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54
JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
The rents and also the public revenues were enhanced in consequence.
Now two years ago, there was an abundance of the wheat crops, and the prices of the food stuffs again went down in consequence. The tenants found themselves consequently in difficulties and were not able to pay their rents; and the landlords who did not get enough from them were in a sad plight, and the public revenues fell considerably. This was one side of the picture.
The other was this; there is a half-starved population in India which consisted, a decade ago, according to official figures, of over two hundred million souls that did not get one full meal a day. These men and wonen were overjoyed when the prices of food stuffs fell two years ago; they got at last the prospect of such a thing as a satisfying meal, and also of replacing their tattered garments with new ones.
Now we are to decide what is the proper course for us to take, to raise the prices and leave these half-starved, ill-clad 200,000,000 of human beings in perpetual misery, or to lower the level of prices all round so as to relieve all men ? It will be noticed that the landlord's troubles and those of the Finance Minister also are only there because they have the need for spending more than they get ; but if their expenditure was reduced in other departments the smallness of the income would not matter at all. The amount spent for maintaining enormous armies, for instance, can be cut down greatly to relieve the situation. Now it is im. possible to deal with all such cases in the abstract; but the principle is the same. Help the poor, rather than the rich, or the profiteer. Permanent good only lies in this direction.
The employment of machinery, too, is not healthy beyond certain limits. It is the inevitable consequence of machinery that men should be rendered idle more and inore. There are 12,000,000 out of work in America alone ; including
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