-86_Appendix-I – Report on Trade in the Baroda State.htm

sprung up, the balance is greatly on the side of decline. The main causes of this condition of things are

1. European competition and that of such towns as Ahmedabad, Poona &c.
2. The Introduction of machinery.
3. The abandonment of ancestral professions.
4. The continual drain of money from the State effected by

(1) Immense purchases from Europe, Bombay &c,

(2) Employment of officials from outside the Raj,

(3) Preference of foreign to local contractors,

and other similar causes. 

them  local industry must continue to be handicapped

and consequently continue to decline.

State custom for local work.

Government, these should be preferred in State purchases to all others. The transference of Government custom from good local manufactures where such exist is especially undesirable and ought to be avoided. Where better work begins to be

European quality and need help to bring the enterprise to perfection. But for the objects of the Government to succeed, it is necessary that tasalmat should not be given in the present haphazard fashion, but after careful inquiry and stringent tests and with due and constant supervision.

produced more cheaply here than abroad. These workers should receive grants on condition of using the machinery. There are instances in which deshi artisans have succeeded in reproducing English machinery, after one or two mistakes, at a much cheaper rate than the English.

Government might give the workers specimens and patterns of English work as there are in many places artisans skilful enough to reproduce work they have once examined, and should help them in procuring the necessary tools.

in the matter of taxes &c., and clever artisans settling from outside should have building timber &c., cheap or gratis.

commodities, as also new industries, that is to say, manufactures made from material now exported in a raw state.

(a) A monthly technical magazine should be issued, containing among other things reliable accounts of the raw material of each mahal and the capabilities of that material.

(b) A pamphlet in very simple Guzerati should be circulated containing every information useful to those who may think of establishing factories, viz. the necessary cost, the nature, use and procurability of the necessary machinery etc.

(c) Public lectures by competent people.

(sowkars etc.) should be appointed to supervise contracts.

4. Annual patraks should be drawn up and circulated among thousands showing,

(a) what articles are to be supplied from each Prant;

(b) in what lines contractors are needed;

(c) what knowledge and fitness they must possess;

(d) where the required articles can be had cheap and good.

can attend. The Kasba schools should teach

(a) manufactures which are in great demand but have to be brought from outside;

officials alike. The Commission is only able to say that the whole question of duties should be overhauled and rearranged in a sense favourable to trade. Beyond this need of a general enquiry a few circumstances and suggestions may be touched upon.

bridges &c., will have to be constructed in order to open out the country; moreover no care is taken to keep the roads already constructed in repair; everywhere they are allowed to fall into bad condition. For this work of opening out the country District Boards should be set on foot with the Vahivatdar as chairman, and the Municipal, Forest and other officers and leading men as members. The Boards would borrow money at reasonable rates, the sanction of the works to be undertaken would rest with the Government and the debt could be paid off from the proceeds of tolls or cesses. A rough list of works required or suggested is included under each Division.

1. A list of herbs growing in Songhad Vyara should be prepared.
2. A skilful Hakim or Vaid should be kept in each hospital in the big towns with some patients always under his treatment and the results registered under the supervision of the Civil Surgeon.
3. In some small villages the whole medical work should be intrusted to such Hakims or Vaids.
4. Two or three matriculated students should be taught at State expense both Native and English Medicine and put in charge of hospitals or dispensaries or set to make researches into the powers of herbs and publish books on the subject.

present a vast amount of these are allowed to go unused. In every division a place should be appointed for throwing dead cattle, and a contract should be given for taking out the hide and bone etc. Traders should be encouraged to open factories in which these articles will be immediately useful. The proceeds of the contract should be devoted, after burying the corpses, to the improvement of breed.

(a) deterioration of the soil;

(b) deterioration of cattle;

(c) ignorance of the best methods;

(d) difficulty of procuring capital.

vighoti  tenure have several very undesirable results.

In the first place they lead to continuous cultivation of the soil, the land never being left fallow, as assessment has to be paid whether the land is cultivated or not. The soil must obviously lose its productive power under such circumstances. It would be better for the State not to exact assessment from lands left fallow.

In the second place they lead to extensive cultivation, no provision being left for pasture.

Thirdly they lead to more land being undertaken by the cultivator than he can properly cultivate. Its full value is therefore not realized from the soil; less labour and less manuring results in a poorer out-turn over a larger area.

Fourthly they lead to the soil being taken up by Brahmins, Vaniyas and others ignorant of agriculture, the real agriculturists remaining as labourers without any interest in the soil.

A smaller area carefully cultivated by cultivators with an interest in the soil, sufficient land being left for pasture, would be far better than the present condition of large cultivated areas with a poor out-turn, deteriorating soil and deteriorating cattle.

Abyssinian and Artesian wells should be constructed.

