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MADRAS: 
 
 CIVIL ADMINISTRATION; 
 
 ROUGH NOTES FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION, 
 WRITTEN IN 1855 & 1856. 
 
 PATRICK B. SMOLLETT, Esq., 
 
 Agent to the Government of Madras in Vizagapatam. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARDSON BROTHERS, 23, CORNHILL, E.G. 
 
 1858. 
 

PEEFACE. 
 
 As the title-page of this volume sufficiently indi- 
 cates, the following papers were written in India 
 for private circulation among the author's personal 
 acquaintances, and they are now published in the 
 belief that their contents are calculated to draw 
 the attention of public men to the practical work- 
 ing of the revenue administration of Madras, the 
 evils attendant on which are so little known in 
 this country. They have no immediate relation 
 to the reconstruction of the Home Government for 
 India, rendered necessary by the calamitous events 
 
 in Bengal. 
 
 A 2 
 
 5132S9 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 In the chapter on torture in the collection of 
 the revenue, the aim of the writer is to shew 
 that the system of landed tenures in Madras is 
 the great social evil of the Presidency, and that 
 coercion and the ill-treatment of the native cul- 
 tivators are the necessary consequences of its 
 continuance. The manner in which this detestable 
 land system is carried out — demoralizing the re- 
 venue servants, degrading the agricultural classes, 
 and devoting the private possessions of the native 
 gentry of Southern India to ruin and confisca- 
 tion — is illustrated and exposed in this and in 
 the following chapters. The conclusion arrived at 
 is, that the overthrow of the present policy, and 
 the inauguration of another system which would 
 really protect landed property, and would attract 
 capital to the improvement of the soil, must ema- 
 nate from a Royal Commission ; for thirty years 
 personal observation has satisfied the author that 
 no comprehensive change is to be looked for at 
 the hands of the Local Government. 
 
 The chapter devoted to the subject of irrigation 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 improvement, and the outlay of money on what 
 are called reproductive works, is not undeserving 
 of attention at a time when proposals are circu- 
 lated, on authority, for the formation of private 
 companies in England, with or without guaran- 
 tees, to institute enterprizes similar to those un- 
 dertaken by the Madras Government in Tanjore 
 and Eajahmundry. In an official Memorandum 
 emanating from the East India House, published 
 a few weeks since, the Eajahmundry Annicut is 
 specially stated, on the authority of the Public 
 "Works Commission Eeport of 1852, to be a work 
 that, in the process of its construction, not only 
 replaced all the expenditure upon the undertaking, 
 but promised an immediate return of £300,000 
 sterling to the State, and £3,000,000 per annum 
 to the cultivators. The article now published is 
 meant to shew that the statements of magnificent 
 returns derived from those works are idle tales, 
 and that abundant information of this fact has 
 been in the possession of the local authorities 
 in Madras for some years, which they have 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 purposely withheld from submission to the Home 
 Government. 
 
 Statements have frequently been made in the 
 Imperial Parliament of profits varying from 150 
 to 750 per cent, per annum, alleged to have been 
 derived from local irrigation works in the Madras 
 Presidency. These results are obtained in this 
 way: — It must be held in mind that the land in 
 Madras is the property of the Government; and 
 that, in order to secure its rents from the occu- 
 piers, it is the duty of the State, as landlord, to 
 maintain, at the public cost, the reservoirs and 
 channels on which the fertility of the villages 
 depends. If a reservoir should burst, or a channel 
 be choked with mud, the cultivation fed by these 
 works will decay, and the rents will be lost; 
 when the breach is filled up and the obstructions 
 removed, the rent will be recovered. The expenses 
 incurred under this head are part of the fixed 
 charges incidental to the ownership of landed pro- 
 perty, and the disbursements must be deducted 
 from the rent-roll of the district before the real 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 value of the lands can be ascertained. At present, 
 in the Madras accounts, the old revenues regained 
 by expenditure in the Public Works Department 
 are entered as new receipts springing from, com- 
 paratively speaking, insignificant outlays. From 
 accounts framed on this principle, magnificent pro- 
 fits can readily be shewn to spring from a very 
 trifling expenditure; while, at the same time, no 
 real addition whatever is made to the general 
 revenues of the Government. 
 
 It is worthy of observation that since the general 
 introduction of the annual individual settlement 
 system, the revenues of the Madras Presidency 
 have declined. Colonel Sykes, in an Appendix 
 attached to his speech delivered in the House of 
 Commons on the 18th February last, has shewn 
 that, taken for decennial periods in 1809-10, the 
 revenues of Madras were £3,620,000, while, from 
 that date up to 1849-50, the receipts were 
 £3,478,000 only. This decrease appears notwith- 
 standing the annexation to the Madras territories, 
 during the second period of the comparison, of 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Coorg, Kurnool, and several other independent 
 states, and the absorption of many valuable pri- 
 vate possessions in the manner pointed out in the 
 following pages. 
 
 2bth March, 1858. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 On the Madras Torture Commission, and on 
 Coercion in the collection of Revenue. 
 
 In the official small world of Madras one of the most 
 remarkable events of the year 1855 has been the 
 publication of the Report by certain Commissioners 
 appointed to ascertain whether or not torture in 
 this Presidency was inflicted by Government officials 
 on the native community. Proclamations were 
 framed by Government, and advertisements were 
 published in the local newspapers, inviting com- 
 plaints. Innumerable circulars in every language 
 were posted in each hamlet to the same effect — an 
 elaborate machinery was organized to elicit the 
 truth. Two thousand complaints were received, 
 some in person, but most by letter, of which perhaps 
 
 B 
 
one-sixth part had reference to the subject on hand ; 
 and now that a considerable period has passed, what 
 has been the result, and what remedies for acknow- 
 ledged evils have been devised? The result is posi- 
 tively nothing, nor does anything more seem to have 
 been established than what was previously known to 
 every revenue officer, viz., that the lower orders 
 of native officials whom the Government strive to 
 starve into honesty are generally corrupt and 
 often tyrannical ; and that, though the severities 
 they practice towards criminals and defaulters are 
 of late years mitigated, these malpractices still 
 largely prevail in every district of the Madras 
 Presidency. 
 
 The enquiry into the practice of torture in the 
 revenue department has proved, I regret to think, 
 a total failure. It might have been otherwise, but 
 the Commission nominated by Government was not 
 composed of parties from whom any comprehensive 
 fiscal remedies could be expected. The Keport and 
 the recommendations were therefore only such 
 as might have been looked for from a Commis- 
 sion constituted as this one was. The resolution 
 of Government disposing of the Report is com- 
 plimentary and meaningless, and the subject is 
 
dying away without any practical measures having 
 been taken to remedy great and acknowledged evils. 
 How came the Commission to be nominated ? 
 Mr. Blackett, M.P. for the town of Newcastle, 
 brought on a debate late in the Session in 1854 
 upon a motion for a Commission to proceed from 
 England to enquire into the tenure of lands in the 
 Madras Presidency, or in other words into the system 
 of annual ryotwar settlements. He described this 
 system justly, in my opinion, as the vilest that could 
 be devised, and said that the revenue demand was 
 so exorbitant that it could only be levied by Govern- 
 ment officials by means of torture. Mr. Danby 
 Seymour confirmed this statement of his own know- 
 ledge. He said that in Madras the object of the 
 Government was to get ten shillings from a man who 
 had only eight shillings a year, and that with this 
 view every species of coercion was had recourse to. 
 Mr. Bright, member for Manchester, following in the 
 same strain, alleged that under the ryotwar system, 
 whenever a cultivator was unable to pay his rent, he 
 was visited with every species of cruelty and severity 
 — that he was torn from his home, was treated to 
 the rack and thumb-screw, and other tortures, and 
 finally that he was cast out to the jungles to starve 
 
 B 2 
 
or rot, as the case might be. Mr. Bright's honesty 
 of purpose is unquestionable, and the evils of the 
 ryotwar system are manifold; but these statements, if 
 delivered as reported, were greatly exaggerated. 
 
 When intelligence of this debate reached Madras 
 the Governor in Council lost no time in making 
 known his sentiments. In somewhat lofty terms he 
 thought it expedient that the people should under- 
 stand that the British Government did not sanction, 
 or even tolerate, such atrocities; would spare no 
 efforts to expose them, and would be prepared to 
 come down upon the perpetrators with the full ven- 
 geance of the law. A Commission to take evidence, 
 with full powers to summon principals, witnesses, 
 and accomplices was forthwith nominated. They 
 were instructed to consider the subject " in all its 
 " bearings." A special law was enacted, and carried 
 through the mock Indian Parliament sitting in Cal- 
 cutta, with breathless haste, to enable the Commission 
 to act with full effect. As an after thought, an 
 investigation into "torture in criminal cases" was 
 added to the previous labors of the Commission, and 
 this addition ultimately extinguished the revenue 
 enquiry altogether. 
 
 When it is considered that the enquiry involved 
 
not only the simple fact whether torture was or was 
 not practised in the collection of the Government 
 revenues, but also whether coercion was a conse- 
 quent of the Madras ryotwar settlement ; and, lastly, 
 whether a better system of revenue management 
 might not readily be substituted to remedy the evils 
 so greatly deprecated, it was reasonable to expect 
 that some gentlemen of practical revenue experience, 
 men who were not wedded to the ryotwar system as 
 the one thing needful all over the world, would have 
 been placed upon the Commission. It would have 
 been proper, too, that the parties nominated should 
 have been relieved from all other pressing duties, 
 and permitted to pursue their enquiries without 
 restriction to place or district. Such was not the 
 case. The members chosen were Mr. Edward F. 
 Elliot, once an officer in the Eoyal Army, but for 
 many years a magistrate and first judge of the 
 Small-cause Court in Madras town ; a gentleman of 
 great energy in his vocation, but with more business 
 on his hands than he could well find time for. The 
 second Commissioner was Mr. J. B. Norton, a bar- 
 rister practising in the Supreme Court at Madras, a 
 gentleman of great ability, with a plurality of offices 
 in the Supreme and Sudder Courts. Mr. Norton owed 
 
his selection to the fact that he had a local newspaper 
 under his control, Lord Harris being then as eager 
 to obtain the support of the press as he has since 
 been active in denouncing that press as seditious, and 
 its writers disloyal. With these two gentlemen was 
 associated a civilian, Mr. H. Stokes, a great partizan 
 of the rjotwar land revenue system in Madras. 
 The selection of Mr. Stokes as a Commissioner was 
 in other respects an injudicious one, because the 
 Native Association in Madras had made it a matter 
 of public complaint, by petitions in India and by 
 memorials to England, that the practice of torture 
 was largely followed by the native officials under 
 the ryotwar system in Guntoor, at the time when 
 that district was entrusted to this gentleman^s 
 administration. 
 
 These three gentlemen, all tramelled with offices 
 which occupied the greater portion of their time, 
 were unable of course to quit the precincts of the 
 Presidency. Their enquiries were therefore nominally 
 conducted in a temporary office on the Mount Koad 
 of Madras, where once a week every description of 
 vagabond, male and female, might be seen congre- 
 gated. Every thief in the country detailed his 
 wrongs to them, some by letter, others in person, but 
 
for any useful purpose the Commission might as well 
 have sat in London as in the Polytechnic Hall in 
 Madras. 
 
 What is the truth as regards the use of torture in 
 the collection of revenue in the Madras Districts? 
 Simply this : It has long been the conceit of officials 
 on the Coast of Coromandel to insist that every 
 cultivator in ryotwar districts, however small his 
 holding, is the owner of the soil — in fact, a black 
 yeoman. For his little patch of ground he settles 
 directly with the collector and his myrmidons, and 
 gets a puttah, or lease, annually. The number of 
 these pauper cultivators has largely increased of late 
 years, for the system of subdivision of tenure is 
 fostered by the inferior native revenue servants, 
 because at the time of settlement it aifords a wide 
 field for chicanery and fraud in the granting of 
 remissions, and now 800,000 puttahs are issued 
 annually in Madras Districts to small nominal pro- 
 prietors, each of whom pay less than 10 rupees of 
 revenue to the State. These men, mere laborers, 
 are, by reiterated orders of Revenue Boards, 
 treated as if they were gentlemen. The collector 
 is enjoined not to press them for payment early in 
 the season, to permit them to sell in the best market 
 
8 
 
 and at the most convenient time. He is ordered 
 to treat them, in short, with every indulgence. 
 
 Towards the close of the official year steps were 
 generally taken to enforce the payment of the 
 revenue demand against this class of small cotters, 
 because till recently the appearance of large revenue 
 balances in a collector's accounts was considered 
 proof of lax and inefficient management; while on 
 the other hand an increasing Land Eent Koll, col- 
 lected punctually within the year, was held by 
 Government to be the best test of an officer's 
 administrative capacity, and to give him a claim 
 for advancement in the Public Service. The 
 pauper ryots were therefore hunted out in their 
 various occupations of laborers and servants, and 
 brought to the Native Revenue Collector's office. 
 There they endeavoured to evade payment, and as 
 they have no ostensible property, they would only 
 pay if some durance, coercion — something sharper 
 than persuasion — ^be applied to them. They were 
 cuffi3d, kicked, hustled, kept exposed to the sun, or if 
 very dogged they were put in tlie stocks. In some 
 few, out of a thousand cases, rougher treatment was 
 had recourse to, but no permanent bodily injury was 
 hardly ever inflicted, except from accident. Some- 
 
times tills torture was a mere sham — large balances 
 being out in a talook — a pretence at coercion was 
 made. Although it had been arranged by the native 
 public servants, in conjunction with the ryots before- 
 hand, that only a certain amount was to be collected 
 for Government, the collector must still be led to 
 suppose that every endeavour was actually made to 
 realize all the arrears. Pretended efforts were there- 
 fore made to enforce payment by coercion upon some 
 pariahs (experimentum in corpore vili) without effect, 
 and the simpleton of a collector was befooled. I 
 know that this game was constantly played. I have 
 been down, too, pretty sharply on the players. 
 
 The practice of delaying the settlement, and of 
 permitting the removal of the crops before payment 
 of revenue, has been increasing largely of late years. 
 In Chingleput, in 1853, 3 lacs of rupees out of 9 
 were outstanding on the 1st July, and the settlement 
 had not been completed in all the divisions of this 
 district till then. In 1854, to my knowledge, the 
 settlement of several talooks in Chingleput had 
 not been commenced upon in June. In the middle 
 of July, 1854, an assistant in Chingleput, trans- 
 ferred to Chittoor, wrote to me thence to say that 
 the collector there was still hard at work upon 
 
10 
 
 the settlement of the preceding year. As it is in 
 Chingleput and Chittoor, so it is in other districts. 
 To the uninitiated it may be here stated that the 
 revenue year ends in June. 
 
 Under this system coercion and ill-usage are 
 matters of necessity, otherwise the revenues could 
 not be collected. All the principal cereal crops 
 are cut and harvested by March at the latest, and 
 there is no reason, as the state of the season is 
 pretty well known in January, why the settlement 
 should not be completed in every district by the 
 end of April, and why the whole of the revenue 
 should not be collected by the 1st of ]\Iay. In 
 all zemindaries and private estates this is done, and 
 the same system could be followed by collectors 
 in the Government villages ; but in a ryotwar 
 province, when half the demand of the district is 
 outstanding on the 1st of May, peremptory edicts 
 issue from head-quarters for the stringent realization 
 of the revenues. The collector knows that much 
 of the balance due cannot be collected by kind 
 words or by caresses; he is fully aware that kicks 
 and blows are necessary, and that they will be 
 given freely. It is he, and not his native subor- 
 dinates, that should be held responsible for the 
 
11 
 
 irregularities in the revenue management, for the 
 Amildar is compelled to use compulsion, or else his 
 tenure of office would not be worth six weeks' pur- 
 chase. The simple submission of the balance-sheet 
 of his division would ensure his instantaneous dis- 
 missal by the Board of Revenue on the recommen- 
 dation of the collector. And if the Amildar pleaded 
 the truth, viz., that the mal-administration of the 
 collector was the real cause of the mischief, he 
 would possibly be branded as a calumniator, and 
 declared to be incapable of serving the State again 
 in any capacity. 
 
 This system, with all its abominations, has been 
 growing worse and worse for many years in the 
 Madras Provinces, and it was high time that it 
 should be put down. The Torture Commissioners' 
 Report, however, may be searched through without 
 finding the slightest notice of the evil, or the sug- 
 gestion of a remedy for any fiscal abuse whatever. 
 In point of fact, the Report of the Commissioners 
 is more a commentary upon violence and cruelty on 
 the part of native officials in criminal cases, than 
 an enquiry into the alleged existence of torture 
 as an instrument to levy an extortionate revenue 
 from a suffering people, under the Madras ryotwar 
 
 b 
 
12 
 
 system. This part of the subject is ignored by 
 the Commissioners as far as possible, and hardly 
 noticed at all in their concluding suggestion, which 
 is the employment of the European element more 
 largely in the administration of the districts in 
 the interior of the Madras Presidency. 
 
 The remedies for the present disgraceful revenue 
 administration of the Madras Districts are simple 
 and of easy application. If the present annual 
 scourge of an individual settlement be continued, 
 the demand should be fixed upon the crop before 
 it is cut, and all claims to remission should be 
 settled and adjusted at that time. The issue of 
 individual Puttahs, the attendance and detention of 
 the people for obtaining which is a great grievance, 
 should be discontinued. This, of itself, would re- 
 move much of all the extortion and violence practised 
 under the ryotwar system. I have personally tried 
 this plan, and can vouch for the thankfulness of the 
 villagers at being relieved from the vexatious prac- 
 tice of an individual settlement made late in the 
 season, and for the facility with which the collection 
 of the rent proceeded when the amount was fixed 
 with the community while the crop was on tlie 
 ground. One-third more revenue was brought to 
 
13 
 
 account in this way, in several districts in which 
 the experiment was tried, than was realized under 
 the system of individual settlement, and yet the 
 villagers were contented and the cultivation was 
 greatly extended. The only parties who were dis- 
 satisfied were some of the native public servants 
 and their retainers, who profited by the confusion 
 of an individual settlement. 
 
 Although this simple act would go far to restore 
 order and regularity, in lieu of the present riot 
 and disorder prevailing at a settlement ; still, other 
 remedial measures should be adopted. The land 
 I hold to be the property of Government, in 
 most of the ryotwar districts, but the rents should 
 be lowered ; that terrible nuisance — an annual 
 settlement — should be abandoned, and village rents 
 should be introduced on moderate terms, with long 
 leases. The term of the decennial lease is still held, 
 in all the Madras Districts, to have been the most 
 prosperous season for the people ever known. The 
 Madras Board of Revenue have condemned it; but 
 the Board's Report is a tissue of mis-representations. 
 The preparation of most of the settlement accounts 
 should be discontinued, and a few only retained in 
 use — ^fifty-nine sets of intricate accounts, most of 
 
14 
 
 them perfectly useless, and many of them untrust- 
 worthy, garnished the Eeport of the settlement of 
 Yizagapatam in 1855. The inferior native officials 
 maintained to compile these voluminous accounts 
 should be discharged, and all the higher ranks of 
 public servants should be paid handsome salaries in 
 proportion to the responsibilities of office. The 
 Tahsildars (native collectors and magistrates) should 
 get 200 or 250 rupees, per mensem, each. If these 
 measures, or if a portion of them, were carried 
 out, accusations of torture to exact an extortionate 
 revenue from the Indian cultivator in Madras, 
 would cease to be made in the Imperial Parliament. 
 English patriots would have then leisure to attend to 
 the cases of tyranny and oppression of their own 
 magistracy towards the helpless tillers of the soil, an 
 instance of which occurred, not long ago, in Essex, 
 in the committal of two decent labourers to the 
 treadmill for fourteen days, for the crime of leaving 
 their work for a few hours one afternoon to look at a 
 review. 
 
