assembled at Simla in the middle of October and after taking some evidence there, spent the remainder of the cold weather in touring India to take further evidence and to investigate the circumstances of Indian rural life at first hand. The members of the commission left for England at the end of the cold weather but will resume their work in India in the cold weather of 1927-28. As an important preliminary to the enquiry by the Royal Commission on Agriculture, a conference of Ministers and Directors of Agriculture from the different provinces was held in Simla in June. Its proceedings were opened by His Excellency Lord Irwin in a speech of singular importance and significance in which he showed that world factors and the need for improving the lot of the Indian Agriculturalist made the present the right moment for the proposed enquiry. From the evidence already taken by the Royal Commission it is more than ever obvious that any permanent and appreciable improvement of the conditions of India's agriculture and the lot of her rural population is not going to be the work of a few years only, or of a single generation. But the necessary preliminaries of the work of amelioration have been begun and the presence of Lord Irwin and his life-long interest in agriculture and agriculturists, and his ministerial experience in England are good auguries for the success of the work.

Another Royal Commission whose work, though not primarily concerned with Agriculture will nevertheless have far-reaching effects on Indian agricultural welfare and prosperity, is the Royal Commission on Indian Currency which issued its report in August. The recommendations of the Currency Commission will be discussed at length in a later chapter. Here it is only necessary to refer to those which deal with the creation of a reserve bank for India. On page 292 of last year's report it was stated that the External Capital Committee of 1924, after considering the needs of agriculture, had held that the resources of the co-operative banks were inadequate and that the various facilities afforded by government to agriculture, either directly or indirectly, required a co-ordinated examination so that they might be woven into the fabric of a general banking system. The reserve bank of India proposed by the Currency Commission, when it comes into existence, ought to make possible a great development of co-operative and credit banks which alone can meet the real needs of the rural population of India. Thus, the reserve bank must be seen as something more

than even a controlling authority in Indian currency and financial affairs. If the Indian peasant is not to continue to pay ruinous interest to the village money-lenders with all the evil results which this process entails of starved land, impoverished resources and poor and inadequate crops, the reserve bank must be made the head of a banking system which will extend credit not only to Industry and trade but to the real wealth producers of India— the workers in her greatest industry which is agriculture.

The improvement of Indian agriculture with its consequences of an improved standard of living and an increase in the spending power of the rural masses of India is the necessary correlative to the growth of Indian industry which has been one of the outstanding features of the last half century. India is now one of the eight foremost industrial countries, and with her vast natural and human resources she is bound to become an increasingly important element in the world's economic system. She will come more and more into the main stream of the world's industry and commerce, and if, on this side of her activities, she has already lost her traditional isolation, she is fast losing even her physical remoteness from the chief centres of the world's life.

In the earliest days of wireless communication, the distances which separated India from Great Britain and from her sister dominions, seemed likely to prove a barrier for some years to come to wireless intercourse between her and these other members of the British Commonwealth. Now, however, the new system of beam wireless removes the difficulties presented by mere distance and makes it quite possible for India to communicate with other parts of the world hitherto remote. The possibility of introducing the amenities of broad-casting into India was not overlooked, and for some years past, clubs composed of enthusiastic amateurs of wireless have been in existence in a few of India's greatest cities. Also, during the past year, the Indian Broad-casting Company has got to work in earnest. Its new general manager Mr. Eric Dunstan has arrived in India and there is good reason to expect that wireless broad-casting will soon become a feature of Indian life.

The arrival of Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for Air, at Karachi on 5th January 1927 was more than an achievement of aerial travel; it was also a portent. Sir Samuel and Lady Hoare travelled from London to Delhi, a distance of 6,300 miles,

in 63 flying hours, and by this journey inaugurated the Egypt to Indian Air Service. The Hercules Aeroplane in which they travelled was one of the new air liners specially constructed for the Imperial Cairo to Karachi Airway. As Sir Samuel Hoare pointed out to press correspondents in Delhi, the journey from India to England should not take more than a week and when night flying was introduced the time could be reduced to five days. He looked forward to the time when a regular weekly air-service would be running between the two countries. Sir Samuel also pointed out that India, on account of her size and geographical position, ought to become a great centre of flying in the east, and he promised that the development of aviation in India by Indians would receive warm sympathy and hearty co-operation from England.

Two days after Sir Samuel Hoare's arrival in Delhi a pleasant little ceremony took place at the military aerodrome where Her Excellency Lady Irwin named the giant Hercules air-liner "The City of Delhi." In his speech on this occasion Sir Samuel Hoare spoke earnestly of the desirability of turning aviation to the uses of peace. His Excellency Lord Irwin, in a brief reply, said that the aeroplane had added one more to the many roads which lead to Delhi. His Excellency's statement was something more than a striking epigram. It was a truth of the highest significance, not only for India, but also for England and the whole Empire. For it is a road which brings England and India as close together as London was to Edinburgh barely a hundred years ago, and it is not too much to expect that before many years are out, the journey from London to Delhi will take no longer than the railway journey between Peshawar and Madras to-day.

But, while Sir Samuel Hoare's was incomparably the most important aerial journey to India during the year, it was not the only one. Of these other journeys, the first in order of merit is that of the two Englishmen, Stack and Leete, who travelled from London to Delhi without a hitch in their tiny Moth aeroplanes in the wake of Sir Samuel Hoare's giant Hercules under whose wings their little machines would stand with ease. The journey of these two gallant men is in the direct line of descent from the voyage of the Golden Hind and other great adventures of the spacious days of the discovery and foundation of the empire.