of the co-operative staffs. We must now turn to other means calculated to stimulate the desire for better livirg. We are strongly of opinion that guidance here is far more called for than anything in the nature of what, for want of a better term, we shall call charitable assistance. What is required is to increase in desirable directions the number of the villager's wants and to show him how to satisfy them by his own efforts. We trust that the whole weight of those to whom the villager looks for guidance will be thrown into suggestions how to improve, during his spare time, the amenities of the village. Fortunately there is a tradition of corporate action for mutual benefit to which to appeal. In the olden days, tanks were dug or cleaned out, wells sunk and roads made or repaired in this way. Although this good custom has largely fallen into disrepute, we think that, if its advantages were brought home to the villager, a voluntary revival of it for these and other purposes such as the provision of a good supply of drinking water, drainage and street improvement should be possible. If revival is not possible, hope of radically improving the amenities of the village must be abandoned. The cultivator himself is not well enough off to pay for hired labour and it is certain that neither the local bodies nor the provincial governments can provide either the men or the finance for carrying out such undertakings.

It cannot, however, be reasonably expected of the cultivator that he should, unaided, revive this ancient custom of corporate action and utilise it for the improvement of the village and its surroundings. He lacks leadership, and the difficulty is to suggest the leader. The educated man is not willing to live his life in a village except in a few cases where ideals of social service overcome the absence of amenities. The system of village guides devised by Mr. Brayne, I.C.S., in the Gurgaon district of the Punjab seems worthy of consideration. Young men are given a special course of training which, in addition to imbuing them with a sense of the dignity of corporate labour for the mutual benefit, is designed to familiarise them with the principles of sanitation, elementary medical aid, co-operation, and agricultural improvement, and to give them some knowledge of the simpler home industries in order that each man may, when his training is completed, act as