 There is little hope, however, of these things being 
 generally done. Here and there, in some favored 
 district, a reduction of assessment is being made — 
 not, so far as I can see, in a judicious way. But the 
 
15 
 
 abolition of the annual settlement itself, the intro- 
 duction of a permanent settlement, or a system of 
 leases for a long term of years, and the proper pay- 
 ment of the native public servants, who do most of 
 the duties, but who get none of the emoluments of 
 high office, are not thought of. Any proposition to 
 that effect is treated with contempt. So far from 
 approving of a settlement and collection from the 
 crop, a few days ago a fresh circular letter was issued 
 by the Revenue Board suggesting the still later post- 
 ponement of the settlements and of the collections, 
 for the old claptrap purpose of fostering the poor 
 ryot. In my judgment this circular order is only 
 calculated to give additional facilities for fraud by 
 the public servants, and for the oppression of the 
 people. 
 
 Very recently, too, an extract from the minutes of 
 consultation of Government was semi-officially pub- 
 lished in the Madras Athenceum. The enormous 
 revenue balance outstanding in North Arcot, on the 
 30th June, 1855, the last day of the official year, 
 had attracted notice, and the Government, it seems, 
 called upon the collector for an explanation. He 
 replied that the settlement was made at a very late 
 period of the year, and that as coercion and torture 
 
IG 
 
 were not now permitted, his native servants could not 
 collect the Government dues, the crops having been 
 carried away. He said he had sent for some of the 
 principal cultivators in his district, and ha^ pointed 
 out to them the unreasonableness of their acts, and 
 that he hoped yet to recover a good part of the 
 arrear by-and-bye. This was the substance of the 
 collector's explanation — sufficiently lame and unsa- 
 tisfactory, no doubt. 
 
 To the Government it seems to have afforded 
 intense delight. The collector was thanked for his 
 promptitude and straightforwardness ! His promp- 
 titude seemed to consist in finishing his settlement 
 in August instead of in April, and his straightfor- 
 wardness in a confession of his inability to collect 
 the rental of his district long after the revenue 
 season had closed. It would have been more to the 
 purpose if the Government, instead of expressing 
 satisfaction, had desired that the name of all col- 
 lectors whose current arrears exceeded five per 
 cent, on the 1st of June should be reported with 
 a view to their being removed to some less respon- 
 sible post. If that were done, I believe the balances 
 would be infinitesimally small in all Madras col- 
 lectorates, and we should then hear no more of the 
 
17 
 
 difficulties of collection, now that coercion is autho- 
 ritatively condemned. I contend that any officer who 
 avows his inability to collect the amount of his own 
 settlement by reason of the Torture Commissioners' 
 Keport should be removed from office, whether he be 
 a native or an Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 The recommendation of the Commissioners in the 
 concluding paragraphs of the Eeport, is " the infusion 
 " of a larger amount of European agency into the 
 " government of the provinces,'' and this is afterwards 
 explained to mean " moral agency; for there are 
 " many East Indians and some natives who might 
 " be trusted with power." The aim of the Com- 
 missioners, however, is to replace native authority 
 by European and Anglo-Asiatic functionaries, " to 
 " guard the natives against themselves." This is the 
 sole concluding recommendation. In previous pas- 
 sages they had suggested, rather than recommended, 
 the separation of police and magisterial authority 
 from the powers exercised by collectors in fiscal 
 matters ; but there are difficulties in the way which 
 they do not overcome, and they prompt the expedient, 
 rather than heartily recommend it: for they admit 
 that the suggestion is in the face of experience, — 
 those districts being supposed, popularly, to be best 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 governed where the European officers are fewest, 
 and where the office of civil and criminal judge 
 is largely combined witli that of collector and 
 magistrate. Strange to say, at the very time that 
 this Madras proposition was tabled, a counter- 
 measure had been prepared, in Calcutta, to unite 
 the functions of collector and magistrate, as the 
 first step towards police reform in the Bengal 
 Presidency. 
 
 The districts alluded to by the Madras Com- 
 missioners are what are styled, " non-regulation 
 " districts," and include Mysore, the Punjaub, 
 Nagpore, and the like; and although nobody is 
 silly enough to suppose that the people suffer 
 under no grievances in these countries, or that the 
 native officials there are all immaculate, still it is 
 universally credited that these provinces are better 
 governed than are Chingleput and North Arcot — 
 districts lying at the threshold of Madras; and 
 why is this? Because there the system of criminal 
 procedure is simple and without technicalities, 
 because in these provinces there is no intricate 
 revenue ryotwar system, and no Jummabundy 
 Hookumnamah explaining its details extending over 
 sixty sheets of paper ; no incomprehensible rules for 
 
19 
 
 extra rents on lands supplied with Government 
 water, or growing two crops ; no " Fysul Jastees " 
 and " Sevoy Jummahs," — revenue terms in which 
 Madras officials delight, but which I do not pre- 
 tend to understand, and therefore cannot explain. 
 Moreover, the superintendents of districts in non- 
 regulation provinces are not constrained to manu- 
 facture annually sixty separate sets of accounts to 
 illustrate their gatherings, and they are not con- 
 trolled by a Eevenue Board and tramelled with 
 three or four thick volumes of circular orders, 
 to which a heavy volume is now periodically added 
 every year. 
 
 I dissent from both the recommendation and the 
 suggestion of the Torture Commissioners' Eeport. 
 It does not seem necessary to me that the natives 
 should be " protected from their own people." 
 India, I think, should be mainly administered by 
 Indians; it is the land system and not the men 
 that should be changed. Many of the native 
 tahsildars and several sheristadars in the Madras 
 territories are, for the work they have to do — viz., 
 .the administration of a province — superior in 
 capacity to their European superintendents, and a 
 district is often wholly managed through their instru- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 mentality, the collector himself being quite a nonen- 
 tity in every thing except his official emoluments. 
 
 On whose recommendation is the suggestion for 
 a larger infusion of the European element made? 
 The key note apparently was struck by the col- 
 lector and magistrate of North Arcot, a district, he 
 says, " little less extensive than Wales, and one-fourth 
 " more populous." Mr. Bourdillon seems to lament 
 that there are not in that district twelve towns, as in 
 Wales, with a general gaol delivery in each, instead 
 of one European judge holding his court daily at the 
 principal town of the province, viz., Chittoor; but 
 the Commissioners do not go quite that length ; they 
 merely point out that in a district of this extent there 
 are practically only six '' committing magistrates." 
 
 This is a very great mistake. There are, indeed, 
 including the collector, only six European cove- 
 nanted officers, magistrates, and justices of the 
 peace in North Arcot; but there are, at least, 
 twenty or thirty native magistrates in that 
 district, each of whom, in his own division, is a 
 " committing magistrate," and is, within the limits 
 of his appointment, coroner to boot. These men 
 are not only authorized to commit all heinous 
 cases to the Sessions Court, but they are enjoined 
 
21 
 
 to do so without reference to their European 
 superior. Nine criminal cases out of ten, therefore, 
 are sent to the Chittoor Sessions Court direct by 
 these men, the European magistrates being, in 
 great measure, only superintendents of police, 
 reviewing the cases of the native magistracy, 
 and seeing that as far as practicable the work is 
 done creditably and according to established form. 
 The magistrate of a Madras district does little or 
 nothing himself in this department, beyond ex- 
 ercising a general superintendence over the whole 
 establishment — European and native. Occasionally 
 he takes up an original magisterial case, if it be 
 one of more than ordinary interest ; but in general 
 his duties lie in hearing appeals from the decisions 
 of his European or native subordinates. 
 
 In my judgment there are functionaries enough 
 in the Madras Provinces, and to spare. What is 
 wanted is, that those who do the duties should 
 be properly remunerated; and, as already stated, 
 every chief native officer vested with police and 
 magisterial authority in a division should have, 
 at least, 200 rupees a month. There is no 
 reason why appointments of this nature should 
 be fiUed by natives alone. The situations should 
 
22 
 
 be open to men of all creeds, castes, and color; 
 but the places should be made respectable in 
 emolument, and the constables, even, should be 
 better paid — not starved on salaries of 75. 
 a month, with which they are supposed to clothe 
 and arm themselves, and to maintain families. 
 
 The amelioration of the situations of the existing 
 uncovenanted service, and not the multiplication 
 of " the moral element '^ in the shape of Indo- 
 British assistants, with all the ill-paid native 
 servants still running riot in the talooks, is what 
 is needed in the Madras territories. I believe that 
 extra uncovenanted agency is largely employed in 
 districts in Bengal, especially in the magisterial 
 departments; but there, unless I greatly err, the 
 native police were, till lately, mere darogahs, and 
 the European magistrates were really the only 
 committing officers in the district. This is wholly 
 different from the Madras system ; and if it be meant 
 to revert to the Bengal practice, and to apply it 
 to the districts in Madras, then I think that this 
 will be a step backwards. I believe, too, that not- 
 withstanding the uncovenanted agency in Bengal, 
 the police of that province is a perfect scandal, 
 and that torture is quite as common and more 
 
23 
 
 ferocious in practice there than it is in Madras. 
 The introduction of this system into the Madras 
 Presidency would tend, in my judgment, to lower 
 and degrade still more the native servants of the 
 State, already, God knows, sufficiently debased by 
 their discreditable treatment. 
 
 Mr. J. W. Cherry has been noted as an advocate 
 for the Commissioners' suggestion. He is sub- 
 collector and joint magistrate of Salem, and has 
 four talooks under his charge, the duties of which, 
 he says, he finds to be far too much for his abilities. 
 He suggests to Government a far greater agency of 
 well-paid East Indians, and a far larger amount of 
 European superintendence. " I am," says he, " the 
 " sole European to conduct the police duties among 
 " a population of 572,000 people, and to supervise the 
 " collections of 6 lacs of revenue. These duties are 
 " far too onerous to be performed by a single officer." 
 
 Mr. Cherry, until he was appointed to be sub- 
 collector of Salem, served chiefly in the office of the 
 Accountant- General ; and that the Governor of 
 Madras did not think the sub-coUectorate in Salem a 
 very arduous post is proved by the fact that he was 
 selected for it, although he had no previous experience 
 in the department. The duties were possibly a little 
 
24 
 
 irksome to Mr. Cherry, at first, from their novelty, and 
 from their being so different from the forms of double- 
 entry and account-keeping with which he must have 
 been familiar in his late office. But, really and truly, 
 the situation of a sub-collector and joint magistrate 
 is a very easy one. If, as he says, Mr. Cherry really 
 conducted all the police duties of a country 4,000 
 miles square, instead of superintending the work of 
 six or eight native magistrates, then, no doubt, he 
 greatly misunderstood his position, and if the business 
 was done at all I dare say it was very badly done. 
 But two hours a day, honestly devoted to the super- 
 vision of the work of the native police officers and 
 to the disposal of such original cases as properly 
 came before him, would amply suffice, on an average, 
 to keep the joint magistrate's office in order, and 
 one hour a day's consultation with his sheristadar in 
 revenue affairs would serve to dispose of all ordinary 
 fiscal matters. Three hours a day of business, for 
 six days of the week, is but a small day's work for a 
 good day's wage; and if there was a proper revenue 
 system in the Salem district, there would be little to 
 do at all for many months of the year in the sub- 
 collectorate. With a little more up-country expe- 
 rience Mr. Cherry will, I doubt not, find this out ere 
 
25 
 
 long, if he should prove to be, as his friends consider 
 him, a smart man. 
 
 Mr. T. D. Lushington, collector of Masulipatam, 
 in a report of immense length, (the preparation of 
 which itself shews that he has a great deal of 
 leisure time on his hands, for it must have taken 
 him some days to compose,) talks of the " diffi- 
 " culties of a collector's position, of the scanti- 
 " ness of his European subordinates, of his being 
 " surrounded by a body of ryots in a state of 
 " extreme moral degradation, brought up to consider 
 " that the struggle of their life should be to evade 
 " the payment of taxes in every possible way, and 
 ^' that any amount of fraud and falsehood is justi- 
 " fiable for such an object." I have served for many 
 years, and have lived in almost every district in 
 the Northern Circars, mixing much and inti- 
 mately witli the people, and so far from finding the 
 collector of Masulipatam's description of the culti- 
 vators true, it is my firm conviction that where 
 there is anything like decent management, where 
 anything like common sense in the revenue system 
 is pursued, the ryots in these districts are, as a 
 rule, the quietest, the most simple, and the most 
 manageable of men. I assert, besides, that the 
 
26 
 
 Gentoo ryots in the Northern Circars are the 
 promptest paymasters that are to be found in any 
 portion of the Southern Peninsula. 
 
 Go into Purlah Kimedy, into Madagole, into Jey- 
 pore, the private properties of Indian noblemen, 
 places where happily the cultivating classes never 
 saw a Jummabundy Hookumnamah, and assume the 
 management of the lands. There has never been a 
 survey in these parts ; but it is not wanted, for the 
 extent of the lands is estimated, and as their pro- 
 ductive powers are fully known, the demand on 
 each village has been fixed with the concurrence 
 of the people, and the amount is moderately fair. 
 The collections rarely fluctuate, except in years of 
 great calamity, and the receipts are forthcoming, 
 not only without coercion, but the instalments of 
 rent are sent in largely in advance. In Yizaga- 
 patam the large forfeited zemindary of Palcondah 
 is rented to a mercantile firm in Madras. The 
 demand on the lands is nearly 1^ lacs of rupees, 
 and the superintendent never had a day's experience 
 in revenue matters until he found himself installed 
 in the duties of the management. In addition, he 
 conducts a very extensive sugar factory, and he is 
 engaged in large mercantile operations bcsidcsr 
 
27 
 
 I asked this gentleman a few days since how much 
 of his time the management of Palcondah occu- 
 pied ; his answer was, " none at all ; the rents are 
 " paid with much punctuality." But, of course, in 
 " these places there are no annual puttahs, no rules 
 " for Fysul Jastee," no twenty-two English forms of 
 accounts for each village, and no revenue survey, 
 with fifty classifications of soils. It is only in dis- 
 tricts where such things, and annual settlements, 
 and ryotwar regulations are rife, that the people 
 become demoralized ; for the system itself being 
 rotten, and carried out by ill-paid and corrupt 
 functionaries, the ryots, in self-defence, are driven 
 to have recourse to fraud and chicanery. By the 
 collector's own shewing, the evils of coercion and 
 torture on which he discourses arose, in Masuli- 
 patam, from want of system, in the removal of 
 the crop without payment, and in the connivance 
 of the public servants with the ryots, through the 
 collector exercising no proper control over them. Let 
 him introduce a better method of settlement, and he 
 will find the ryots manageable enough. The difficulties 
 of his position, which the collector of Masulipatam 
 so helplessly deplores, are unfelt by men of energy 
 and self-reliance, and are surmounted without diffi- 
 
28 
 
 culty by private individuals, who, acting on their 
 own resources, avoid the errors of the traditionary- 
 land revenue system in the Madras Presidency. 
 ■ The Eeport of the Commissioners itself is a short 
 and readable production, cleverly put together, as 
 might have been expected from Mr. Norton's pen ; 
 but the appendix is overlaid with an extravagant 
 amount of nonsense. There are petitions translated 
 at length on every imaginable subject. There is a 
 report from a man named A. Nulla Moottoo, once a 
 catechist and preacher, now a Government exciseman 
 under Mr. Stokes, the collector of Madras, and a 
 member of the Commission. This man inflicts his 
 tediousness on the Commissioners at immense length, 
 his story filling twenty-three closely printed pages of 
 the appendix, and the Commissioners think him a 
 great authority in matters of torture, for they 
 call the particular attention of Government to his 
 statements. 
 
 He seems to have been required by the Com- 
 missioners to give a history of his experiences, 
 and he cheerfully responded. The man appears to 
 have traversed many districts while in missionary 
 employment, and to have been indefatigable in 
 preaching. In every district visited, he, on all 
 
29 
 
 occasions, took up his quarters as near as possible 
 to the public offices. He paints the native 
 public servants in the blackest colors, and dwells 
 upon their cruelty, venality, rapacity, and tyranny, 
 until one is left to think that the Company's dis- 
 tricts in Madras must be a hell upon earth to 
 the laboring poor. The catechist always slept 
 in the neighbourhood of the native collector's 
 place of business, by way of penance, seemingly; 
 and as the business in the hot season generally 
 begins there after sunset, he says that the shrieks 
 of the tortured ryots vexed and rang in his ears 
 all the night long. 
 
 Mysore is visited by our traveller, but matters 
 under General Sir Mark Cubbon are, by his ac- 
 count, apparently as bad as in the Madras districts. 
 The catechist, in preaching to the people there, 
 used to improve the occasion by telling his 
 black congregation that their immediate sufferings 
 were inflicted by bloated Brahmins, and were not 
 administered by enlightened Christians, to whom he 
 advised his hearers to appeal for redress. The ryots, 
 on the other hand, seemed to think that there was 
 as little chance of obtaining justice from the pale- 
 faced Christian as from their bronzed countrymen. 
 
30 
 
 In the end the catechist propounds his remedies. 
 He proposes to make the receipt of a douceur under 
 any pretence punishable to the extent that gang rob- 
 bery is now punished.* An enactment of this nature 
 " properly enforced against the bribe-receiving vice, 
 '* would prove," he says, " a moral renovation of the 
 " people in general, whereby the Government and 
 " subjects may be benefited almost in every respect," 
 and he makes a tender of his own humble services 
 to carry out this renovation — for a consideration. 
 
 His last paragraph is given in full in his own 
 words. There is, it seems, in Tanjore, a small inde- 
 pendent principality, the property of one Eajah 
 Tondiman Bahadoor, and the Christian catechist, 
 knowing the passion of Government for annexation, 
 thus ends his letter to the Commissioners with the 
 recommendation of the robbery of a heathen. 
 " Before I conclude," he says, " I humbly solicit 
 " your attention towards the poor ryots (who are 
 " ten thousand population) that are suffering the 
 " most cruel treatment under the heaviest yoke of 
 " Tondiman's absolute power over Poodicotta, which 
 " I have seen with my own eyes. Oh, what hap- 
 " piness the poor people would feel if they were to 
 
 * Fourteen years' imprisonment with hard labor in irons. 
 
31 
 
 " be rescued from the heavy yoke of the Tondiman 
 " at such a time as this. May the Author of every 
 " good towards His creatures lead and direct your 
 " Commission, and our Lord Harris and his lord- 
 " ship's councillors in every respect, that you may 
 " be a blessing to the Government and the people, 
 " and especially to be the instruments of His own 
 " glory before the eyes of these millions of Hindoos." 
 Was it to this cant that the Commissioners desired 
 to call the Governor's attention? Has the Madras 
 Government not cultivators enough to vex with their 
 ryot war settlements without confiscating the poor 
 Tondiman's little possessions? 
 
 It was stated, at the commencement of these 
 remarks, that no good was likely to spring from the 
 publication of the Torture Commissioners' Eeport, but, 
 perhaps, after all there are still grounds to hope that 
 this agitation may lead to some practical measures in 
 the end. In an English newspaper I observe that 
 Mr. Walter Elliot, a member of the Madras Govern- 
 ment, has recorded an ofiicial Minute on this subject — 
 not printed, however, in the Madras Blue Book — 
 and in speaking of the oppression and coercion prac- 
 tised towards the ryots, that gentleman thus observes : 
 " These practices cannot be checked so long as annual 
 
32 
 
 " settlements of the revenue continue to be made. 
 " The machinery for such a purpose requires the 
 " employment of a very large body of inferior 
 " revenue officers, many of them receiving rates 
 " of remuneration lower than those of ordinary 
 " domestic servants. They are always men of 
 " education, that is, they are the best educated 
 " individuals in the community; they are expected 
 " to maintain a decent appearance, and the nature 
 " of their duties often requires them to keep a con- 
 " veyance. It is absolutely impossible for them to 
 " do all this on the pittance allowed to them, and 
 " their means are eked out by illicit contributions 
 " extorted from the ryots. I believe that a more 
 " permanent tenure of the land which shall save the 
 " people from constant annual interference, while it 
 " allows a large reduction in the present description 
 " of inferior agency and the better remuneration of 
 " those that remain, is quite as essential to the suc- 
 " cessful repression of torture as any other method 
 " that has been recommended." 
 
