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environment of the individual improved.
Education became more general.
The water-supply and drainage were assured where possible. Medical
research discovered means of controlling some of the more terrible
diseases, and of mitigating the effects of others. Modern means of
communication were introduced, and market facilities encouraged the
farmer to grow more and better crops. New irrigation works were
constructed the total irrigated area in British India in 1935 was
49,000,000 acres and the worst stings of famine were drawn.
British Achievement.
There is no suggestion made anywhere in this volume that the social
services of India are anywhere near complete; but some of the achieve-
ments recorded are of interest. For all India the infant mortality
during the ten years from 1911 to 1920 was 211 per 1,000; in 1935 it
was 164, In 1938 one million indoor and sixty-five million outdoor
patients were treated in 6,700 hospitals and dispensaries in British
India, where there are ten medical colleges and thirty-eight medical
schools. Forty years ago the annual average of deaths from plague was
500,000; in 1935 it had been reduced to 32,000.
Through the cooperative movement, which was first introduced to
India in 1904, the people of India began to realise the value of volun-
trry association. In 1912 there had been established 8,000 cooperative
societies; ten years later there were 50,000; by 1936 there were 108,000.
Further, religious and professional associations of various kinds were
formed, and it is upon these and the other voluntary associations, such
as trade unions, that the individual now relies for assistance, rather
than upon his caste.
One of the tasks laid upon the British official is that of convincing
many of the Indians that the benefits conferred upon them by the public
health services are really valuable. The member of the Indian Civil
Service must interpret the advice of the technical departments to the
people, and interpret the peoples wants and wishes to the technical
departments. This demands many important qualities - not merely knowledge,
but also tact, sympathy and mudgment,
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