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WEALTH OF E.Ml'UlE, AND HOW IT SHOULD BE USED 371
The same may be said of our self-governing colonies.
They are food-producing countries, they are richer per
head than we are, and there can be no general insuf.
ficien~y of food, though there may be failure in certain
directions, in part, at least, owing to causes which are
quite remediable.
The general survey of the empire suggests, however,
another aspect of the food question. How vast must
be the economic gulf st!parating the people of the
United Kingdom and the self-governing colonies from
India and like parts of the empire occupied by subject
races, when we find that 42 millions of people in the
United Kingdom consume in food and drink alone, if
we take the expenditure at the retail point (after dis-
tribution, and not before as in the annexed table), an
amount equal to the whole income of 300 millions of
people in Indial There is no doubt, I believe, that,
whatever may be the physiological and climatic reasons
explanatory of the condition of the people of I ndia, the
degree o( poverty of large masses there is a permanent
and formidable difficulty of the British Empire, to
which more thought must be given by our public men
the more the idea of imperial unity becomes a working
force. \Ve cannot safely leave those vast populations,
for whom we are responsible, in a condition of semi-
starvation, and the palliative of famine relief, highly as
we must praise the Indian administration for what it
does to save life, is not enough. Nothing short of a
revolution in Indian agriculture, and a great develop-
ment of manufacturing for export. will suffice for the
diseased condition we have to face; and how such
chancres are to be brought about, involving as they do
a ne:' education of the Indian agriculturist and an
enormous influx of capital into India, it is not easy to
perceive. But the public at home must understand that
until some work like this is undertaken the Indian
problem and difficulty remain substantia~y untouched_
A second point arising upon these figures is that of
the expenditure upon housing. The sum is very large,