 This is the root of the matter ; these few sentences 
 contain more good sense than will be found in the 
 whole Torture Report put together. Mr. Elliot sat 
 for nearly twenty years in the Madras Board of 
 
33 
 
 Eevenue, and always passed for a good ryotwar man, 
 but when he, born north of the Tweed, native of a 
 land the natives of which are proverbial for caution, 
 abandons this annual individual settlement, its doom 
 is, perhaps, not distant. The only wonder is that 
 Mr. Elliot, entertaining these sentiments, did not 
 advocate a change years and years ago, instead of 
 writing in his official capacity all that time, as if he 
 thought there was some magic virtue in an annual 
 puttah, and joining with his colleagues in denun- 
 ciations of those who condemned the system, and 
 who endeavoured, as much as possible, to mitigate 
 its evils. 
 
 The omission of all suggestions similar to those of 
 Mr. Elliot by any of the revenue officials consulted 
 may appear strange to those unacquainted with the 
 local politics of Madras. But there, a subordinate 
 officer who presumes to doubt the wisdom of the 
 annual individual settlement is placed under a ban — 
 his heretical opinions are not allowed to be seen. 
 There is proof of this fact in the publication of the 
 Torture Blue Book. The writer of these lines, in his 
 then capacity of collector of Chingleput, had ven- 
 tured to say that the oppression and coercion of 
 the laboring poor in ryotwar districts was mainly 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 caused by annual individual settlements, and that 
 coercion would, in his judgment, disappear if the 
 system was changed. The paragraph which con- 
 tained this obnoxious sentiment was excised by 
 the secretary to Government, while the ribaldry 
 of A. Nulla Moottoo, the Christian catechist, was 
 printed and circulated with the recorded approbation 
 of the Commissioners and the Government. 
 
 If, then, the land system of Madras is ever to be 
 thoroughly purged, and the misery removed which it 
 has engendered, sweeping away every trace of wealth 
 from the districts where it exists and reducing all 
 the inhabitants to one level of serfdom, the remedy 
 must come from a Commission emanating from 
 England. It is hopeless to expect any radical 
 change from the local administration constituted 
 as it now is, nor from Madras officials under the 
 existing regime at that Presidency. 
 
 15 th November^ 1855. 
 
CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 The Rajahmundry Annicut — its cost and profits. 
 
 The Commissioner in the Northern Circars, Mr, 
 Goldingham, sent me for perusal, in September, 
 1855, a statement, which he had submitted recently 
 to the Government of Madras on the presumed 
 profits of the great Annicut in Eajahmundry. It 
 is carefully prepared, and though the leaning of the 
 writer is all in favor of these hydraulic experiments 
 for the improvement of India, which he believes 
 will, "with God's help," be a blessing to the 
 people, his report, and the estimates of past and 
 prospective profits which accompany it, entirely con- 
 trovert the fabulous accounts of gains derived from 
 irrigation improvements in Eajahmundry, which 
 have been foisted on the public with some success, 
 both in England and in India, for the last few years. 
 Every one has heard of the inveterate hardihood 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 of official assertion by public men in England in 
 reference to mismanagement in the Crimea, and 
 in other matters, but in no country has official 
 misrepresentation been surpassed by the statements 
 circulated in India regarding public works generally, 
 and, the Rajahmundry Annicut particularly, its 
 estimated cost and expected profit. The com- 
 pletion of the Dam, or Annicut, at Doulaiswarum, 
 with all the necessary locks and irrigation canals, 
 was represented in the first instance to require an 
 expenditure of £120,000 only, although if ordinary 
 care had' been taken in the preparation of the 
 estimates, it could easily have been ascertained that 
 an outlay of at least three times that sum would 
 be needed for the works. The estimates of profits 
 varied in almost every letter and diary sub- 
 mitted by the projecting engineer. At one time 
 9 lacs of rupees annually were promised on an 
 outlay of 12 lacs. Then 10 or 20 lacs a-year 
 were vouchsafed to Government, and the profit 
 to the people in the enhanced value of their 
 property was put down at £1,240,000. It is 
 believed, that if the government of Lord Tweeddale, 
 which sanctioned and embarked in this gigantic 
 undertaking, had known the ultimate cost of the 
 
37 
 
 works, and the small amount of profit arising 
 therefrom, the project would have been postponed 
 till the mania for works of irrigation in India 
 had reached its climax under the wasteful adminis- 
 tration of Lord Harris in Madras, in all expenditure 
 connected with the Department of Public Works. 
 
 Wlien the work was undertaken, and to some 
 extent completed, the same mis-statements continued 
 to be propagated in regard to its profits. Colonel 
 Cotton, in his publication entitled " Public Works 
 "in India," says, in page 211, "in Eajahmundry 
 " while £200,000 have been expended, £300,000 
 " have been obtained in return." This was up to 
 1853, and the work had only been sanctioned in 1846. 
 
 Again (page 62), writing on the same subject, 
 the same author says, " the Godavery works have 
 " been in hand seven years, and about 20 lacs 
 " have been spent up to this time, and the revenue 
 " has steadily increased from an average of 19 
 " lacs up to 25 lacs per annum, giving a total 
 " increase of £300,000 against £200,000 expended. 
 " So that this great system of works, which, when 
 " complete, will have cost £250,000, has been 
 " carried on not only without demanding a rupee 
 " from the General Treasury, but with a clear 
 
38 
 
 " surplus of £100,000 of revenue, and promising 
 " to yield, probably within a few years, a permanent 
 " increase of 10 or 20 lacs, £100,000 or £200,000, 
 " a-year. These are undeniable facts." It will be 
 shown from the sequel of the present narrative that 
 these assertions, so confidently advanced, have no 
 real foundation in fact whatever. 
 
 The Commissioners for Public Works in Madras, 
 who derived their inspiration from Colonel Arthur 
 Cotton, adopted, in their Eeport of 1853, all the 
 views of the engineer without misgiving, and even 
 capped his boldest calculations. They printed a 
 statement, framed up to the close of the revenue 
 year, 1850-51, which showed a nett surplus gain to 
 Government up to that date of 6 lacs and 89,000 
 rupees, the expenditure being calculated at 12 lacs 
 and 65,000 rupees, and the receipts from the work 
 19 lacs and 54,000 rupees. The Commissioners then 
 went into a calculation to show that the probable 
 nett gain in ten years from the commencement of the 
 works would be £280,000, besides paying the ex- 
 penses of the work. The curious in these things will 
 find the calculation in page 107 of their printed 
 report. In the palmiest days of the railway mania, 
 accounts of profits were never more adroitly cooked, 
 
39 
 
 nor did the member for Sunderland himself ever sub- 
 mit a statement to his dupes more calculated to make 
 it appear that everything was smooth and pleasant. 
 
 But all this money was, according to the Com- 
 missioners, a mere bagatelle not worth mentioning, 
 compared with the results that would ultimately 
 be achieved. At the most moderate calculation 
 £300,000 a year was the sure and certain gain, 
 in a very few years^ in the land revenues^ irom 
 the improvements effected by the Annicut in 
 Rajahmundry, at an outlay of something less than 
 that sum, being a profit to the State of more than 
 cent, per cent. The Commissioners reckoned, with 
 Colonel Cotton, that £12,000 a-year would be 
 sufficient to maintain these works in good order, 
 and, adding to this, £5000 for engineering esta- 
 blishments, and a further sum of £12,000 as the 
 interest at 5 per cent, on the capital invested, 
 the total annual charge to Government was es- 
 timated at about £30,000 per annum, the gross 
 annual profits being £300,000 sterling. 
 
 Then followed an eloquent eulogium on the advan- 
 tages which the population at large would derive 
 from the gigantic undertaking just then finished. In 
 a fit of generous enthusiasm the writer of the Madras 
 
40 
 
 Public Works Report exclaimed, " This glorious 
 " success, this magnificent addition to the revenues 
 " of the State, is not to be gained by exaction, by 
 " trenching on the fair rights of property and 
 " industry; on the contrary, the noblest ''feature 
 " of the whole is, that this vast gain to Government 
 " is to be obtained by adding in a far higher degree 
 " to the wealth, comfort, and happiness of the 
 " people." Reckoning the conversion of dry land 
 into wet to be a gain to the cultivator of 245. 
 annually per acre, and the change of dry fields into 
 sugar plantations to yield a profit to the producer 
 of £22 85. a year, the ofl&cial Commissioner thus 
 calculated the people's gains at a very low estimate : 
 
 '' 100,000 acres of sugar cane at £20. .£2,000,000 
 " 1,100,000 acres rice at 245 £1,320,000 
 
 " Total £3,320,000 
 
 " Reckoning the value of the crop at these moderate 
 " rates, and taking no notice of the fact that much 
 " of this land is now unproductive, we (the Com- 
 " missioners) find that the gain to the ryot is 
 " £3,320,000, and if he pays £300,000 in revenue 
 " he will still be a gainer of £3,000,000 sterling 
 " a-year." With such results the sum of £20,000 
 
41 
 
 a-year unaccounted for was not worth speaking 
 about ; the odd thousands of revenue receipts might 
 be given to the engineer who created them, without 
 any one missing the amount. He too would have been 
 none the richer, for the gains are wholly imaginary. 
 
 In a pamphlet, printed in 1854 for private 
 circulation in Madras, I observed, in reference to 
 these so-called facts, that they were mere delusions, 
 and I now repeat that there is not one word of 
 truth in the estimate of profits, either past or 
 expected, given by the engineer and adopted by 
 the Commissioners. In page 28 of that pamphlet 
 I stated, that " the boast that the work had paid 
 " for its construction and returned besides 10 lacs 
 " of rupees to the Exchequer during the last 
 " seven years was an utter fallacy ;" and in reference 
 to the anticipated profits I advised " that a proper 
 " enquiry, conducted on the spot by sober-minded 
 " revenue officials, should be made, that a fair debtor 
 " and creditor account should be prepared, with 
 " interest calculated from the beginning, and that the 
 " results should be published for general information." 
 
 The alleged profits of the Eajahmuifflry works 
 having been thus publicly impugned, an in- 
 vestigation into the facts was ordered by Go- 
 
42 
 
 vernment, under instructions from England, and 
 the senior member of the Madras Eevenue Board, 
 Mr. Goldingham, was instructed to institute en- 
 quiries on the spot. Mr. Goldingham's views are 
 embodied in his report, which will be noticed shortly 
 in detail. I do not put faith in his calculations, 
 because this gentleman is an enthusiast in these 
 schemes; and, in his place in the Board of Eevenue, 
 he supported this work from the first, as one that 
 promised to yield large profits; but the report is 
 believed to be an approximation to accuracy. It 
 is moderate in its tone and views, and therefore 
 deserving of attentive consideration. 
 
 From data at his command, it is assumed, in 
 the Commissioner's statement, that under channels 
 dependent more or less on the Annicut, the gain 
 from extended cultivation subsequent to 1846, on 
 an average of some previous years, amounted, up to 
 1853, to 6 lacs of rupees in all, which he places to 
 the credit of the Annicut and its works. Mr. Gold- 
 ingham then cites the fact, that the excise revenues 
 and the Moturpha, &c., with other miscellaneous 
 revenue receipts, have been more productive to the 
 exchequer since 1846, when the Annicut was com- 
 menced; and the increase from these sources in 
 
43 
 
 Kajalimundry, during seven years, estimated in the 
 aggregate at 3 lacs of rupees more, he gives to the 
 Annicut, making a total gain of 9 lacs of rupees 
 in seven years, or IJ lacs per annum of gross 
 increased revenue to Government by the work. 
 
 Now admitting for the moment all this to be 
 true, where is the profit? The Public Works Com- 
 missioners estimated the interest on the outlay at 
 120,000 rupees a-year, and the superintendence 
 and repairs at 170,000 rupees more. Three lacs 
 of charges and 1^ lacs of income would leave a 
 present deficit of 1 lac and 75,000 rupees per 
 annum from this undertaking. 
 
 But these calculations are really inadmissible in 
 my judgment, for when we examine the data on 
 which the 6 lacs increase from extended cultiva- 
 tion, from 1846 to 1852, is founded, the first item of 
 profit is headed " increased cultivation obtained by 
 " the outlay of money," and the aggregate amount 
 so obtained is modestly put down at 176,484 rupees. 
 Then comes " profit by embankments which pre- 
 " vented lands from being flooded ;" this item gives 
 224,463 rupees in the aggregate up to the close of 
 the revenue year, 1853. Last of all is the actual 
 increase from irrigation of land by the Annicut and 
 
44 
 
 its channels, 194,429 rupees. These three sums 
 form a total of 595,376 rupees, the gross amount 
 of profits from all the works in Eajahmundry in 
 seven consecutive years. 
 
 Mr. G. N. Taylor, the local revenue official, who 
 furnished the returns on which the Commissioner, Mr. 
 Goldingham, relies, puts down 176,484 rupees as 
 the profit gained in seven years from the wages of 
 labor. This is a very modest calculation in com- 
 parison with Colonel Cotton's estimates, backed by 
 the Public Works Commissioners' stamped approval. 
 Colonel Cotton says, " The wages of labour in a 
 " poverty-stricken district return from 1 to 500 per 
 " cent, per annum, and in Eajahmundry, in the very 
 " first year, the expenditure in wages increased the 
 *' revenues 3 or 4 lacs." Mr. Taylor puts the item 
 down at something over 20,000 rupees a-year. 
 
 And here let it be, once for all, stated that the 
 labor at Dowlaiswarum, up to 1851, was forced 
 labor; that every village in the country was com- 
 pelled to find a certain number of workmen; that 
 the native collectors of districts were ordered to 
 produce laborers, and were dismissed from office if 
 they did not find them ; that the pay, or so much 
 of it as reached the workmen, did not suffice to keep 
 
45 
 
 body and soul together; that private contributions 
 for their sustentation were consequently levied in 
 every hamlet; that a large constabulary force was 
 maintained to guard the coolies from desertion ; that 
 a magistrate was on the spot to punish and coerce 
 them; that compulsory labor on the lowest possible 
 wages was the rule, and voluntary labor the ex- 
 ception. When these things are considered, it does 
 indeed appear monstrous to find the authors of 
 such acts boasting of the increased revenue derived 
 from the savings of the coolies fructifying five 
 hundred-fold per annum. Some of the actors in 
 these scenes have expressed, in ray hearing, their 
 regret at having been ever officially concerned 
 in them; others, with more efirontery, seem still to 
 think they were then meritoriously engaged in acts 
 which, it may with confidence be affirmed, would not 
 have been tolerated in any other province of the 
 British Empire, except in a Madras coUectorate. 
 
 Omitting, then, the pretended gains on cultiva- 
 tion alleged to have sprung from wages of labor, 
 we find, agreeably with Mr. Goldingham's calcula- 
 tion, that from embankments and irrigation channels 
 418,892 rupees only have been obtained since 1846 : 
 in round numbers 2 lacs of rupees from the Anni- 
 
4G 
 
 cut proper and its channels^ and 2 lacs more from 
 embankments^ which might have been obtained at a 
 small outlay, irrespective of the Annicut. This is 
 positively tlie whole direct gross profit from land 
 that is pretended to have accrued on the aggregate, 
 from 1846 to 1852, from an outlay up to that 
 time of £200,000, without adding a farthing for 
 interest. The further amount of 3 lacs, said to 
 have been obtained since 1846 from the sale of 
 arrack and from other indirect sources of revenue in 
 Eajahmundry, is put wholly out of consideration. 
 The argument, if argument there is, seems to be, 
 the arrack farms have yielded enhanced revenue 
 since 1846; the Annicut was commenced in that 
 year, therefore the enhanced rents were obtained 
 by the Dam. This is an inconsequential style of 
 reasoning, for it is seen that, in the adjoining dis- 
 tricts of Guntoor and Vizagapatam, the excise 
 rents and the miscellaneous receipts have largely 
 increased during this same period, without any 
 large irrigation expenditure whatever having been 
 made in these districts. 
 
 The Sea Custom collections are also paraded by 
 Mr. Goldingham as Annicut and irrigation profits, 
 and the enhanced exports from Coringa of late years 
 
47 
 
 are dwelt upon as if these had all accrued from the 
 building of a Dam across the Godavery at Dowlais- 
 warum. The Annus Mirabilis of 1845 being taken 
 as the starting point, every increased collection in 
 every item of taxation is put down as caused by the 
 Annicut. The fallacy of this argument is proved by 
 the fact, that the very same results are found else- 
 where without hydraulic expenditure. In Vizagapa- 
 tam the exports by sea from the ports of Bimlipatam 
 and Vizagapatam have risen, since 1845, from 9 to 
 18 lacs of rupees, and a larger amount of produce is 
 shipped from the open roadstead of Bimlipatam than 
 is exported from the harbour of Coringa. From 
 Calingapatam in Ganjam an immense exportation 
 direct to Europe in seeds and rice has recently 
 sprung up. Formerly, merchant vessels declined to 
 touch at the outports for cargo. Now, much of the 
 exports from the Presidency of Madras is shipped 
 thence direct. This trade has sprung up at the 
 ports upon the coast, and mercantile houses have 
 been largely established in the seaboard districts, 
 quite irrespective of recent hydraulic improvements 
 in Eajahmundry, which have had no influence what- 
 ever on the growth of the chief article of produce 
 exported, viz., oilseeds and date jaggery, or sugar. 
 
48 
 
 But everything, however preposterous, is grasped at 
 in order to shew a profit, because it is known and 
 admitted that the land irrigated shews none as yet ; 
 that very land from which it was calculated hy the 
 Public Works Commissioners that £3,332,000 per 
 annum of gain was to accrue through irrigation^ 
 the lion's share of which was to be given, by the 
 benevolent despotism which rules India, according 
 to the same authority, to the poor ryots. 
 
 But if all Mr. Goldingham's estimated receipts 
 were admitted, which they are not, still they wholly 
 confute the exaggerated statements put forth by 
 Colonel Cotton and his coadjutors as "undeniable 
 " facts. " Mr. Goldingham and Mr. Taylor, after 
 taking every item they can lay hold of, and after 
 framing the public accounts so as to show every 
 possible and every imaginable profit, can only exhi- 
 bit 9 lacs of rupees gain in the aggregate from the 
 year 1846 up to 1853. Colonel Cotton and his 
 advocates affirm that the profits were some 30 lacs 
 of rupees, at least, during that period. One or other 
 of these statements must be grossly inaccurate. 
 
 So much for past profits — ^let us now look for the 
 future. Mr. Goldingham calculates that, in the end, 
 when all lands capable of being irrigated in the 
 
49 
 
 Godavery Delta are brought under wet cultivation, 
 and when the enhanced rents to be fixed thereon are 
 all paid, and when in zemindary land the owners are 
 assessed in addition for the use of the water, and 
 when such enhanced taxation is realized to the full, 
 the gross profit from land to Government, coming 
 from these irrigation works, will then be 402,699 
 rupees a-year, subject to deductions for rent free 
 tenures and other private lands required for public 
 piu'poses, for which compensation must be given 
 to the owners, the amount of which had not been 
 estimated at the date when Mr. Goldingham's 
 Eeport was written. 
 
