agriculturist grows all the food
necessary for the inhabitants of the village. The smith makes
the plough-shares for the cultivator, and the few iron utensils
required for the household. He supplies these to the people,
but does not get money in return. He is recompensed by mutual
services from his fellow villagers. The potter supplies him
with pots, the weaver with cloth, and the oilman with oil. From
the cultivator each of these artisans receives his traditional
share of grain. Thus almost all the economic transactions are
carried on without the use of money. To the villagers money is
only a store of value, not a medium of exchange. When they
happen to be rich in money, they hoard it either in coins or
make ornaments made of gold and silver.

These conditions are changing in consequence of the pressure of poverty
driving the villagers to the city, where they learn to substitute the
competition of the town for the mutual helpfulness of the village. The
difference of feeling, the change from trustfulness to suspicion, may be
seen by visiting villages which are in the vicinity of a town and
comparing their villagers with those who inhabit villages in purely
rural areas. This economic and moral deterioration can only be checked
by the re-establishment of a healthy _and interesting_ village life, and
this depends upon the re-establishment of the Panchayat as the unit of
Government, a question which I deal with presently. Village industries
would then revive and an intercommunicating network would be formed by
Co-operative Societies. Mr. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar says in his pamphlet,
_Co-operative Societies and Panchayats_:

The one method by which this evil [emigration to towns] can be
arrested and the economic and social standards of life of the
rural people elevated is by the inauguration of healthy
Panchayats in conjunction with the foundation of Co-operative
institutions, which will have the effect of resuscitating
village industries, and of creating organised social forces.
The Indian village, when rightly reconstructed, would be an
excellent foundation for well-developed co-operative industrial
organisation.

Again:

The resuscitation of the village system has other bearings, not
usually considered in connection with the general subject of
the inauguration of the Panchayat system. One of the most