When cultivators dig wells and make the land bagayat they should be excused bagayat assessment for ten years as otherwise they will have to pay both assessment and the interest of Government money.

out either liberally or expeditiously; that tagavi is given to new immigrants from outside who decamp with the money while the subjects of the Raj can with difficulty obtain it; that people are shy of taking tagavi because if they cannot pay punctually owing to a bad season or other accident, they are at once posted as defaulters and their credit ruined &c. The Commission can only recommend that a reliable inquiry should be made in the matter.

destroyed under official orders. This is a needless waste, as no harm is likely to result from the collection of manure in the open air of the villages. A place should be fixed on the village padar, as also a place for bestowing the village refuse which should be distributed to the people cheap for manuring. In Amreli the burning of cow-dung should be stopped and the people allowed to take fuel from the Gir. The cultivators should also be persuaded to use bone-manure against which they have some objection but which owing to the plentifulness of bone can be brought into use with great advantage. Finally a heavy duty should be fixed on the export of certain plants that are commonly useful for manure.

diminution in their numbers and consequent increase in their cost.

The following are some of the causes.

1. Failure of pasture owing to the cultivation of uncultivated and auction of Kharaba land. Consequent to this result of the vighoti system, hardly any land is left for the cattle and what there is, is of the very poorest quality so that the cattle can get little nourishment from it. The cultivators are too poor to provide good and sufficient fodder. Some measure must immediately be taken for this; a proper share of the land in each village (one fourth would not be too liberal an allowance) should be left for pasture. Goats should not be allowed to graze in gochar.
2. Want of good bulls and male buffaloes. The Government should keep cattle for breeding in each village on the responsibility of the Patel and the cultivators should take turns to provide fodder. In Kamrej it is the custom to allow bulls marked as belonging to the village to graze anywhere; under this system there would be no expense of keep to the Government. Where bid is kept for grazing good cattle should be kept for breeding purposes and sold cheap to the cultivators.
3. Cow-slaughter. A duty should be imposed on cattle taken to the slaughter houses or to foreign parts.
4. The shingoti duty upon bullocks and other cattle in Amreli should be reduced.
5. Neglect, driving of sick oxen, over-driving, over-loading, ignorant methods of pasturing, use of the same cattle for agricultural labour and for conveyance owing to the enforcement of veth. Rules should be issued to put a stop to all this.
6. Cattle have to be imported. These are brought on credit involving risk, delay in payment and law suits, considerations which increase the cost. An arbitration court should be established for such cases.
7. Buffaloes are not used for agriculture in many talukas and the males are allowed to die instead of being reared. Revenue officials should be directed to instruct the people in this matter and a yearly patrak should

be submitted showing the extent to which the use of buffaloes in agriculture increases.

establishment of farms for milk-giving cows in Songhad, the Gir and other such places.

veterinary surgeons for each Prant: several boys should be taught for two or three years how to treat cattle diseases and one such qualified student appointed in each Taluka. A light fee might be levied for this expense.

Otherwise the most effective remedy for each of the chief cattle diseases should be ascertained and distributed with a printed list to each village. To very poor cultivators or owners of cattle they should be given free. Ordinary diseases should be treated on the spot and gratis.

1. Agricultural schools or classes teaching the children of cultivators free and other classes for a light fee. Scholarships should be given and some of the students employed.
2. Public lectures by competent persons.
3. Publication of Agricultural pamphlets, books or a magazine.
4. Skilled cultivators should be sent to Europe along with English-knowing students to learn. They should take implements with them to compare with the European. It is useless to send students alone.

Those who thus study the subject should be intrusted

with agricultural improvement and rewarded for any notable success.

5. Agricultural Exhibitions.
6. Model Farms.

conditions. The following methods should be adopted.

1. Cultivators knowing local and foreign methods should be appointed to teach.
2. The method of comparative experiments should be adopted to show the cultivators I the superiority of improved methods and manures; II the effect of nehers and wells; III the difference between well-fed cattle and cattle nurtured by themselves and between their milk, butter and ghee.
3. The profit of cultivating by steam-ploughs should be shown to the zamindars and the use of European machinery to the students.
4. The conditions under which coffee, tea, cinnamon, cloves etc., are grown should be taught to the cultivators.
5. Model farms should be opened under varying climatic conditions.
6. A model Farm should be opened with specimens of all the chief crops of the world.
7. An annual or biennial agricultural exhibition of the crops thus produced should be held.
8. The expenses of all such experiments should be published in so lucid a manner that all may understand.

improvement. In the poorer talukas the oppression of the sowcars is

very great, sometimes as in

Mahuva driving the people over the border. Other talukas are greatly indebted, the sowcars force the people to mortgage their fields and houses and these are put to auction at the first failure to pay. A rule should be made that the sowcars must receive their dues by instalments.

is certain that the limitation of the settlement to 15 years leaves the cultivators little power to make improvements. The collection of the assessment at an unfavourable time and its enforcement in bad years has been prejudicial to agriculture; in Mehsana especially these hardships have led a great number of people to abandon agriculture. Leniency should be shown in bad years, and collection should only be made when the crops are ready.

the kheduts are unable owing to their poverty to bring uncultivated soil into a fit state for cultivation, the State should first get it turned and then let it out.

1. The crops which are cheapest in sowing, are most profitable.
2. Those crops should by preference be introduced which have to be bought dear from outside.
3. A new crop should not be introduced near a place where it is already largely grown.
4. No new crop should be so introduced as to drive out of production any crop which is already largely and profitably grown or the loss of which would have to be made up by purchases at a high price from outside.

To settle this point a good cultivator should be got to sow both old and new in his land. The loss and profit of both should be carefully compared and the results published among the cultivators. Those who are exceptionally successful in introducing new crops, should receive grants.