 Compare this statement of estimated future profit 
 with that of Messrs. Balfour, Bourdillon, & Cotton, 
 the Public Works Commissioners. They fix the 
 Government share of the spoil at not less than 
 £300,000 sterling annually, and the gain to the 
 people at £3,000,000 sterling a-year. Mr. Golding- 
 ham calculates that the receipts to Government from 
 irrigation may be finally between 3 and 4 lacs per 
 annum. The difference is a matter of £260,000 
 a-year only, and who is to be trusted? I, for 
 one, accept the statement of the Commissioner, Mr. 
 Goldingham, not as strictly correct, but as a favor- 
 able estimate of the improved receipts which Go- 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 vernment may possibly obtain at some future period 
 from the Eajahmundry district; and the boastings 
 of the engineer and liis coadjutors are dismissed 
 as idle and silly dreams. Yet the £3,000,000 per 
 annum gain to the poor natives was the point most 
 dwelt upon in England on the first publication of 
 the Public Works Commissioners' Eeport. The 
 statement was copied into the Times newspaper, 
 trumpeted forth by the Indian Eeform Association, 
 and even at the present time, 1855, Colonel Cotton 
 is lecturing in the manufacturing towns of England 
 on the same subject, and announcing that the 
 gain, " though wonderful, is an undeniable fact." 
 The men of Lancashire are necessarily very im- 
 perfectly acquainted with the details of the revenue 
 administration in Madras, and are therefore easily 
 induced to believe the overdrawn statements of 
 gains which Colonel Arthur Cotton so frequently 
 advances, when he discusses the advantages of 
 those public works with which he has been pro- 
 fessionally connected in India. 
 
 Appended to Mr. Goldingham's Keport to Go- 
 vernment is a tabular statement, framed by the 
 former Commissioner in the Northern Circars, tend- 
 ing to show that the existence of the Eajahmundry 
 Annicut, in 1854, saved from ^'' imminent jeopardy ^^ 
 
51 
 
 dry crops which the engineer of the district, Colonel 
 F. Cotton, valued at £700,000. I consider this calcu- 
 lation wholly erroneous, and the value of the crop to 
 be preposterously over-rated ; but supposing the fact 
 to be literally true, Mr. Elliot says the crop was in jeo- 
 pardy only. It was not lost, nor is it alleged that it 
 would have wholly perished if no Annicut had existed. 
 
 I put no faith in this calculation, because in that 
 same year, in the district of Yizagapatam, where 
 there is no Annicut irrigation, but which is conti- 
 guous to Eajahmundry, and which benefits from the 
 same rains, although some dry crops suffered from 
 drought, the harvest was not at all a failure. 
 The revenue was collected as usual, and was punc- 
 tually paid, and the land tax on the zemindars 
 was realized within the year. K this was so in 
 Vizagapatam, Eajahmundry, which is a much more 
 fertile province, could not have been saved from 
 destruction only by this Annicut. For this reason 
 alone I believe the statement of losses prevented in 
 1853-54, extending to hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds, to be mere clap-trap. 
 
 For myself, however, I am of opinion that all the 
 estimates of profit up to 1853 are in great measure 
 apocryphal, inasmuch as they are based on compa- 
 risons of the revenue receipts of some years before 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 1845, when, tinder a disgraceful fiscal ryotwar admi- 
 nistration, the revenues of Eajahmundry had been 
 wasted through incompetent management. Mr. 
 Danby Seymour, now secretary to the Board of Con- 
 trol, is said to have declared, that India would have 
 prospered more under the rule of the Mahrattas 
 than the English. Eajahmundry, in my belief, suf- 
 fered more from the incapacity of its collectors 
 from 1833 to 1843, than if it had been plundered 
 by a horde of Pindarries. I stand upon the fact, 
 that at the beginning of the present century, on 
 the introduction of the permanent settlement, the 
 lands of Eajahmundry were valued at £250,000 of 
 yearly income. The land tax was fixed at 19 
 lacs (£190,000), and £60,000 per annum were 
 supposed to be the perquisites of the proprietors. 
 
 I will admit, for argument's sake, that this 
 valuation was too high, and I will therefore deduct 
 2 lacs, £20,000, for over-valuation, making the 
 province of Eajahmundry worth only 23 lacs 
 (£230,000) of yearly rent. I will also give 11 
 lacs as the profits of existing proprietors, who now 
 pay 6 lacs annually to the State, reducing the 
 Government demand to 21^ lacs, or £215,000 of 
 yearly income from land, which Government should 
 derive from the district without Annicut irrigation. 
 
53 
 
 It may be said that the ancient valuation of 
 19 lacs of rupees was never obtained. Such a sup- 
 position is wholly erroneous. From the date of the 
 introduction of the permanent settlement into Rajah- 
 mundry up to 1834, when it was partially broken up, 
 during a period of thirty years, the zemindars paid to 
 Government for their lands between 18 and 19 lacs 
 of rupees of revenue annually, and many of them 
 enjoyed large profits. The following are the col- 
 lections for ten years from the land alone, from 
 1821 to 1830, exhibiting an average payment of 
 more than 18 lacs and 70,000 rupees per annum: — 
 
 Land Revenue of Rajahmundry from 1821 
 
 
 to 1830, inclusive. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Fuslies. 
 
 ' Land Revenue Collection. 
 
 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 1821 
 
 1231 
 
 18,57,620 
 
 1822 
 
 1232 
 
 18,33,443 
 
 1823 
 
 1233 
 
 17,49,600 
 
 1824 
 
 1234 
 
 20,69,280 
 
 1825 
 
 1235 
 
 19,01,553 
 
 1826 
 
 1236 
 
 20,29,165 
 
 1827 
 
 1237 
 
 18,05,646 
 
 1828 
 
 1238 
 
 19,28,304 
 
 1829 
 
 1239 
 
 17,76,792 
 
 1830 
 
 1240 
 
 17,57,478 
 
 Total.. 187,08,881 
 
 f;Tefr}l«-^0'««« 
 
 
 
54 
 
 From that date up to the year 1852, the Govern- 
 ment have become possessed of estates and farms 
 by purchase, and by other means, that paid 13 lacs 
 of yearly revenue, and which yielded a supposed 
 profit of 2^ lacs a-year to the owners. These lands 
 thus acquired should therefore, unimproved, produce 
 in the hands of the collector 15^ lacs of yearly 
 revenue to the State. The estates and lands, which 
 still continue to be held as private property, contri- 
 bute 6 lacs or £60,000 of revenue to Government. 
 The public receipts from land rent in Eajahmundry 
 should be therefore, under proper management, at 
 least 21^ lacs of rupees, irrespective of any increase 
 from the new irrigation works, by means of which 
 an enormous addition to the revenue was expected. 
 Now so far from this being true, the Government 
 collections have never exceeded 20 lacs of rupees 
 a-year up to the present date, and the Rajahmundry 
 district, after an outlay of £300,000 sterling on the 
 improvement of its irrigation, exhibits, in 1855, a de- 
 clension of 1| lacs of rupees a-year of land rent below 
 the valuation of the same lands in 1802, when these 
 magnificent hydraulic experiments had no existence. 
 
 From the province of Rajahmundry in the present 
 day a gross rental of 20 lacs of rupees, or £200,000 
 
55 
 
 sterling, is collected, from which there must be 
 deducted 3 lacs of rupees, the acknowledged actual 
 annual cost of the new irrigation works over and 
 above the former general charges of management for 
 the Government estates. The present nett receipts 
 of revenue are, therefore, 17 lacs of rupees per 
 annum, in contrast with 19 lacs formerly paid into 
 the Treasury under the permanent settlement system. 
 If the profits of the displaced landlords now in- 
 cluded in the public receipts be brought into the 
 calculation, then 2 lacs of rupees more remain unac- 
 counted for, and the lands of this district show an 
 apparent decrease in their productive value of 4 lacs 
 of rupees per annum, after irrigation improvement, 
 although there has been no reduction of taxation 
 on the soil. On a rough view of the accounts of 
 the Rajahmundry district there is a large loss of 
 revenue and no direct money profit whatever. 
 
 A tabular statement of the land revenue collec- 
 tions in Eajahmundry for ten years, brought up to 
 the year 1855, is here given. The normal revenue 
 of this province, when it was held on permanent 
 tenure, and when the lands were the private property 
 of zemindars, was 19 lacs of rupees, £190,000 a-yean 
 During the last four years, when two-thirds of the 
 lands have been repurchased for Government, and 
 
56 
 
 when the landlords' profits are included in the col- 
 lections, it will be observed that the gross receipts 
 were only slightly in excess of 20 lacs of rupees, or 
 £200,000 sterling, annually. Yet, in the face of 
 this return, and with a perfect knowledge of the 
 fact, the Madras Public Works Commissioners, coun- 
 tenanced by the Local Government, continue to delude 
 the public with idle tales of the glorious achieve- 
 ments of the engineers, and of the magnificent 
 addition to the revenues of the State, contributed 
 by the irrigation works in Eajahmundry, variously 
 estimating the addition of revenue obtained at 
 from £70,000 to £300,000 per annum:— 
 
 
 
 Rajahmundry Land Revenues. 
 
 Peshcush of 
 
 
 
 Fuslies. 
 
 Zemindary 
 
 
 
 
 
 estates, and 
 
 Balance. 
 
 Collections. 
 
 
 
 revenue from 
 
 
 
 
 
 Government 
 
 
 
 
 
 Talooks. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 1255 
 
 1845-46 
 
 1,768,138 
 
 18,624 
 
 1,749,514 
 
 1256 
 
 1846-47 
 
 1,825,827 
 
 13,338 
 
 1,812,489 
 
 1257 
 
 *1847-48 
 
 1,875,525 
 
 2,052 
 
 1,873,473 
 
 1258 
 
 1848-49 
 
 1,931,299 
 
 2,372 
 
 1,928,927 
 
 1259 
 
 1849-50 
 
 1,944,807 
 
 53,530 
 
 1,891,277 
 
 1260 
 
 1850--51 
 
 1,991,485 
 
 18,581 
 
 1,872,904 
 
 1261 
 
 1851-52 
 
 2,045,537 
 
 30,063 
 
 2,025,474 
 
 1262 
 
 1852-53 
 
 2,067,116 
 
 43,424 
 
 2,023,692 
 
 1263 
 
 1853-54 
 
 2,055,261 
 
 35,043 
 
 2,020,218 
 
 1264 
 
 1854-55 
 
 2,065,724 
 
 23,273 
 
 2,042,451 
 
 * In this year the foundations of the weir across the River 
 Godavery were laid at a spot called Dowlaiswarum. 
 
57 
 
 Heretofore these observations on irrigation profits 
 have been general. The normal receipts of the 
 Rajahmundry district, when it was permanently 
 settled fifty years ago, have been taken in contrast 
 with the present revenue collections, after an ample 
 outlay on modern irrigation works has been made, 
 and it has been shown that the boast of cent, per 
 cent, returns upon an outlay of £300,000 of capital 
 is a gross fallacy. It is now proposed to show what 
 a ount of increased revenue has actually accrued 
 to Government in Eajahmundry from the application 
 of water to land by means of these expensive under- 
 takings. The statements are taken from official 
 sources and compiled from returns appended to 
 Mr. Goldingham's public Eeport. The accounts of 
 the villages operated upon by the engineers have 
 been brought down to the year 1854. 
 
 It would seem then, from official documents, that 
 the villages in the Delta of the Godavery supplied 
 in 1854 with water from channels filled through the 
 Dawlaiswarum Annicut, were 280 in number. The 
 channels which convey the water were for the most 
 part excavated in the year 1852. Before that date, 
 rice cultivation indeed had been largely pursued by 
 means of water imperfectly received in the ordinary 
 
58 
 
 reservoirs and channels of these villages, but without 
 the scientific machinery since supplied through the 
 profuse expenditure of money on public works. 
 
 The average annual land revenue receipts from 
 all sources in these 280 villages, taken for four years 
 before Annicut irrigation reached them, was 552,653 
 rupees. The revenue demand for the year ending 
 in June, 1854, was 699,426 rupees, showing an 
 increased revenue in that year of 1 lac and 46,000 
 rupees, or £14,600 sterling. At first sight this 
 result appears to be very satisfactory, but a parti- 
 cular enquiry as to the sources from which this 
 increase comes is needed to determine the value of 
 the water, and a detailed examination was accord- 
 ingly made for the Commissioner, Mr. Goldingham, 
 by the local authorities in Eajahmundry. The 
 accompanying tabular statement, compiled from 
 the village accounts, exhibits the normal extent of 
 wet cultivation in these villages, and the revenue 
 formerly received, in comparison with the demand 
 from the lands under wet cultivation in the year 
 1 854. This account shows that the former land rent 
 on wet lands was 2 lacs and 19,000 rupees, and that 
 the revenue for 1854 was 2 lacs and 38,000 rupees. 
 The real increased receipts from wet lands, owing 
 
59 
 
 to the new irrigation works, were, therefore, in round 
 numbers, 19,600 rupees, or something less than 
 £2,000 sterling, per annum: — 
 
 Demand ox the Wet Lands of 280 Villages under 
 
 THE DOTJLAISWARAM AnNICUT. 
 
 Description of Lands. 
 
 o . 
 
 Former de- 
 mandbefore 
 the irriga- 
 tion began. 
 
 
 a lo 
 
 a GO 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 Usu 
 Dry 
 
 Usu 
 
 V 
 
 ai 
 ta 
 
 al wet 
 
 Acres. 
 43,993 
 13,932 
 
 1,843 
 
 158,076 
 
 48,577 
 
 12,416 
 
 170,212 
 56,042 
 
 12,416 
 
 12,136 
 
 converted into wet . . 
 al garden, dry con- -\ 
 2rted into gardens ( 
 id sugar cane plan- ^ 
 itions ) 
 
 7,465 
 
 Total 
 
 59,768 
 
 219,069 
 
 238,670 
 
 19,601 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 Cultivated with rice' 
 for 1st and 2nd ► 
 crops 
 
 Cultivated with rice" 
 for 1st crop, and 
 gingily oil seed for " 
 2nd crop _ 
 
 Ditto with one crop . . 
 
 8,023 
 
 6,347 
 45,393 
 
 33,931 
 
 23,498 
 161,640 
 
 44,476 
 
 25,538 
 168,617 
 
 10,545 
 
 2,040 
 6,996 
 
 ^ 
 
 59,763 
 
 219,069 
 
 238,631 
 
 19,581 
 
 It has been already stated there was a general 
 increase of revenue in these villages of nearly 
 £15,000 a year. This increase, it is found, was 
 
60 
 
 principally derived from the rents of dry lands, 
 and mainly through an improved system of 
 management and of collection. For a number of 
 years the receipts from these villages had been 
 wasted and embezzled under the baneful system 
 of annual individual settlements then in vogue. 
 In 1854, under an improved administration of 
 village settlements, the revenues of Government 
 had materially improved. This improvement was 
 not confined to the Delta of the Godavery only ; 
 it had been generally felt throughout the entire 
 district, for, strange though true, those divisions 
 of Eajahmundry which exhibit the greatest increase 
 of revenue in recent years are divisions situated above 
 the Annicut, and which do not derive any advantage 
 from river irrigation. Nineteen thousand and odd 
 rupees were therefore the entire direct receipts 
 brought to the Government account, in 1854, by 
 these enormous works of irrigation, coming from 
 new water used for purposes of cultivation and 
 applied to the soil. 
 
 When this insignificant result is contrasted with 
 the magnificent promises of the projecting engineer 
 and his associates the upshot is supremely ridiculous. 
 In 1845, when the great project of building a weir 
 
61 
 
 across the Godavery was only in contemplation, 
 Colonel Arthur Cotton published a pamphlet in the 
 shape of a letter to the Anti- Slavery Society, in which 
 he laboured to shew that 1,200,000 acres of land in 
 the Delta of the Godavery might be converted into 
 sugar plantations, and that 1,300,000 tons of sugar 
 could easily be produced annually from the canes 
 grown thereon. The climate of Eajahmundry was 
 eulogized as one that was peculiarly adapted for Euro- 
 pean colonists, and as most salubrious. Colonel 
 Cotton assured his readers that the Government 
 land tax was so moderate that the profits from the 
 rum distilled from the molasses would alone suffice 
 to pay all the public burdens and to defray the cost 
 of growing and manufacturing the sugar ; and that 
 the article would consequently cost the producers 
 absolutely nothing. As the quantity of sugar thus 
 raised, without cost to the producers, was said to be 
 more than was required for the commercial wants of 
 the whole world, it followed that sugar planting in 
 every other tropical region must be abandoned, and 
 that slave holding in Cuba or Brazil would cease 
 to be profitable. Annicut irrigation was thus re- 
 commended to Dr. Lushington and to Mr. Clarkson 
 as a measure that specially deserved the support of 
 
62 
 
 the Anti- Slavery body ; and it was held out to 
 economists as a scheme which would at once render 
 the maintenance of the African squadron useless. 
 These were the day dreams of the engineer, and 
 what are the results? Official returns prove that, 
 in 1854, in the entire Rajahmundry province, there 
 were only 2,314 acres of sugar cultivation, and 
 that in the Delta of the Godavery the lands so 
 cultivated amounted to 448 acres in all. A large 
 portion of the sugar manufactured in Rajahmundry 
 is made from date and palmyra jaggery, and not 
 from cane juice. 
 
 Again, at a later period, in 1853, agreeably with 
 the calculation furnished by Colonel Cotton to the 
 Public Works Commissioners, it was computed 
 that, under the Godavery irrigation works, there 
 would always be found about 100,000 acres under 
 sugar cultivation, and at least 1,100,000 acres under 
 rice. The actual extent of sugar cane cultivation 
 in 1854 has just been shewn, and from the tabular 
 statement printed in a previous page it wiU be seen 
 that the extent of wet lands in the 280 Government 
 villages irrigated by Annicut channels was under 
 60,000 acres altogether, the rent of which yielded 
 an increase of £2,000 per annum only over the 
 
63 
 
 average collections of the preceding five years. 
 Surely this, after eight years' experience, is a miser- 
 able short-coming. The entire rental of the wet lands 
 of the Eajahmundry district, according to present 
 official accounts, is 5^ lacs of rupees ; and one-half of 
 this is a rent-charge on villages entirely unconnected 
 with the Annicut works. Yet the English and Indian 
 public have been misled to suppose that the water from 
 the Annicut has brought into the Grovernment Exche- 
 quer an increase of four lacs of rupees in the first year, 
 and a gain of 7 lacs annually for the next four years ; 
 while, in a few more seasons, the increase of public 
 revenue, it was insisted upon, would be at least 
 £300,000 sterling per annum. The land revenue of 
 Eajahmundry, in 1855, in round numbers amounted 
 to £200,000 sterling, composed as follows : — £50,000 
 accrued from the rents of wet lands; £90,000 
 a year were paid by lands under dry cultivation ; 
 and £60,000 was the land tax on estates held 
 under deeds of permanent tenure; this miserable 
 fulfilment of the singularly happy promises of cent, 
 per cent, profits per annum, on the faith of which an 
 expenditure of £300,000 was sanctioned in the first 
 instance, verges, it will be admitted, almost upon the 
 ludicrous. 
 
64 
 
 So much for the actual receipts by Government 
 from this great hydraulic experiment in Eajah- 
 mundry. Let us now examine what tlie charges 
 were in 1855. The expenditure on capital account 
 up to this date, without calculating interest from the 
 commencement, was £300,000, or 30 lacs of rupees. 
 The interest on this capital, at 5 per cent., is 1 
 lac and 50,000 rupees, or £15,000 a year. In the 
 official budget of the Madras Government the esti- 
 mated outlay for irrigation repairs in Rajahmundry, 
 for 1856, was entered at 2 lacs and 30,000 rupees 
 (£23,000 sterling). If the Godavery works be 
 assumed to absorb £20,000 of this charge, and 
 if £5,000 be added for the expenses of establish- 
 ments permanently entertained, the total annual 
 expenditure in this district under this head, with 
 interest on the capital, will be £40,000 per annum. 
 
