But The
Proof Of Experience, Like The Touch Of Ithuriel's Spear, Revealed The
Practical Value Of His Suggestions, And Dissolved The Attractive Vision
Raised By His Perfervid Eloquence And Elevated Enthusiasm.
His honesty of
purpose cannot, however, be disputed.
On being appointed to the post of
chief minister he took in hand the application of his own project. He
exempted the poor from all taxation. He allotted lands, and he supplied
the cultivators with seeds and implements. He also appointed local boards
to superintend the efforts of the agricultural classes, and to give them
assistance and advice. But this paternal government, this system of making
the state do what the individual ought to do for himself, did not work as
it was expected. Those who counted on the agricultural laborer working
with as much intelligence and energy for himself as he had done under the
direction of a master were doomed to disappointment. Want of skill, the
fitfulness of the small holder, aggravated perhaps by national calamities,
drought, flood, and pestilence, being felt more severely by laborers than
by capitalists, led to a gradual shrinkage in the area of cultivated land,
and at last to the suffering of the classes who were to specially benefit
from the scheme of Wanganchi. The failure of his scheme, which, to use his
own words, aimed at preventing there being any poor or over-rich persons
in the state, entailed his disgrace and fall from power. But his work and
his name have continued to excite interest and speculation among his
countrymen down to the present day.
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