the book-keeper's standpoint, we must add that the balance-sheet is by no means complete, for a very large part of the expenditure has gone not to produce immediate returns but to accumulate a store of knowledge for future use and to build up the equivalent of a business connexion. Beyond question, these are the most important results of the decade; and the actual increase in agricultural income, substantial though it be, is in comparison little more than a by-product. Of the store of knowledge accumulated we need say little; such portion of it as has been published already makes a substantial contribution to the literature of agricultural science, while probably the larger portion has passed without formal publication into the common stock of the departments. But a few words are necessary regarding the element which we have spoken of as business connexion. Ten or fifteen years ago the problem of agricultural improvement was held by some observers to be insoluble, because it was impossible to establish the necessary relations between the peasants and the departments. The early agricultural reformers had made little progress in this direction, while the great landholders, on whose action high hopes had been based, had as a body given no assistance. The peasant was inclined to think that he knew his business better than anyone else; and the number of unorganised individuals was so great that the establishment of any general influence over them may well have seemed a desperate venture. The departments have succeeded in this venture; the attitude of the peasants has substantially changed; and, though they may not yet recognise their master, they admit that the agricultural officer is at least worth talking to and may be able to give them valuable assistance. This change of attitude, coupled with the progress made in organisation, mainly through the co-operative propaganda, but also by means of agricultural societies and committees, is the outstanding achievement of the past decade, and at the same time the chief ground for the reasoned confidence with which agricultural reformers can now face the future.

It must, however, be frankly recognised that there is no finality in agricultural reform. It is not merely that crops, implements and methods must change with the

times, but that each forward step brings into prominence difficulties hitherto unrecognised or at most vaguely felt, and that the growth of new needs keeps pace with the satisfaction of old. A glance at a few of the principal problems of to-day and to-morrow will fitly close this brief account of a vast and complex subject.

In the first place there are problems connected with education. On the technical side it cannot be claimed that success has yet been achieved; and agricultural instruction in the various grades is still the subject of experiment. At the other end of the scale there is the question of rural education. For years past the Educational Department has been pressing forward the multiplication of primary schools in rural tracts; and meanwhile the feeling in agricultural circles has steadily gathered strength that existing courses, whatever their value may be, will not give the country the peasants which it needs, men content to be peasants but equipped or, still better, determined to be more efficient peasants than their fathers. An official conference held last spring is reported to have recommended that the courses in rural schools should be made the subject of experiment; and it may be hoped that experiment will eventually lead to a solution of this important problem.

Another problem allied to education in its wider and less formal aspects is the development of a system of estate-management which shall promote the improvement of agriculture. In the early controversies on Indian land-tenure the confident hope was expressed by the party in favour of great estates that landholders of substance and position would do for India what had been done in England by the 'spirited proprietors' of the 18th century. As we have said above, this hope has not been realised. Some of the great landholders have done noble work in the provision of improvements of the more tangible kinds, but, speaking broadly, the art of estate-management is popularly regarded as the extraction rather of the maximum share of the peasants' income than of the maximum income from the soil. Its influence on the progress of improvement thus tends to be negative; and the essence of the problem is to reverse this tendency and to induce the landholder to apply his resources of staff, knowledge, and capital for the benefit

of his peasants, not as an effort of philanthropy but strictly as a business proposition.

Again, there is no longer any doubt that India needs an enclosure-policy. Enclosures exist, but the bulk of the land would have been described by one of the classical English writers as 'champion country,' parcelled out as it is into fields of irregular shape and often of minute dimensions, separated only by a strip of varying width which may serve as pathway or as a watercourse, and open on all sides to the depredations of animals wild or tame. And in this patchwork of fields the holdings of individuals are often incompact; a peasant may have fields scattered in every quarter of the village, and there is, as a rule, no machinery available for the processes of adjustment and consolidation. It is unnecessary to enter on a recital of the evils which result from this arrangement, for they are familiar to every student of agricultural history; but it is desirable to point out that the economic loss increases with every rise in the cost of labour and power, and that the need for adjustment becomes greater as the scope for improvement becomes wider. Already the experts employed by the State find that the progress of reform is hampered in many directions, in controlling the spread of weeds or insects, in regulating the flow of surface-water, or in promoting the most economical use of cattle and implements. And the need will continue to grow; if the consideration of the question be delayed, there is grave risk that it may have to be decided in a hurry, and in that case the unnecessary evils which have followed on enclosure elsewhere are only too likely to be reproduced in Indian conditions.