 To set against this charge there is the present gain 
 of £2,000 a year shown to have been received from 
 wet cultivation, and there is also, it seems, an ex- 
 pected gain from a levy of 10 per cent, of additional 
 taxation, which has been recently un-authorizedly 
 imposed in the 280 Delta villages, under a guarantee 
 given to the cultivators by the subordinate collector 
 there, Mr. G. N. Taylor, that no further enhancement 
 
65 
 
 of revenue will be made on the villagers' lands while the 
 present village renting system continues. This extra 
 land tax will yield, it is supposed, 30,000 rupees, or 
 £3,000 a year, and thus the whole apparent gains 
 from land accruing from this irrigation work may 
 amount, in the aggregate, to £5,000 a-year. As the 
 charges have been proved to be £40,000 annually, 
 financially considered, this great undertaking ex- 
 hibits a present loss of £35,000 sterling, or of 
 3^ lacs of rupees a year. 
 
 Thus, whether the revenue receipts of the 
 Province of Kajahmundry are considered in the 
 gross, or whether the revenues and the sources 
 whence they spring are investigated in detail, the 
 same results are obtained. The conclusion formerly 
 arrived at remains unshaken, viz., that there is, 
 up to 1855, not only no general increase of revenue 
 in Eajahmundry, but that there is a very large 
 deficiency in the nett receipts, if the permanent 
 charges entailed by these irrigation improvements 
 be deducted. The engineer and his disciples, who con- 
 sider Colonel Arthur Cotton to be " the first engineer 
 " in India, if not in the world," are invited to dis- 
 prove, if they can, the correctness of the facts stated, 
 the general authenticity of which is vouched for. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 It is readily admitted that there are advantages, 
 much public convenience, and some benefits con- 
 ferred on the Rajahmundry district from the con- 
 struction of the Dowlaiswarum Annicut and its 
 dependent navigable canals, although these are 
 greatly overrated. It would be strange, indeed, 
 if it were otherwise, after so large an outlay of 
 money, past and prospective; but that is not the 
 question for consideration at the present moment. 
 The engineer, the Board of Public Works, and 
 the Public Works Commissioners, with their abettors 
 in the public service and in the press, have con- 
 tended that the works yielded a direct profit of 
 70 per cent, and more from the commencement, 
 and have stated that they would give a profit of 
 100 per cent, per annum to the Government in a 
 very few years, with a gain besides to the humble 
 cultivators of £3,000,000 sterling per annum. These 
 men assert that Colonel Cotton's calculations have 
 proved true to the very letter, and admit of no 
 contradiction. The writer of these lines afiirms, 
 on the contrary, that the statements of magnificent 
 additions of revenue to the State, and of enormous 
 gains to the cultivator, have no foundation whatever. 
 He asserts, with confidence, that as a financial un- 
 
67 
 
 dertaking the Anniciit has proved to be a ludicrous 
 failure, which, if it had been undertaken by a private 
 company as a commercial speculation, would long 
 since have terminated in hopeless bankruptcy. 
 
 The manner in which this important matter 
 has been handled by the Government of Madras 
 is worthy of mention in a writing treating on 
 irrigation profits. Mr. Goldingham's report, which 
 was submitted to Government in 1855, and which 
 was meant to be as favorable as possible to the 
 Kajahmundry weir, was so unpalatable to the advo- 
 cates of large expenditure on reproductive works 
 who influence the policy of the present Govern- 
 ment of the Madras Presidency, that it has been 
 suppressed. In 1856 its contents were made known 
 to Colonel Arthur Cotton, and the engineer was 
 invited to answer and refute, if possible, its state- 
 ments. Colonel Cotton, it is understood, submitted 
 one of his voluminous dispatches in reply, arguing, 
 at great length, that if there was no present profit 
 from irrigation in Rajahmundry the fault was with 
 the revenue collector, and not with the engineer. 
 Water, the Colonel calculates, is always worth 25. 
 per 500 cubic feet, and the water supplied to the 
 Kajahmundry villages should yield at this rate, at 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 least, 14 lacs of rupees a year above the present 
 receipts. In 1857 it is known that an attempt 
 was made by the Madras Government to obtain 
 through another source, for submission to the au- 
 thorities in England, an official report, giving, if 
 possible, a more encouraging estimate than that 
 of Mr. Goldingham's, of the past and present profits 
 of the Eajahmundry Annicut, but the attempt 
 failed, and matters, therefore, still remain in this 
 unsatisfactory and unpleasant position. Meanwhile, 
 indirectly, upon every possible occasion, it is as- 
 sumed in public writings that 700,000 acres are 
 under irrigation influences in the Delta of the 
 Godavery, although the Government is well aware 
 that less than one-tenth part of this extent was 
 actually cultivated with wet produce in the 
 year 1855. 
 
 It would be trespassing unnecessarily on the 
 patience of my readers to enter into an analysis of 
 the alleged profits of weirs for irrigation purposes 
 in Tanjore. According to Colonel Arthur Cotton,* 
 "10 lacs of rupees have been spent on new works 
 " since 1836 in that province, and the outlay has 
 
 * Colonel Arthur Cotton's " Madras," page 208. 
 
69 
 
 ' increased the revenues of Government by 10 lacs, 
 " of rupees annually, besides producing a capital of 
 " £4,000,000 sterling to the ryots." There is not 
 the smallest foundation for this statement. The 
 land revenues of Tanjore in 1837-38 were 38 lacs 
 of rupees, and if the salt sales and other miscellaneous 
 items be included, the total receipts of that season 
 exceeded 48 lacs. In 1848-49 the land rents were 
 38 lacs and 70,000 rupees, and the total receipts 
 from salt and from other sources raised the revenues 
 of that year to 48 lacs of rupees in round numbers. 
 In 1849-50 the receipts were 49 lacs of rupees. 
 In former seasons the average outlay for repairs 
 was from 30,000 to 40,000 rupees a-year. In 1856 
 the estimates for irrigation repairs in Tanjore are 
 seen, by a return signed by Mr. Bourdillon now 
 before me, to be 1 lac and 70,000 rupees. 
 
 The statements of cent, per cent, profits derived 
 from these works are therefore wholly unfounded. 
 There seems to be no nett profit whatever, if the 
 increased charges are deducted. The writer is far 
 from contending that all outlays for purposes of 
 irrigation are unnecessary or unproductive, or that 
 there are no tracts of country on the coast of Coro- 
 mandel whicli would not benefit by and yield a hand- 
 
70 
 
 some profit from hydraulic improvement. His aim 
 has been to show that the gigantic works undertaken 
 of late years, at the instance of Colonel Cotton and 
 with the countenance of the Madras Government, are 
 ill-considered schemes, carried out in a heedless 
 manner, and with so profuse an expenditure, that no 
 gains in a pecuniary point of view can ever be 
 hoped for from them. Under the present system a 
 large annual expenditure is made, and a vast amount 
 is squandered on projects from which no return will 
 ever be obtained. Well considered works, cheaply 
 made, and requiring only a moderate annual outlay 
 for their maintenance, will, in most districts, yield a 
 considerable profit from the lands brought under 
 irrigation ; but undertakings on a large scale, carried 
 out under the superintendence of Government offi- 
 cials, without regard to expense, are in most 
 instances signal failures. 
 
 Vizeanagram, 
 
 January^ 1856. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 On zemindars in the Northern Circars, and 
 
 THE TREATMENT OF NATIVE LANDLORDS BY GOVERN- 
 MENT OFFICIALS. 
 
 Thirty years ago the boast of the Madi-as Presi- 
 dency was its revenue ryotwar settlement. The soil 
 of the Carnatic was acknowledged to be poor and 
 sandy ; the Coromandel Coast inaccessible and 
 without a harbour ; sugar, opium, silk, and other 
 productions of external commerce were then almost 
 unknown, but the people, it was said, were pro- 
 tected by an admirable fiscal administration. The 
 collector of a district was the father of the people; 
 oppression by villainous renters or lawless village 
 headmen was utterly unknown. Each ryot received 
 from the collector's hands annually a " puttah," de- 
 fining his holding, the extent of his taxation, and 
 the items that composed the demand. Imposition, 
 therefore, Avas impracticable. In those good old 
 
72 
 
 days it used to be thought a high privilege for a 
 young gentleman to commence his revenue service 
 in Cuddapah or Bellary ; to learn in those pro- 
 vinces what a revenue survey field settlement really 
 was ; to see a system there, in daily operation, 
 which was said, practically, to have secured for the 
 people the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
 Of course, at the same time, the management 
 of native zemindars was generally described by 
 ryotwar collectors as everything that was in- 
 famous. They were oppressors, plundering middle- 
 men, successful robbers of the public estate. If 
 not altogether meritorious to destroy them, still to 
 omit taking every fitting opportunity to eject them 
 was reckoned a dereliction of duty. This doc- 
 trine — occasionally acted upon by the Government, 
 thirty years ago, as opportunities presented them- 
 selves, especially in the case of modern zemindars — 
 is now, in 1856, openly avowed and inculcated even 
 where the greatest native chieftains are concerned. 
 Former circular orders enjoined the sequestration of 
 landed estates whenever 20 per cent, of ^arrear 
 was reached, in order to obviate the necessity of 
 sales; but the policy of the day now is, to wink 
 at disorder, to decline interference during the offi- 
 
73 
 
 cial year, and to sell up the owner peremptorily 
 at the end of the season. With this view we see 
 constantly large estates exposed to sale in the gross 
 for small revenue balances, although, if these pos- 
 sessions were sub-divided, as the law permits, the sale 
 of a few villages would fetch a price that would dis- 
 charge the arrear of revenue; but then the Govern- 
 ment would miss the opportunity of acquiring a 
 large territory for a song. Now, as there are 
 few capitalists in the Madras Districts to compete 
 at such sales, and as many lands held on feudal 
 tenure are really unsaleable, Government, in most 
 instances, acquires those valuable possessions at one- 
 tenth of their real worth. It is pretended that this 
 course of policy is called for, from consideration 
 of the interests of the people, and for the protection 
 of the oppressed cultivators of the soil. The pre- 
 text is untrue, but under it the landlords of the 
 Madras Presidency are slowly but surely systema- 
 tically crushed. 
 
 Meet a ryotwar collector in his o^vn house, at 
 his hospitable board, he will admit that the sale of 
 a great zemindary which he has just achieved was 
 brought about by dexterous management; that the 
 owner had been purposely permitted to get into 
 
74 
 
 the meshes of the collector's net beyond his power 
 of extrication ; that the sale could easily have 
 been obviated, nay, perhaps, was uncalled for. He 
 will not deny that the unconditional, sale of an 
 ancient zemindary, entire, for a small balance of 
 taxes, when the subdivision and disposal of a part 
 would have met every requirement, is a questionable 
 transaction, barely honest. He will hear, without 
 being offended, an unprejudiced person stigmatize 
 the purchase by Government of an ancient patri- 
 mony, sold thus in the aggregate without necessity, 
 as a robbery, as spoliation under the pretence of law ; 
 but he will excuse himself by saying that it was the 
 anxious desire of the Government to obtain possession 
 of the dispossessed zemindars inheritance, and he 
 will congratulate himself by stating that the culti- 
 vating classes, at all events, will be benefited, and 
 that it was well to do a little evil that good 
 might come. If the people residing in an ancient 
 zemindary were really consulted, ninety-nine inha- 
 bitants out of every hundred would vote for the con- 
 tinuance of the landlords' management in preference to 
 the riot and confusion of Government administration. 
 If instances of the improper confiscation of pro- 
 perty be asked for, many cases can be cited, 
 
75 
 
 extending over a long course of years, a few of 
 which shall be given as a sample merely. Twenty 
 years ago, the ancient Chocumputty estate in 
 Tinnevelly, being in arrears to Government, was 
 advertized for sale. The owner, to arrange a 
 settlement, had voluntarily come to the collector's 
 head-quarter-station some days before the date of 
 sale; and, while there residing peaceably, he was 
 seized and placed in confinement, under the pro- 
 visions of a criminal regulation which authorizes 
 the imprisonment and banishment from a district 
 of parties proved to be disafiected and of dan- 
 gerous character. No specific charge whatever 
 was brought against him. The collector and 
 magistrate merely reported that he was a " tho- 
 " roughly worthless and good-for-nothing fellow,'' 
 and the Governor, Sir Frederic Adam, supported 
 the local official, and ordered the man to be re- 
 moved to Trichinopoly for confinement as a political 
 offender, where the ex-zemindar possibly still is, 
 unless he be dead. The revenue sale was afterwards 
 proceeded with, without regard to the interests 
 of the family ; the treatment the zemindar had met 
 with deterred any banker from advancing money 
 to pay the arrear of revenue. The Government 
 
76 
 
 official was the only bidder, and a most productive 
 and highly cultivated estate was thus obtained for 
 absolutely nothing, which yields, I believe, a clear 
 surplus revenue of 30,000 rupees per annum. * 
 
 The Woodiagherry jaghire in Nellore, worth 80,000 
 rupees a-year, was confiscated, in 1840, in even 
 a more summary manner, without a reasonable ex- 
 cuse and without recourse even to the forms of law. 
 The jagheerdar was suspected of treasonable practices, 
 in conjunction with the Rajah of Kurnool, at a time 
 when a perfect panic reigned in Madras of Eussian 
 intrigue. A Commissioner was sent to enquire into 
 the truth of this man's alleged treason, who, without 
 seeing the jagheerdar, or hearing his defence, or 
 telling him of what he was accused, reported his 
 sentiments to Government. The jagheerdar, a 
 Mahomedan nobleman and a man of seventy years 
 of age, was then seized, without resistance, and 
 detained in confinement at Chingleput for life 
 without trial, his estate being confiscated. Every 
 inhabitant of the Nellore district believes that 
 the charges were unfounded, and tlie Commis- 
 sioners in Kurnool at that day had opportunities 
 
 * A small allowance for life is now paid to some members 
 of the family, thus robbed of an hereditary estate. 
 
77 
 
 of knowing that some of the papers on which the 
 jagheerdar was condemned, unheard, were forgeries. 
 Thus, however, a great estate was obtained and an 
 old native family was ruined, while the collector con- 
 gratulated himself that the escheat was a profitable 
 one to the Government, and that the confiscation 
 enabled him to foster the poor ryots. No dis- 
 trict under the Madras Presidency is more wretch- 
 edly administered under the annual revenue 
 settlement system than Xellore. 
 
 In Guntoor, in recent times, the great Yassy- 
 Eeddy possessions, which paid a revenue to 
 Government of 6 lacs of rupees a year, were sold 
 in the gross, and were bought in by the Govern- 
 ment salesman for 5,000 rupees, this being the 
 only offer. The pretext for selling these estates 
 was the existence of an enormous balance which 
 had accumulated during twenty years, created 
 chiefly through the mismanagement of the officers 
 of Government, who, as trustees, had administered 
 the revenues all that time, the lands being under 
 judicial sequestration owing to a disputed succes- 
 sion. The highest courts of the Madras Presi- 
 dency have ruled repeatedly, that lands secured by 
 a deed of permanent settlement are not answer- 
 
78 
 
 able for arrears of revenue accruing under Go- 
 vernment management; but the heavy expenses of 
 litigation against the State and the poverty of 
 the family have prevented this illegal act from 
 being sifted and exposed in a Court of Law.* 
 
 In Masulipatam, three years ago, the Xedadavole 
 estates were purchased by Government for about 
 12,000 rupees, at a mock auction, the worth of 
 these being, perhaps, 30,000 rupees a year. 
 
 In Vizagapatam, some years back, the ancient 
 zemindary of Golgondah, which yields about 10,000 
 rupees of clear surplus annually, was sold, and bought 
 by Government for £10 sterling. The collector 
 who sold the estate, and the then Board of Eeve- 
 nue, which authorized the sale, advised its being 
 restored to the member of the family who seemed 
 best capable of administering the zemindary, but 
 the Government said it was a valuable acquisition, 
 and desired that the subject of restitution should 
 on no account be ever entertained. The numerous 
 members of the family so plundered were ac- 
 cordingly left to shift for themselves. Six years 
 afterwards, this act of spoliation was the cause 
 
 '^' The authorities in Leadenhall- street were erroneously in- 
 formed that the arrears of taxation had been caused by the 
 personal extravagance of the Vassy-Reddy zemindar, although 
 the owner had not been in legal possession for twenty years. 
 
79 
 
 of a local Insurrection, which it took three years to 
 suppress, with a great sacrifice of life and property. 
 In Ganjam, in 1855, the ancient zemindary of 
 Hautghur was in like manner exposed to sale 
 without the least necessity. The zemindar, who 
 is weak in mind, had entrusted his zemindary 
 with a small reservation to an influential and 
 wealthy person, who bound himself to pay the 
 Government tribute, and to account for the 
 surplus profits to the owner. This agent purposely, 
 in the last year of his engagement, swept into 
 his own pocket the resources of the zemindary, 
 and left a portion of the Government dues unpaid. 
 The collector and political agent in Ganjam took 
 no heed of these proceedings, but advertized the 
 estate for sale at the close of the ofiicial year, 
 and when the day of sale arrived he offered 
 120,000 rupees for the estate. Much to his dis- 
 may, however, further biddings were made, and, in 
 consequence, the sale was adjourned from day to 
 day, without any ostensible cause. On the evening 
 of the fourth day, the Government agent came to his 
 office unexpectedly, and knocking down the estate 
 to the representative of the CuUicote zemindar for 
 162,000 rupees, he demanded the deposit of 15 
 
80 
 
 per cent, of the purchase money, agreeably with 
 the terms of the sale advertisement. 
 
 The representative of the purchaser said he 
 would make the deposit if he were allowed to go to his 
 lodgings for the money, and when this indulgence was 
 refused, he brought to the notice of the Govern- 
 ment officer the fact that the zemindar of Culli- 
 cote had a large amount of money in Government 
 bonds in the collector's treasury, which he tendered 
 as security for the production of the deposit, but the 
 collector was inexorable, and demanded the instan- 
 taneous production of the rupees in cash. This not 
 being complied with, he declared the bidding void, 
 and as the next highest bidder had, in like manner, 
 neglected to bring, on the evening of the fourth 
 day, the deposit money in cash along with him, 
 not anticipating its call, the Government offer of 
 120,000 rupees was declared to be the only bond 
 fide one, and the State was thus made the pur- 
 chaser of the Hautghur zemindary for one-sixth of 
 its real value. The sale of the Hautghur estate 
 so conducted was an outrage on the feelings of the 
 entire population of the Ganjam Province. The 
 worth of the property, at a moderate valuation, was 
 at the least £60,000 sterling. 
 
81 
 
 The extraordinary proceedings narrated in the 
 preceding paragraphs were, after a protracted cor- 
 respondence, disapproved of by the Government 
 of Madras. The Governor's agent had acted 
 somewhat indiscreetly in his zeal for annexa- 
 tion. It was found politic, therefore, to disclaim 
 the purchase, and to hand the estate over to 
 the Cullicote Rajah, the highest bidder, on his 
 completing the purchase money. But the mind of 
 the Government, in crushing the ancient native 
 families in Southern India, was fully exemplified 
 by the acts of the authorities on this occasion. 
 The party who held the sale was not a young 
 man, but an old, experienced officer, of thirty 
 years' service, who was only carrying out the de- 
 clared policy of his Government ; and his imme- 
 diate superior, the Eevenue Commissioner, sanc- 
 tioned and approved of the proceedings. Sharp 
 practice, in private life, in obtaining possession of 
 an estate in the way that it was sought to secure 
 Hautghur for Government, would bring a party 
 concerned into general disrepute; but gentlemen, in 
 public matters in India and elsewhere, will say 
 and do things which they would scrupulously avoid 
 in the ordinary transactions of private life. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 The ruin of the ancient chiefs of Hautghur was 
 the more discreditable to the Government that 
 permitted it because the default was not wilful, 
 and because this zemindary is situated in a non- 
 regulation district, which is specially exempted from 
 the provisions of the ordinary regulations, and where 
 the revenue sale law, therefore, did not hold good. 
 The extinction of the zemindar was a most ungra- 
 cious proceeding, too, for the family thus despoiled 
 had done the State good service not many years 
 back, during the prolonged insurrectionary move- 
 ments in Goomsoor. There was not the slightest 
 necessity either for proceeding to a sale, for the default 
 itself could have been prevented if the Governor's 
 agent had acted with proper vigour, and inter- 
 fered, as he should have done, to save the zemin- 
 dar from spoliation. The transfer of this ancient 
 fiefship to another family by sale is, in a political 
 view, an extremely injudicious measure. It will 
 certainly render the tranquillity of this tract of 
 country insecure for the next twenty-five years. 
 
