{This Lesson would be translated into Sinhalese & published later!}
A hundred years ago the wheat or cotton grown round Indian villages was consumed locally. There were no roads; much less railways. Now thousands of tons of Indian produce are sold in London before it has actually been harvested. In the Punjab some millions of acres of once barren land in districts as rainless as Egypt have been brought under cultivation by means of great canals drawn from the snow-fed rivers, and everywhere else a similar speeding up of agriculture to supply the demands of distant countries may be observed. This marked change in India is due firstly to canals and railways, secondly to an all-round improvement in trading facilities (harbours, docks, posts and telegraphs), and thirdly, to the stimulus which peace and justice give to commercial enterprise.