There is also the problem of ensuring that no part of the value of a peasant's improvement shall be claimed from him either by the State in the form of increased revenue or by the landholder in the form of increased rent. Improvements are already protected to a certain extent by laws and regulations which vary in different parts of the country. The provisions in force are on the whole not ill-adapted to the state of agriculture with which they aim at dealing; they contemplate for the most part tangible improvements, such as wells or drains; and, while their suitability to the new conditions is at

present uncertain, the more pressing need is perhaps to provide for such a change of practice on the part of courts and authorities, and for such recognition of the weight of expert evidence, as will ensure that the peasant shall retain the extra income due to his efforts and outlay.

Lastly, the shadow of morcellement lies over the future. The ordinary laws of inheritance involve the subdivision of a holding among the children, or other heirs, of a deceased occupier; and, in existing social conditions, a progressive reduction in the size of holdings and an increase in the number too small to be worked economically appears to be unavoidable. The laws in question are integral parts of Hinduism and Islam, and their alteration would be an operation of the utmost delicacy. At the present time there are signs that Indian public opinion is becoming alive to the danger; and this is the first step in the direction of a solution.

The foregoing enumeration of present or impending problems does not claim to be complete, but enough has been said to establish the proposition that the future of Indian agriculture cannot safely be ignored by the statesman or the administrator; the progress already made on the technical side only brings into stronger relief the need for renewed attention to those wider economic questions which have been subordinated to the political development of the last few years. These activities were necessary to the welfare of the country; but, while it is true that India cannot live by bread alone, it is not less true that bread is her first need, and that an increase in material prosperity is a condition precedent to development on other sides.

W. H. MORELAND.

Art. 4.-THE NEW POETRY.

1. Georgian Poetry 1911-12. The Poetry Bookshop, 1912. 2. Georgian Poetry 1913-15. The Poetry Bookshop, 1915. 3. The Catholic Anthology 1914-15. Elkin Mathews, 1915. THE difficulty which has always beset criticism in its attempts to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the word Poetry is by no means confined to the elusive nature of the art itself. For not only is the art of Poetry so sensitive and subtle as to escape again and again from the process of analysis, but the very standards by which it is controlled are continually changing, and the artist's own conception of his business is in a state of perpetual transition. Religion, philosophy, imagination, fancy, rebellion, and reaction-these, and many other elements in human thought, have left their impress upon the poetic tradition; and the function of criticism, as each new generation breaks with some established canon, has been more and more to hold to what is best in tradition, to test new movements in the light of that best, and yet to keep an open mind towards innovations, and to welcome any change, however revolutionary, that is calculated to enlarge the field of poetic vision and activity. This last function is the hardest of all the tasks that criticism is called upon to undertake; but the more intelligently the critic embraces it, the better will he fulfil his responsibilities. The history of literature has proved with weary iteration that the worst and most retarding fault that criticism can commit is the tendency to doubt every new movement, and to challenge and defy methods whose novelty may indeed be disconcerting, and yet may contain the germ of artistic emancipation and enlightenment.

It behoves the critic, therefore, to walk warily among new movements, without losing touch with the permanent laws of his craft; and, to guide him amid all minor differences of period and taste, there will be found certain main conceptions of the poetic art, which have stood fast in the face of change and revolution. Pre-eminent among these, the very charter of Poetry itself, is the conception that poetry consists in the imputation of universality to the individual idea and impulse; and