 In Vizagapatam, in 1854, the same traditionary 
 policy was pursued in respect to tlie Madagole 
 zemindary. This estate is worth 30,000 rupees 
 per annum, and the zemindar owed to Govern- 
 
83 
 
 ment the sum of 20,000 rupees only. Mr. Eobert- 
 son, the Governor's agent, who had an honest 
 disclination to injure, without necessity, a family 
 which had held a distinguished position in this 
 country for some centuries, proposed to administer 
 the estate officially in trust for the zemindar, 
 whose eccentricities and weakness of mind were 
 notorious ; but the Commissioner in the Northern 
 Circars would not listen to the proposition. The 
 agent then observed that the subdivision and sale 
 of a few villages would meet the Government 
 demand; but this suggestion was equally distasteful 
 to his superior in office, who authoritatively re- 
 minded Mr. Eobertson that it was very desirable that 
 the entire estate should be acquired by Government, 
 and the sale, in other words the confiscation, of a 
 property worth, say 4 lacs of rupees, was thus in- 
 sisted upon for a balance of 20,000 rupees only. 
 This transaction also occurred in a non-regulation 
 district, where the sale law does not hold good ; but 
 just as the sale was imminent, some friends of the 
 zemindar's family obtained sufficient money, by loan 
 at 18 per cent., to meet the present demand, and 
 the sale was stayed. 
 
 It may appear wonderful, that a man in 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 possession of an unencumbered estate of £3,000 
 a-year is so situated as to be unable to borrow 
 a matter of £2,000, but tlie reason is simply this: 
 Madagole is what is called a hill zemindary, 
 and in the state of society that exists there it 
 is not possible for any banker, merchant, or 
 native monied capitalist to obtain possession, and to 
 manage the property with advantage. The inha- 
 bitants of the estate, who regard the old family with 
 feelings of veneration, would soon make the place too 
 hot for the parvenu intruder, and the Government, 
 therefore, with the power of its military resources at 
 command, is alone able to administer such a zemin- 
 dary. When to this it is added, that the owner is of 
 weak intellect, and when, besides, the Government 
 officials are watching for any opportunity to sell him 
 up, repudiating all mortgages, it is evident that loans 
 of money to such a person are perilous operations. 
 It would be very different if the Government would 
 act towards such landlords in good faith; if they 
 would step in, as they are entitled to do, and 
 would take the management of a great estate tem- 
 porarily out of the hands of an incapable proprie- 
 tor ; if they would appoint curators, or interfere as 
 the Lord Chancellor in England would interfere in 
 
85 
 
 the case of a lunatic, or of a landed proprietor of 
 weak mind. But this is the last thing that most 
 Madras officials will permit. Their desire is to 
 extirpate all private property in the soil^ and 
 whenever such a course is feasible they fulfil 
 their mission without compunction. 
 
 In estates so acquired the first thing done is to 
 introduce the equivocal blessings of a ryotwar settle- 
 ment. All alienations of rent or reduced assessments 
 on the villages made subsequently to the permanent 
 settlement are set aside, the old standard of land rent 
 is enforced, a scrutiny into rent-free holdings is 
 ordered, and all private and acquired property within 
 the zemindary is thus put in jeopardy. The local 
 village establishments of the zemindars for maintain- 
 ing order are discontinued, and, in lieu, a stipendiary 
 police, who find their own clothes and arms, and 
 who receive a salary of Qs, or Ss. a month only, 
 are let loose upon the people. Over all is placed a 
 native collector, who is also a magistrate within his 
 limits, with power to commit all criminals to the 
 Courts without reference to his superiors, and he 
 possibly gets from £5 to £6 sterling a month. 
 Under such supervision the inhabitants of the 
 zemindary soon learn to sigh over the downfall 
 
86 
 
 of their easy, though possibly dissipated, native 
 landlord. 
 
 There are only one or two districts now under 
 the Madras Presidency in which the zemindary 
 system generally obtains ; the native landlords have 
 been in great measure extirpated in Southern India. 
 In Yizagapatam the zemindary tenure still exists 
 throughout three-fourths of its extent, and if the 
 condition of this province be compared with that of 
 ryotwar districts, I do not think that it need shrink 
 from the comparison. In all the ancient zemindaries 
 which have descended in the family for some 
 hundred years, the permanent settlement is moderate. 
 In general, the country is thickly peopled; plough- 
 ing cattle abound; the rents of land to the farmer 
 are easy, when compared with the cultivators^ rents 
 in Government villages; the fields are well tilled, 
 and there are in these estates no large tracts of 
 rich soil left uncultivated for years because the 
 rent is too high. This is the general description 
 of the ancient zemindary tracts. In the modern 
 estates, where the Government permanent settlement 
 is sometimes oppressively high, the ryots are not so 
 favorably situated; but even in these estates the 
 condition -of the people and the management of 
 
87 
 
 the cultivation are immensely in advance of any 
 ryotwar Government district in the Madras Presi- 
 dency. In the town of Yizagapatam you will meet 
 natives with fine houses, who drive good conveyances, 
 and who have handsome furniture in their dwellings, 
 and there are many landlords who live upon their 
 estates, and who spend their thousands per annum 
 as rationally as gentlemen of fortune spend 
 tlieir incomes in England or Scotland. In what 
 ryotwar district will you meet with anything like 
 this? There, a merchant or banker worth £10,000 
 is a wonder, and capitalists there are none. In 
 Yizagapatam there are several natives worth 10 lacs 
 of rupees each, and in the district there are a score 
 with a lac of rupees and more at their command. 
 
 There are only two talooks in the Yizagapatam 
 district managed directly by the officers of Govern- 
 ment. These talooks were once private property, 
 since acquired by Government, by purchase and 
 dexterous management, as described in the preceding 
 pages, but a good part of the lands so obtained 
 had been permanently settled in 1802, saddled 
 with a demand so exorbitant as to leave little 
 or nothing to the landlords. Government, instead 
 of reducini? this unreasonable taxation, exacted it 
 
88 
 
 to the full, until, in the end, a number of estates 
 reverted to the State, being unprofitable to the 
 owners. It may be admitted that villages so 
 situated of necessity were mismanaged, the owners 
 endeavouring to raise the rents on the cultivators to 
 make a profit where the Government officials had left 
 them none, and that when the lands were purchased 
 by the collector, the villagers were impoverished. 
 But making every allowance for this, the administra- 
 tion of these villages and lands, since they became 
 the property of Government, is a discredit to 
 our revenue management, and their condition is 
 still exceedingly unsatisfactory, notwithstanding the 
 very unnecessary irrigation outlay lavished on them 
 in the Public Works Department. In the Northern 
 Circars, there is a Commissioner vested with the 
 full powers of a member of the Board of Kevenue, 
 and of course every body in these provinces, with a 
 real or fancied grievance, addresses himself to that 
 functionary. It is not an exaggeration to say 
 that ninety per cent, of the complaints made to the 
 Commissioner in the Yizagapatam district come 
 from the Government talooks. The complaints 
 are of over-assessment, of sums illegally levied by 
 the Amildars, of oppression by the Jemadars and 
 
89 
 
 Peons, of monies extorted, of lands taken from 
 the cultivators against their will, of coercion, and 
 every other villainy of ryotwar management. Com- 
 pare the condition of a Government village with that 
 of a village in a zemindary, and take the Madagole 
 zemindary, which adjoins the Government lands, as 
 a sample. The owner of this estate is a gentleman 
 of an ancient family, always on the brink of 
 ruin, and constantly threatened with being sold 
 up as previously stated, and it might be supposed 
 that fiscal mismanagement was rife there, if any- 
 where. But the zemindar's people are well off, his 
 villages are flourishing, and the rents are collected 
 not only without distraint, but sometimes they 
 are paid a year in advance. I will take it 
 upon myself to affirm, without fear of contradic- 
 tion, that not one petition from Madagole has 
 reached the Commissioners' office complaining of 
 coercion or exaction in the revenue collections 
 during the last six years; whereas from the neigh- 
 bouring Government estate of Survasiddy, during 
 that same period, the complaints presented on the 
 same score may be computed by thousands. 
 
 In fact, the boasted happiness of the people 
 under ryotwar settlements is a gross delusion. 
 
90 
 
 and the prosperity thence said to be engendered 
 is wholly untrue. The condition of a district 
 can be judged of by looking into the litigation 
 going on in the Courts, and in many Govern- 
 ment ryotwar provinces there are positively no 
 original suits in the civil courts, not because the 
 people have no taste for legal strife or dwell 
 together like brethren in unity, but simply because 
 there is no property of the value of £1,000 sterling 
 to bring into the courts of law. Every officer 
 of Indian experience examined before the Par- 
 liamentary Committees in 1852 and 1853 scouted 
 the agrarian system of Eevenue management 
 in the Madras districts, and all thinking people 
 in England have condemned it. In 1853, the 
 East India Company had selected, with great 
 propriety, as the immediate successor to Sir Henry 
 Pottinger, an Indian official whose reputation 
 was mainly founded on the introduction of a 
 system of village settlements for long periods into 
 the Upper Provinces of Bengal, and who, it was 
 hoped, would do the same good office to Madras; 
 but this happy prospect was altogether destroyed 
 by Mr. Thomason's lamented death. For the present 
 there is no hope of the introduction of any 
 
91 
 
 comprehensive or beneficial change in the Madras 
 revenue system, because all the principal appoint- 
 ments about the Government offices are filled 
 with ryotwar partizans; and a Governor without 
 personal Indian experience, however well inten- 
 tioned, is powerless in devising a better revenue 
 system in these provinces, while surrounded by 
 such advisers. Under Lord Harris' administra- 
 tion, therefore, nothing will be done, except a 
 little patchwork. Exorbitant assessment will be 
 reduced, when its retention throws rich lands out 
 of cultivation ; Mahratta accounts will be abolished ; 
 English numerals introduced into village accounts, 
 and such like trivialities; but any comprehensive 
 scheme of revenue reform is not to be looked for, and 
 the war against zemindars and the holders of free- 
 hold property in the soil will continue unchanged. 
 
 Nevertheless, the districts where zemindars still 
 flourish are the only provinces in the Madras 
 Presidency that exhibit any^ symptoms of vitality, in 
 the presence of capitalists, a wealthy aristocracy, 
 enterprising native merchants, respectable bankers, 
 and a peasantry more contented and less harassed 
 in their occupations than can be found in 
 ryotwar districts. I shall not describe these in 
 
92 
 
 contrast from my own observation, because it may 
 be said I am prejudiced, and can see nothing good 
 from Dan to Beersheba. I shall therefore transcribe 
 a short notice by a Government officer of those dis- 
 tricts of Madras in which the ryotwar survey settle- 
 ment has been longest in operation, and which were 
 held up to admiration for more than half a century 
 as model provinces, viz., the collector ates of Cuddapah 
 and Bellary. The writer, who, strangely enough, is 
 an advocate of the ryotwar system, thus delivers 
 himself in a recent number of the Calcutta Review : 
 " Where," says he, " is comfort, ease, plenty, a 
 " cheerful and hearty state of society, or the 
 " encouragement of industry to be found under 
 " the Madras Presidency ? Go into any village 
 " in the ceded districts, and mark its condition, 
 " its utter prostration as regards progress, the 
 " total absence of a sign of wealth, or of im- 
 " provement in land or houses. In every corner 
 '' you will see rich productive lands one mass 
 " of waste and weeds from over assessment." 
 There is much more in the same strain ; com- 
 plaint is made at great length of uncertainty 
 of tenure, and of the excessive subdivision of 
 lands ; the want of inducement to capitalists. 
 
93 
 
 and the immense number of pauper ryots. This 
 quotation, however, will suffice; though it may be 
 added that the Commissioners recently sitting at 
 Madras have established the fact, that in every 
 ryotwar district the revenues are raised more 
 or less by coercion, ill-usage, and what the 
 public prints are pleased to designate " torture." 
 The abject poverty of the vast Southern Peninsula 
 may be seen in the fact that in 1855, the allotment, 
 in the 5 per cent. Public Works Loan, to the 
 Madi-as Presidency of the pittance of £300,000 
 quite upset the money market, and that the ap- 
 portionment of a second sum of 30 lacs of rupees 
 created a perfect tempest on the Madras bourse. 
 And it is to the state of decay and degradation of 
 Cuddapah and of Bellary that officials have been, 
 and are still, striving to bring all the domains 
 yet held in the Madras territories on permanent 
 tenures, under the idle and contemptible pretext 
 of a benevolent desire to improve the condition 
 of the cultivators oppressed and enslaved by 
 native landlords. If, indeed, upon obtaining pos- 
 session of a large and valuable zemindary, these 
 self-styled friends of the poor would restrict the 
 settlement on the land to the sum paid to the 
 
94 
 
 Government, as tribute by the fallen landlord, 
 and if they would allow the cultivators to enjoy all 
 the surplus receipts which the lord of the soil 
 heretofore drew, then some credit might be given 
 to these men for a sincere desire to raise the 
 bulk of the laboring population in the scale 
 of comfort and civilization. But it is not so; 
 when the estate is bought by Government the 
 same land-tax is collected from the villagers, 
 generally under a much more grinding system 
 than the zemindars followed. The revenues, instead 
 of being spent as heretofore on the spot, are swept 
 into the general treasury, and are thence drawn to 
 pay stipendiary boards for superintending the 
 construction of useless works, — perhaps to build a 
 university at the Presidency, estimated to cost 
 one-third of a million sterling.* The declared 
 object of this institution is to bestow a superior 
 education for the sons of native gentlemen, in a 
 country where the race of gentlemen is becoming 
 extinct, where the few native proprietors that 
 remain are treated as if they were the pests of 
 
 * A model of this monster university which, it was said, 
 would cover, when finished, a greater area than that of any 
 building in the world, was shown in the Madras Exhibition of 
 1855. Its erection was subsequently prohibited by the supreme 
 Government. 
 
95 
 
 the province in which they live, and are being 
 
 extinguished as rapidly as opportunities or decency 
 
 will permit. If the British Government in Southern 
 
 India should exist in its present shape for another 
 
 half century, there will hardly be found one 
 
 ancient native family of influence in possession 
 
 of land and wealth within the limits of the 
 
 Madras Presidency. Certainly not one merchant or 
 
 banker will exist, raised in the Carnatic, who has 
 
 grown prosperous or opulent under the British rule. 
 
 There are other ways of securing the decay 
 
 and confiscation of landed possessions besides 
 
 that of selling them. There is, for example, the 
 
 policy of abnegation, or non-interference, now 
 
 being carried out in Jeypore. This ancient 
 
 zemindary or fiefship, in Yizagapatam, is held 
 
 under the usual deed of permanent settlement, 
 
 by which the Government is bound to preserve 
 
 the peace of the country, and is charged with 
 
 the maintenance of an efficient police. For more 
 
 than half a century this duty has been wholly 
 
 neglected in Jeypore, and the people of the 
 
 country have been left without the dispensation 
 
 of either civil or criminal justice. The zemindar, 
 
 who is styled the rajah of Jeypore, when active 
 
96 
 
 and capable, apprehended criminals, and punished 
 misdemeanors, although he had no authority to do 
 so; but of late years he has become old and 
 foolish, incapable of controlling even his own 
 household. Public affairs have therefore been 
 wholly unattended to, and a sort of anarchy uni- 
 versally prevails. 
 
 In January, 1855, the Commissioner for the 
 suppression of human sacrifice in Orissa, with one 
 of his assistants, visited Jeypore. The control of 
 the zemindary was not within the scope of their 
 duties, but as these gentlemen remained in that 
 country for many weeks, the state of affairs 
 there became known to them. They represented 
 to the Supreme Government that the practice of 
 the cremation of widows on the funeral pile of their 
 husbands was not unfrequent, that there was no 
 police authority in the zemindary, and that grave 
 crimes and misdemeanors were of constant occur- 
 rence. As a remedy, they advised the removal of 
 the zemindar, whom they reported to be old and 
 childish in intellect, confiscating, as a matter of 
 course, his possessions, and giving him a pension 
 for life ! This summary method of disposing of 
 an inoffensive gentleman is quite refreshing; this. 
 
97 
 
 indeed, is vigorous government. The State which 
 by law is bound to repress crime throughout Jey- 
 pore neglects its duty, and it is then hounded on, 
 by its own officials, to suppress the oldest family 
 in the Northern Circars, on the frivolous pretext 
 that the head of this family is old and some- 
 what imbecile, and has failed to do that which 
 the Government itself had undertaken to perform. 
 The recommendation to confiscate private property 
 to the extent of £15,000 a year is disposed of 
 in a couple of lines. What matters it : the land 
 belongs to a black, and it would be a nice 
 little acquisition to the Government. 
 
 The Commissioners' Eeport having been trans- 
 ferred for consideration to Madras it was suggested, 
 by the local agent, that the long and discreditably 
 neglected duty of maintaining an efficient police 
 force in Jeypore should be at last undertaken. 
 An addition to the armed local militia of Viza- 
 gapatam was necessary to this end, and it was 
 proposed to locate a body of this force, with an 
 officer to officiate as a magistrate, in the very 
 considerable town of Jeypore, the capital of the 
 zemindary. It was also pointed out, that the 
 officer in command, if need be, might assume the 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 fiscal administration of the zemindary for the well- 
 intentioned but incompetent old gentleman, and 
 put his affairs in order, in which task he 
 would have had the entire and cordial support of 
 the population of the district. There was not the 
 slightest difficulty apparent in the matter, and the 
 Madras Government acquiesced in the propriety 
 of these suggestions, but as their adoption involved 
 an increased constabulary charge, it was necessary 
 to refer the matter to the Supreme Government 
 for sanction, and Lord Dalhousie at once over- 
 ruled the proposal. He said the zemindar of Jeypore 
 had promised to put down the practice of suttee, 
 and that it would be well to wait and see 
 whether he did or did not do so. The other grave 
 misdemeanours and atrocities brought to notice he 
 thought were " exaggerated, and, on the whole, he 
 " saw no sufficient grounds for interference." His 
 lordship also significantly observed, that if the 
 Government did interfere it must be once and 
 for ever. The plain meaning of this is, the 
 pear is not quite ripe, the sick man is not yet 
 in extremis^ but, in a little time, upon a proper 
 representation being made, confiscation will be had 
 recourse to. At the same time it is strictly enjoined 
 
99 
 
 that no reform shall be commenced upon, and 
 the responsibility of Government to introduce a 
 police system, and to maintain tranquillity, by 
 which alone order can be re-established, is quietly 
 ignored. The Governor-General's admirers con- 
 sider the annexation and absorption of independent 
 kingdoms in the British Indian empire as the 
 highest proof of his administrative ability. His 
 opponents denounce his policy as impolitic and 
 detestable; but this angling for the confiscation 
 of private estates is contemptible petty larceny 
 in a ruler. 
 
 At several interviews which I had with Lord Harris 
 in 1854, before reassuming charge of the Government 
 agency in Yizagapatam, I ventured to remonstrate 
 against the policy adopted by Government against the 
 ancient zemindars of late years, and I stated, 
 by desire, both orally and in writing, my views 
 of what ought to be done for their benefit. 
 His lordship listened with courtesy and attention, 
 and seemed to think that the suggestions made 
 were not altogether undeserving of consideration; 
 but from observations that escaped him. Lord Harris 
 seemed impressed with the belief that the decay of 
 the native landed gentry was a necessary consequence 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 of the British rule, and that their extinction 
 was a part of our mission in the East, which, 
 sooner or later, must be worked out. He ap- 
 peared to believe that native landlords must 
 disappear before a collector's administration, as 
 the Eed Indian fades away when brought into 
 contact with the Backwoodsman of America, and 
 is supplied with unlimited quantities of alcoholic 
 liquors. This seemed to be his lordship's opinion, 
 founded on the ideas of the official gentlemen 
 with whom he is unfortunately associated; but to 
 me it appears that we treat Indian noblemen 
 as if they were our enemies, and not British 
 subjects, confiscating their possessions without 
 necessity, and then hypocritically affecting to 
 lament the results of the policy we have our- 
 selves inaugurated. How was it that these 
 Hindoo gentlemen maintained their position and 
 their possessions for several centuries under Maho- 
 medan rule? Is a Mussulman Government less 
 rapacious than a Christian one ? 
 
 The agent to the Governor in Ganjam and 
 in Vizagapatam knows, or may know, the cir- 
 cumstances of every zemindar within his district; 
 and whenever one or more of these ancient 
 
101 
 
 estates are getting into disorder, the circumstances 
 that cause the anticipated default, and the 
 remedy to be applied, should be reported to 
 Government for orders. Considerations of policy 
 demand that ancient fiefships should never be 
 exposed to public sale. These estates do not come 
 under the category of ordinary Hindoo property: 
 they are hereditary, indivisible by law, and the 
 succession and selection of the chief on a lapse 
 should be the prerogative of the ruling power. 
 If the extinction of the family, and the confisca- 
 tion of their domains is imperatively required the 
 fiat should issue as an act of the State, and the 
 reasons for the adoption of such an extreme 
 measure so generally unpopular should be made 
 matter of public record. In most cases the 
 ordinary disorders in these zemindaries arise 
 from intrigues caused by the imbecility of the 
 owner, for there is a great tendency to dissipa- 
 tion in these chieftains, from their having, under 
 British rule, been deprived of all military and 
 political powers, and from their being reduced 
 from feudal tributaries of the State to the class 
 of landlord only. When old and foolish the 
 chief is plundered by men whom he cannot con- 
 
 I 
 
102 
 
 trol. It is the duty of the agent to the Governors 
 of Madras to rescue an incapacitated proprietor from 
 this state of degradation by putting his estate under 
 management; and there is no estate so situated in 
 these provinces that this officer, if fit for his ap- 
 pointment, could not efficiently and creditably admi- 
 nister it. The private incumbrances, which are 
 never large, should be enquired into and discharged, 
 and moderate allowances should be made for the 
 support of the dependent members of the family, 
 during the term of the management, when the 
 chieftain's authority is temporarily in abeyance. 
 All this entails no labor whatever, not one-tithe of 
 the trouble that the confiscation at a sham sale, 
 and the consequent introduction of Government 
 ryotwar mismanagement into an ancient zemindary, 
 impose on the agent in these provinces. 
 
 Farther, to correct the tendency to dissipation 
 induced by the life of inactivity and listlessness to 
 which these noblemen are perhaps unavoidably con- 
 signed under the British Government, it should be 
 the first duty of the State to insist that the rising 
 generation of Rajpoot gentlemen shall be pro- 
 perly educated and instructed when young. 
 With that view they sliould be removed from 
 
103 
 
 home, and educated at the head-quarter-station 
 of the district; their removal to a more distant 
 country is objectionable for many reasons. The 
 lads should be brought into contact with young 
 men of their own age and class, and made 
 acquainted with some of the forms of business 
 in the collector's office. A plain education, such 
 as could be furnished in a provincial school, 
 would suffice in most cases; instruction in natural 
 and moral philosophy is not needed. Physically, 
 there is no finer race of men than that of 
 the ancient zemindars of the Northern Circars, 
 and in the very few instances in which their 
 education has been at all cared for they have 
 turned out remarkably well in after life, managing 
 their estates with economy, and living creditably 
 in the midst of their own people. 
 
 The education, the elevation, the eventual 
 employment of the native gentry, and not their 
 suppression by cunning and chicanery, is or 
 ought to be our business — the true mission of a 
 Christian, or of any enlightened Government, in a 
 country like India, — and so it would be if we 
 aliens and strangers cared less for the amount of 
 our revenue receipts, and more for the real interests 
 
104 
 
 of the children of the soil. But in this great 
 province, with a population of 1,400,000 souls, 
 there is not one school or educational institution 
 to which the Government contributes one shilling. 
 Some years ago it was proposed to found a provin- 
 cial school, but the late Commissioner did not 
 support the suggestion, and the proposal was 
 cushioned. He said, that the foundation of this 
 institution might interfere with the continued 
 success of an eleemosynary school, conducted by 
 some missionaries at Yizagapatam, in view to 
 the conversion of the pupils to Christianity, and 
 therefore the middle classes and the gentry are left 
 uneducated to this day. These matters are not 
 attended to in this country — no one cares for them. 
 If a subaltern in a marching regiment be dis- 
 charged for stealing a garnet ring, his wrongs, real 
 or imaginary, will be discussed in every news- 
 paper from Lahore to Cape Comorin; while the 
 confiscation of native property, worth 10,000 a 
 year, will pass unnoticed, no matter how rapacious 
 the act. Nay, perhaps the deed will be lauded 
 in such journals as the " Friend of India," on the 
 ground that the fellow was a black, and had no right 
 to be in a position to domineer and oppress the 
 
105 
 
 poor ryots. Domination over the natives of India, 
 according to these politicians, should be exclusively 
 reserved for the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 The landlords in the Northern Circars, as a 
 class, have no faith in the security of possession 
 of their lands. They look on themselves as a 
 doomed race, and believe that their families will, 
 sooner or later, be beggared under British rule. 
 They see daily the endowments of their temples 
 practically removed from the protection of the law, 
 their landed estates confiscated, and their noblest 
 families reduced to starvation. If not at present 
 absolutely disafiected, the population in these 
 parts view the British domination with fear. 
 Our empire is certainly not one of opinion. It is 
 distasteful to all classes of the people. But if an 
 honest disposition was evinced to support the native 
 hereditary chieftains of the district, and to govern 
 these tracts in accordance with the cherished feelings 
 of the people, no community in the world would 
 be found more peaceable and contented, and 
 none more attached to the British Government. 
 It is our grasping, avaricious, dishonest policy, 
 in annexing native states in the face of treaties, 
 that renders the English rule so unpalatable to the 
 
106 
 
 subject races in India generally, and it is our 
 reckless conduct in rooting out the native gentry, 
 under the pretence of law, that produces disturb- 
 ance, and causes frequent agrarian risings amongst 
 the independent peasantry of the hill zemindaries 
 in the Northern Circars. 
 
CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 Ox THE REVENUE l^UNAGEMENT OF THE ViZEANAGRUM 
 ZeMIXDARY in YiZAGAPATAM during THE LAST 
 TWENTY-FIYE TEARS. 
 
 Both in England and in India much has been 
 written in recent years of the ryotwar system 
 as pursued in the Madras Provinces. The practice 
 of forming a revenue settlement annually in the 
 manner now followed in ryotwar districts has, 
 in most instances, been unhesitatingly condemned; 
 but when a substitute is required for the existing 
 system, it is impossible to extract any specific 
 plan from the enthusiastic declaimers in the Madras 
 newspapers on the mis-government of Southern 
 India under the administration of the East India 
 Company. The creation of landed estates and 
 the introduction of a landed gentry, holding their 
 possessions on permanent tenure, are schemes which 
 these patriots wholly repudiate, unless, indeed, they 
 
108 
 
 could obtain a legion of Anglo-Saxon landlords of 
 the mild and liberal character of Mr. Fischer, 
 of Salem. Village settlements, also, they hold in 
 no estimation. Patriotic writers in the public 
 journals argue that these may exist in the North- 
 west Provinces of Bengal, where, it appears, all 
 men are brothers in the village community, and 
 where it would seem that all form one happy 
 family. In Madras, where the community con- 
 sists of Brahmins, Chetties, Reddies, Goldsmiths, 
 Pariahs, and others, according to these gen- 
 tlemen, coherence in a village community is 
 impossible, and therefore a village settlement 
 is simply impracticable, whether for a term of years 
 or in perpetuity. Agreeably with this reasoning 
 nothing can be done but to improve the ryotwar 
 settlement as it now obtains, and this, it appears, 
 is recommended to be effected by a general reduction 
 of assessment or rent, and by an unlimited ex- 
 penditure of money in irrigation improvements, 
 borrowing, for this purpose, as Colonel Arthur 
 Cotton suggests, " say £40,000,000 sterling to 
 " begin with." 
 
 The writer of these lines concurs generally in 
 the condemnation bestowed on the ryotwar annual- 
 
109 
 
 survey - field - assessment - system of the Madras 
 Provinces. He thinks that, as it is at present 
 conducted, this system is the most complex, vile, 
 grinding, and inquisitorial that could possibly be 
 devised. Every province that has been subjected 
 to its influence with which the writer is acquainted 
 has declined and deteriorated, and in no dis- 
 trict where the ryotwar settlement prevails has 
 land generally acquired a saleable value ; there 
 is only the collector with his subordinates and 
 laborers, ceux que pillejit et ceux qui sont pillees. 
 Admitting the pernicious evils of the ryotwar 
 settlement as practised in the Madras Provinces, 
 the introduction of any other system would seem 
 to be a great blessing. A zemindary settlement, 
 where land is held on perpetual tenure, appears 
 the best and most rational system if the Govern- 
 ment taxation on the land was moderate and 
 just, and not excessive as it was in Chingleput, 
 Salem, and in other places where the plan was tried 
 and condemned because the ground-rent fixed upon 
 the landlords was so exorbitant as to preclude its 
 success. In the absence of a permanent assessment 
 the village system of the North-west Provinces in 
 Bengal seems to be a simple and a mosf beneficial 
 
110 
 
 improvement on the annual ryotwar settlements 
 of Madras. The alleged impossibility of working 
 such a scheme on the coast of Coromandel is 
 mere fudge. 
 
 But even for immediate purposes the annual 
 revenue settlement of Madras is susceptible of 
 great improvement. The improvement suggested 
 is to abolish all leases and individual settlement, 
 fixing, annually, the village rent of the lands they 
 occupy, upon the cultivating ryots, as a community ; 
 holding them jointly responsible for the settlement, 
 and letting them have full power to manage their 
 lands as they think fit. 
 
 The author of these pages has had some little 
 experience of the feasibility of this system, having 
 had under his care for several years a large 
 zemindary into which he introduced a settlement 
 based on the principles advocated above. The 
 zemindary in question was that of Vizeanagrum, 
 which, though the private property of one in- 
 dividual, was managed by the officers of Govern- 
 ment for a term of twenty-five consecutive years. 
 To test the system in operation he purposes to 
 review the working of the various revenue set- 
 tlements pursued during this term of years, 
 
Ill 
 
 and to examine their effects on the cultivation 
 and on the revenues. 
 
 The owner of the Vizeanagrum estate, in 1826, 
 having fallen into private pecuniary difficulties, 
 proposed to resign the management into the hands 
 of the Government officials, and to proceed to 
 Benares to economise; his offer was accepted, and 
 the administration passed into the hands of the 
 then collector of Yizagapatam, Mr. Henry Gardener. 
 The estate of Vizeanagrum is a magnificent one — 
 the largest private property in Southern India. 
 It pays a revenue to Government of 5 lacs a 
 year, and the rent value of its ordinarily cultiva- 
 table lands (exclusive of those exempted from 
 taxation) may be estimated at 11 lacs of rupees 
 per annum. 
 
 The rajah, previous to his departure, had rented 
 out, on a sort of perpetual lease (hursaul cowles), 
 large tracts of his country to persons of distinction 
 in his zemindary. The principle of these leases 
 was the deduction of some 15 per cent, from the 
 ordinary demand to recompense the renter for the 
 expences of management, and to maintain his 
 family in affluence and respectability. Some 
 individuals bought leases of this description, and 
 
 I 
 
112 
 
 so long as the parties were active, stirring, and 
 economical the system answered well enough. In 
 the end it broke down under the collector's mal- 
 administration ; agrarian disturbances broke out, 
 and the leases were some of them cancelled, 
 some were bought back, and some holders volun- 
 tarily relinquished them. 
 
 The rajah's system of revenue administration 
 prevailed to some extent from 1826 to 1831 in- 
 clusive ; it is therefore proposed to examine what 
 the current settlement of the zemindary produced 
 during that period. 
 
 Rent Settlement of the Vizeanagrum Zemindary. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Current 
 Rent. 
 
 Current 
 Collection. 
 
 Current 
 Balance. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 1827-28 
 1828-29 
 1829-30 
 1830-31 
 1831-32 
 1832-33 
 
 Total 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 9,37,234 
 
 9,07,888 
 
 9,17,688 
 
 9,16,220 
 
 9,21,953 
 
 9,13,775 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 8,60,680 
 
 8,33,512 
 
 8,00,049 
 
 7,79,421 
 
 5,93,582 
 
 7,12,595 
 
 Rupees. 
 76,554 
 74,376 
 1,17,639 
 1,36,799 
 3,28,371 
 2,01,180 
 
 55,14,758 
 
 45,79,839 
 
 9,34,919 
 
 Average 
 
 9,19,126 
 
 7,63,307 
 
 1,55,820 
 
113 
 
 It is seen that during these years the current 
 average demand was 9,19,000 rupees. The current 
 collections were 7,63,000 rupees only. At the 
 close of each year the annual balance of the current 
 revenue was 1,56,000 rupees, or one-fifth of the 
 whole collection, little of which was ever after- 
 wards realized. The superintendence of the then 
 collector was very lax, and in the two last years, 
 owing to agrarian disturbances produced by 
 mal-administration, the receipts from this valuable 
 possession were insufficient to defray the public 
 taxes, and to meet the necessary expenses of 
 management. 
 
 In 1833-34 the hursaul cowles had all been 
 forfeited or repurchased from the holders ; the 
 whole lands were then settled on the ryotwar 
 [system, and leases were issued annually to each 
 individual cultivator, defining the extent of land 
 in his possession, and specifying the demand upon 
 it. For one or two years, under the stimulus 
 of high prices and under the excellent supervi' 
 sion of Mr. George Eussell — one of the ablest 
 officers the Madras Government ever had, who was 
 then employed as a Commissioner in the Northern 
 Jircai's for tlie suppre^ssion of disturbances — the 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 zemindary affairs seemed to revive slightly; but 
 when it is considered that the renter's profits 
 were all now acquired for the estate, the result 
 of the next six years' management was not encou* 
 raging, but the reverse. 
 
 Vizeanagrum Zemindary Rent Settlement. 
 
 Season. 
 
 Current 
 Settlement. 
 
 Current 
 Collection. 
 
 Current 
 Balance. 
 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 1833-34 
 1834-35 
 1835-36 
 1836-37 
 1837-38 
 1838-39 
 
 Total 
 
 Rupees. 
 9,55,844 
 9,59,513 
 10,66,546 
 10,33,613 
 10,31,126 
 10,43,741 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 8,48,807 
 
 9,18,400 
 
 9,31,567 
 
 6,71,858 
 
 8,48,943 
 
 7,17,210 
 
 Rupees. 
 1,07,037 
 41,113 
 74,979 
 3,61,755 
 1,82,183 
 3,26,531 
 
 60,90,383 
 
 49,36,785 
 
 10,93,598 
 
 Average 
 
 10,15,064 
 
 8,22,798 
 
 1,82,266 
 
 The settlements, from 1833 to 1838 inclusive, 
 show an average current demand of 10,15,000 
 rupees. The current collections were 8,22,000 
 rupees per annum, and the balance of current 
 revenue uncollected at the close of the year was, 
 therefore, on an average, more than 1 lac and 
 82,000 rupees per annum. 
 . Matters proceeded pretty mucli in the same 
 
115 
 
 way for the next seven years, or from 1839 to 
 1846 inclusive. During these years the average 
 annual current demand was 9,02,000 rupees, the 
 average annual current collection 7,59,000 rupees, 
 and the annual current balance was nearly 1 lac 
 and 43,000 rupees. 
 
 Vizeanagrum Zemindary Rent Settlement. 
 
 Season. 
 
 Current 
 Settlement. 
 
 Current 
 Collection. 
 
 Current 
 Balance. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 1839-40 
 1840-41 
 1841-42 
 1842-43 
 1843-44 
 1844-45 
 1845-46 
 
 Total 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 10,45,661 
 
 10,39,547 
 
 10,51,955 
 
 8,36,571 
 
 8,85,581 
 
 7,78,156 
 
 6,80,639 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 8,13,712 
 
 7,01,449 
 
 8,63,443 
 
 7,96,986 
 
 8,35,815 
 
 6,78,121 
 
 6,28,599 
 
 Rupees. 
 
 2,31,949 
 
 3,38,098 
 
 1,88,512 
 
 39,585 
 
 49,766 
 
 1,00,035 
 
 52,040 
 
 63,18,110 
 
 53,18,125 9,99,985 
 
 
 
 Average 
 
 9,02,587 
 
 7,59,732 
 
 1,42,855 
 
 This tabular statement gives a very discouraging 
 picture of this great estate and of its receipts under 
 the ryotwar land system, from the introduction of 
 which so many advantages were at first expected. 
 The annual current revenue of the Vizeanagrum 
 zemindary had fallen 1^ lacs of rupees below the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 receipts which the Eajah's easy rents had yielded 
 under his own superintendence, and during the two 
 last years in which the ryotwar settlement was fol-. 
 lowed the average collections did not amount to 6| 
 lacs a-year. This great estate, with a population of 
 450,000 souls, was at this time in a state of ruin 
 and total disorganization. 
 
 In 1846 a new system of administration was 
 introduced. The ryotwar individual settlement, 
 which had been pursued for the previous fourteen 
 years, was summarily set aside. Individual leases 
 were abolished. In the beginning of the year 
 the lands, both arable and waste, were rented 
 out to the village community on joint respon- 
 siblity, and when the season had developed itself 
 the amount of land-rent previously fixed upon 
 was received from the cultivators , .collectively, 
 through the immediate agency of the head or 
 heads of the village. The lands were distributed 
 amongst the cultivating classes agreeably with 
 their own requirements, and without the interven- 
 tion of the Government establishment. This done, 
 no scrutiny was made about individual holdings ; 
 the headmen of the village communities took their 
 proper position in the mauagemont, and the de- 
 
117 
 
 mand was realized without any difficulty or com- 
 plaint. 
 
 The renovation of the zemindary under this 
 change of system was instantaneous. For the 
 next three years the demand was, on an average, 
 9,74,000 rupees per annum. The current collec- 
 tions were 9,63,000 rupees a year, the average 
 balance outstanding was only 11,000 rupees per 
 annum. 
 
 k' 
 
 Vizeaiiagnim Zemindary Rent Settlement. 
 
 1 
 
 Season. 
 
 Current Current Current 
 Settlement. Collection. \ Balance. 
 
 i i 
 
 ¥ 
 
 1 
 
 2 3 4 
 
 1846-47 
 1847-48 
 1848-49 
 
 Total 
 
 Rupees. 
 9,48,154 
 9,81,196 
 9,93,178 
 
 Rupees. 
 9,32,896 
 9,75,599 
 9,80,647 
 
 Rupees. 
 15,258 
 5,597 
 12,531 
 
 
 29,22,528 
 
 28,89,142 
 
 33,386 
 
 
 Average 
 
 
 
 
 9,74,176 
 
 9,63,047 11,129 1 
 
 In 1850, 1851, and 1852, under the operation 
 of the same system, the zemindary continued to 
 advance in prosperity. The current demand 
 amounted to 10,25,000 rupees per annum, the 
 current collections exceeded 10 lacs, and the balance 
 in these years was 25,000 rupees on an average* 
 
118 
 
 Vizeanagrum Zemindary Bent Settlement. 
 
 Season. 
 
 Current 
 Settlement. 
 
 Current 
 Collection. 
 
 Current 
 Balance. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 1849-50 
 1850-51 
 1851-52 
 
 Total 
 
 Rupees. 
 10,30,211 
 10,27,072 
 10,20,035 
 
 Rupees. 
 10,10,256 
 10,02,803 
 
 9,89,208 
 
 Rupees. 
 19,955 
 24,269 
 30,827 
 
 30,77,318 
 
 30,02,267 
 
 75,051 
 
 Average 
 
 10,25,773 
 
 10,00,756 
 
 25,017 
 
 The current collections wliich, in the seven con- 
 secutive years from 1839 to 1845 inclusive had 
 fallen below 7,60,000 rupees on the average, and 
 which in the last of these years had only slightly 
 exceeded 6 lacs of rupees, were more than 10 lacs 
 of rupees per annum for three years successively. 
 
 It may be supposed that these last seasons must 
 have been years of great prosperity and of high 
 prices. It was not so. Mr. J. B. Norton, in his table 
 of prices framed to establish the pressure of the 
 assessment on the people from the fall in the price 
 of grains (page 160 of his work), has shown that 
 for forty years, since the commencement of this 
 century, on ten years' averages, the prices were 
 remarkably steady; but that from 1848 to 1851 
 
119 
 
 inclusive the fall of prices tliroughout the southern 
 peninsula -was immense, yet these were the very 
 years when the current collections ranged highest 
 in the Vizeanagrum zemindary. Mr. Norton 
 was right in the fact that the last years were 
 seasons of great and unusual cheapness, as is shown 
 in the accompanying tabular statement. The fall 
 in the price of cereals from 1846 to 1851 is gene- 
 rally quoted as a cause of the present poverty of the 
 i native cultivators under ryotwar management, and 
 the partizans of this iniquitous system will possibly 
 allege that the Vizeanagrum revenues were extracted 
 from the ryots by torture. No assertion can be 
 IQore opposed to truth than this, although it must 
 be admitted that coercion was rife enough in this 
 zemindary in former years, under ryotwar mis- 
 management. 
 
 Return of the Prices of Grain in Vizeanagrum. 
 
 No. 
 
 Description 
 of grains. 
 
 1 
 
 1839 1840 1841 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 4i 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■|i 
 
 I'* 
 
 
 Raw ric3 .... 
 
 119 106 
 
 64 
 
 56 
 
 51 
 
 52 
 
 96 
 
 53 
 
 
 Natcheny .... 
 
 90 
 
 97 
 
 66 
 
 61 
 
 54 
 
 54 
 
 77 
 
 56 
 
 
 Black gram . . 
 
 210 
 
 189 
 
 103 
 
 96 
 
 100 |109 
 
 167 
 
 101 
 
 
 Horse gram . . 
 
 147 il21 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 57 
 
 84 
 
 108 
 
 65 
 
120 
 
 The disciples of Colonel Artliur Cotton will, 
 doubtless, allege that the great accession of revenue 
 arose from an outlay by Government on public 
 works, " inasmuch as in an impoverished district 
 every rupee that comes into the hands of 
 a cultivator in the hot weather, in the shape of 
 wages, enables him to do something that shall 
 return him 50 or even 500 per cent, in im- 
 proving cultivation" (Colonel Cotton, page 64). 
 Upon enquiry it will be found that scarcely any 
 outlay whatever was made under this head ; 
 economy was the order of the day in Vizea- 
 nagrum. The entire expenditure upon irrigation 
 within the zemindary of Vizeanagrum, during the 
 last six years of the Government management, did 
 not exceed 8,000 rupees per annum on a demand 
 of 10^ lacs of rupees of land revenue. 
 
 Irrigation 
 
 Expenditure 
 
 in Vizeanagrum. 
 
 1847 
 1848 
 1849 
 1850 
 1851 
 1852 
 
 
 
 RupeeSi 
 . 4,740 
 . 6,196 
 . 7,465 
 . 5,279 
 . 9,207 
 .15,517 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6J 
 
 48,404 
 
 8,067 
 
121 
 
 The increase of 3 lacs of rupees annually on a 
 previous rent roll of 7 lacs was simply occasioned 
 by the abandonment of the ryotwar system, and 
 by reverting to the system of village settlement. 
 Cultivation extended in every direction ; the 
 villages improved in appearance; industry, before 
 paralysed, flourished ; new lands were brought 
 under the plough. In 1846, the Government had 
 ordered a sale of a portion of the zemindary, 
 and its dismemberment seemed imminent, for at 
 that time the Government demand was in arrear, 
 the owner's private embarrassments exceeded 
 12 lacs of rupees, bearing interest at 12 per 
 cent., and the estate did not pay its tribute 
 and expenses. In 1852, under the new system, 
 without any sale of lands, the debts had 
 been discharged in full, and the zemindar was 
 in possession of an unencumbered estate which 
 yielded a nett surplus of £60,000 per annum. 
 
 The officer in charge of the district, through 
 whose exertions this metamorphosis was brought 
 about on his own responsibility, and who carried out 
 the new system in spite of the local thwarting 
 of servants who had profited by the scandalous 
 mismanagement of the ryotwar settlement, never 
 
122 
 
 got one word of commendation, but, on tlie 
 contrary, was loaded with abuse by the controlling 
 authorities of the Presidency throughout the 
 entire period of his incumbency. A disbelief in 
 the virtues of an annual individual settlement, 
 and a desire to support the interests of native 
 landlords, have always been considered disqualifica- 
 tions for ofiicial advancement in Madras. If, on 
 the other hand, the resources of the Vizeanagrum 
 zemindary had continued to be wasted legitimately 
 under the ruinous fiscal system introduced ten years 
 before, and if the pecuniary defalcation had been 
 arranged so adroitlv as to necessitate the escheat of 
 tlie entire principality to the State, the agent in 
 such transactions would have been hailed by his 
 superiors as a public benefactor, and would have" 
 been recommended for elevation to the highest posi- 
 tions of dignity and emolument under the local 
 government of Fort St. George. 
 
 Independently of the Vizeanagrum zemindary 
 receipts noticed above, the rajah had a number 
 of villages, the revenues of which were managed 
 by his private native agent, and applied to 
 private purposes of his own* It was thought 
 that this agent did not sufficiently develope 
 
I 
 
 123 
 
 tlie resources of the lands, and the villages were 
 accordingly transferred to the Governor's agent, 
 and placed under the ryotwar management of 
 his servants. Under that system, during six years 
 preceding the season 1845-46, these lands pro- 
 duced on an average 21,000 rupees annually. 
 During the next six years, under the village 
 settlement system, the same villages yielded 
 28,000 rupees per annum. Thus one-fourth part 
 of the whole revenue seems to have been wasted 
 under ryotwar mis-management. 
 
 In speaking of the Vizagapatam district. Captain 
 Eundall, who was appointed to it as an engineer 
 in 1851, was pleased to say, (as quoted in the 
 Madras Public Works Eeport, page 95,) " the 
 " whole of the irrigation works in this district, 
 " with the exception of the two Government 
 " talooks, have been entirely neglected.''^ In 
 another place he says, " the condition of the 
 " Government ryotwar talooks in Vizagapatam has 
 " much improved from the late expenditure laid but 
 " upon them* The works of irrigation, again, 
 " in the Yizeanagrum zemindary, have mostly 
 " gone to ruin." An increase of revenue to 
 the extent of 3 lacs a year in Yizeanagrum, 
 
 I 
 
124 
 
 from 1846 to 1853 inclusive, gives a direct 
 contradiction to Captain Kimdall's flippant state- 
 ment; and as regards the condition of the 
 Government talooks, it is sufficient to state that, 
 although a very large outlay has been made in 
 them both in the construction of new works 
 and in the repair of old, their revenues have 
 been decidedly on the decline for the last six 
 years. Captain Rundall may account for that 
 decline if he thinks fit to do so, but the late 
 Commissioner held that many of the engineer's 
 irrigation works were superfluous, and that some 
 of them were actually hurtful. 
 
 Captain Rundall is a disciple of Colonel Arthur 
 Cotton's, and had long sat under his ministry. 
 Following in the paths of his master, he desired to 
 immortalize himself in the Yizeanagrum zemindary, 
 and with that view he persuaded the Rajah of 
 Vizeanagrum to take him into his service, in order 
 to repair the ruined tanks and watercourses 
 alleged to have suffered under the agent's long 
 neglect. This engagement was entered upon in 
 1852, and the engineer's first suggestion was the 
 construction of a weir over a local stream, at a 
 spot called Davarapilly; the whole work, with the 
 
125 
 
 necessary subordinate channels, was estimated to 
 cost 25,000 rupees. Presently, it was discovered 
 that double this sum would be required; then 
 supplemental estimates followed, so that in the 
 end this work, with the expenses of superin- 
 tendence, cost about 60,000 rupees. The masonry 
 works were completed at this expense in 1854. 
 
 The freshes of the river in the middle of this 
 year greatly shook the dam, and some heavy floods 
 in September, 1854, entirely swept away the whole 
 fabric. Upon this the engineer proposed to com- 
 mence again, and suggested that, as all already 
 spent had been lost, the rajah should write off the 
 past expenditure to profit and loss, and begin wdth 
 a fresh balance-sheet. This method of account 
 keeping, although much esteemed by the engineer 
 department, and avowedly adopted upon all occasions 
 by the Board of Public Works in Madras, was not 
 relished by his native patron. The rajah cashiered 
 the engineer, resolved to be satisfied with the first, 
 loss, and he has wisely determined to steer clear 
 of these projectors for the future. Captain Rundall, 
 under these discouraging circumstances, was sent 
 to look after the gigantic Government irrigation 
 experiment in Eajahmundry, the financial results of 
 
126 
 
 which have been considered and explained in a 
 separate chapter. 
 
 Under the zemindar's own management the 
 receipts from the Yizeanagrum estate since 1852, 
 with a demand (including private villages and 
 resumed rent-free lands) of 11^ lacs of rupees 
 annually, continues to prosper. The annual repairs 
 cost about 12,000 rupees, or about 1 per cent, of 
 the settlement. This is considered a sufficient 
 outlay on the district in ordinary seasons, although 
 the Government frequently expend a much larger 
 sum annually in a single talook. But this irriga- 
 tion expenditure is sheer waste, and the talooks 
 are still deteriorating under a bad revenue system. 
 
 It will scarcely be credited that the Eajah of 
 Yizeanagram who defrayed all the ordinary ex- 
 penses of the management of his estate, was 
 actually compelled to pay besides from fifteen 
 hundred to two thousand pounds a year annually 
 to the Government for having his estate misma- 
 naged, as it was from 1827 to 1846. He was also 
 constantly importuned to guarantee payment of the 
 expenses of a revenue survey of his zemindary, 
 which happily was never commenced upon. The 
 remedy for all fiscal abuses in the Madras 
 
127 
 
 territories is held by the present administration 
 there to be the institution of a minute revenue field 
 survey which has been recently commenced upon, 
 and which it is calculated may possibly be com- 
 pleted in forty years hence, at the cost of one 
 million sterling. This expenditure, so far as it 
 relates to the introduction of a good revenue system, 
 seems money wasted. Ko minute measurement of 
 fields has ever been made in Yizeanagrum or in any 
 ancient zemindary, and yet at least nine-tenths 
 of the culturable lands are under tillage; whereas 
 in ryotwar districts, which have been managed under 
 the control of European officers for nearly a century, 
 one-fourth of the arable lands only are admitted to 
 be under the plough. Gentlemen who fancy that 
 agricultural operations cannot proceed regularly in 
 village communities, and that fair rents cannot be 
 collected punctually without the aid of an accurate 
 scientific survey of each field and holding, might 
 be sent -to learn their duties as land stewards, 
 with benefit to themselves as well as to the Go- 
 vernment, from the practice of native landlords, 
 whose management is in most instances vastly 
 superior to that of their European masters. 
 
 - Vizagapatam^ December , 1855. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 On the treatment of the native servants of 
 THE State under the Madras Government, 
 
 MORE PARTICULARLY IN THE NORTHERN CiRCARS. 
 
 Until a very recent period it had long been 
 a . received axiom among all the wisest and 
 ablest statesmen who have studied the wants of 
 British India, that one of the .most pressing 
 exigencies of its Government was the necessity 
 for giving the natives a larger share in the 
 civil administration of their own country. Every 
 person who has taken a conspicuous part in the 
 events which have led to the acquisition of the 
 Indian empire has borne testimony to the pro- 
 priety, to the justice, of admitting gradually to 
 high fiscal employment the natives of the soil, 
 with suitable salaries. Munro, Malcolm, Mount- 
 stuart Elphinstone, Lord William Bentinck, . and 
 
129 
 
 Lord Metcalfe, have all urged the necessity of ap- 
 pointing natives to offices of higher trust and emolu- 
 ment than they had previously filled, in substitution 
 of European agency to some extent; but during 
 the last five-and-twenty years little progress has 
 been made in carrying out this great want in 
 the Madras Presidency. In the judicial depart- 
 ment a few respectably paid appointments have 
 indeed been thrown open to natives, and some 
 of these offices are creditably filled by them. 
 In the revenue department not only has nothing 
 been done for native advancement, but the office 
 of native collector or tahsildar has greatly 
 deteriorated. The tenure of power has become 
 more and more precarious, and the highest 
 situations attainable are falling into dis- 
 ss teem in popular opinion. A new school of 
 statesmen has sprung up, whose notions are now 
 received as law in the Madras Council Chambers. 
 Their doctrine is, that all natives are hope- 
 lessly corrupt, that a far larger infusion of the 
 " European element " is needed, and as the 
 [employment of covenanted servants sent from 
 Great Britain is too costly to be largely ex- 
 tended, their main suggestion is the entertain- 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 ment of a host of uncovenanted assistants — 
 black, brown, bister, or yellow — one to each 
 talook, to save the unfortunate cultivators from 
 the oppression of the " bloated Brahmins. " 
 These are the notions of the " Tapers" and " Tad- 
 " poles" of the present Government; the traditionary- 
 opinions of Elphinstone and Metcalfe are wholly- 
 disregarded. 
 
 The services, it is said, are at present greatly 
 over-worked. This is idle assertion. With an 
 efficient revenue system, with estates assessed in 
 perpetuity on terms that leave a sure profit to 
 the holder, or with village settlements for a 
 long term of years upon a liberal rent, there 
 would be but a reasonable amount of business 
 for the present functionaries in the Madras 
 districts to perform, and there can be no greater 
 curse to a resident in an Indian district than the 
 want of employment. In the district of Vizagapa- 
 tam, which to a great extent is permanently settled, 
 the criminal and civil jurisdiction over a country 
 containing a population of one million souls is 
 vested in the collector and political agent, in 
 addition to his ordinary revenue and magisterial 
 business, and tlie labors are not oppressive. So 
 
131 
 
 light indeed are tliey, that former agents have 
 frequently proposed to undertake the civil and 
 criminal duties of the portion of the country 
 still placed under the ordinary Courts of Law, with- 
 out extra establishments or remuneration. There 
 would be still less to do than there is at present, 
 if the tahsildars and the heads of police, who 
 are the real collectors and magistrates within 
 their several localities, were paid respectable 
 salaries, and if, in consequence of such decent 
 payments, a wider field for the selection of these 
 agents was given. But when a head of police 
 or stipendiary magistrate for a county receives 
 less pay than an English footman gets in a 
 gentleman's family, and when the deputy- 
 superintendent of a division di'aws less pay than 
 an ordinary black cook, honesty in the native 
 service is not to be expected. The wonder is 
 that with such instruments so much work is 
 done, and that, upon the whole, it is so creditably 
 performed. Under a good system a great number 
 of the present subordinate native servants might 
 be dispensed with; the salaries of the rest should 
 be trebled. They should be treated like educated 
 gentlemen, and not trampled upon like menials. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 It has been stated that the tahsildars, as a 
 class, are deteriorating, and daily becoming less 
 trustworthy ; the cause is obvious. The Local 
 Government so far from endeavouring to improve 
 the condition of these over-worked men, has been 
 continually imposing more work and greater 
 labor, and has been tasking its faculties to 
 degrade the appointments. It has been ordered 
 of recent years, that all native tahsildars shall 
 find securities for their good conduct to the extent 
 of a couple of thousand rupees, and although this 
 call upon them is absolutely worthless, the produc- 
 tion and renewals of the sureties from time to time, 
 now rigidly enforced, cost money. Inquisitions are 
 annually made into their private circumstances; 
 the possession or acquisition of lands is held to 
 be a disqualification for ofiice in the districts in 
 which they live; and all the superior native 
 servants are vexed and harassed by constant 
 investigations to this end. Their small salaries 
 are, in every month, attenuated by fines for every 
 trivial mistake, or for delay in furnishing the ever 
 increasing multitude of returns called for by half- 
 a-score of departments. The dilettanti Government 
 of Madras have ordered from January, 1858, that 
 
133 
 
 no native servant above the rank of a constable 
 shall receive promotion, unless he passes a compe- 
 titive examination, the main requirements being a 
 knowledge of English literature, and an intimate 
 acquaintance with Elphinstone's History of India; 
 and this test of fitness for a section writer or a 
 native accountant is enforced in provinces where 
 there is not at present so much as a village school. 
 Everything, in short, is done to disgust respect- 
 able natives with the service of Government, 
 and nothing is listened to that tends to improve 
 their condition, or to render it respectable. 
 
 Nevertheless, fine words and delusive circular 
 orders have been lavished oil this subject by 
 almost every successive administration. Twenty 
 years ago a proclamation was circulated far and 
 wide, which may be taken as a sample of the 
 way in which ofiicial mention is made of the 
 native unco ven anted service. The Government, in 
 1835, desired to proclaim their intention, " that 
 " situations of trust and responsibility, such as 
 " those of tahsildars, should be rendered an 
 " object of ambition to the most meritorious 
 " natives of the country, and that they should 
 " be impressed with the conviction that, as 
 
184 
 
 " servants of the State, they have a right to 
 " expect and are entitled to receive from Go- 
 " vernment a support commensurate with the 
 " arduous duties they have to execute." Collectors 
 were enjoined not to change them frequently 
 from one locality to another, for it was observed, 
 that a tahsildar was exposed to more tempta- 
 tion, to more obloquy, and to more vindictive 
 accusations, than any other class of public 
 officers, while the only security he had of 
 keeping his place was the conviction that he 
 would not be the victim of frivolous complaint, 
 or of those secret confederacies which are at 
 work in every district." 
 The order addressed to all collectors of dis- 
 tricts went on to say, — " The right honorable 
 " the Governor in Council feels assured that he 
 " may calculate upon your cordial co-operation 
 " to effect what appears to him the desirable 
 " end of endeavouring to convince the tahsildars 
 " under you, that they have a permanent 
 " interest in their offices, and I am desired to 
 " intimate to you that Government Will always 
 " esteem it honorable to yourself to have men 
 " in your district who have served the public 
 
135 
 
 *' in elevated situations for long periods of time. 
 '' You will be pleased to acquaint them that, as 
 " the servants of the State, it is the desire of 
 " Government to recognize them as native 
 " gentlemen of consideration, holding offices of 
 " responsibility, and that the Government have 
 " as much interest as themselves in maintaining 
 " and in raising their reputation. This has not 
 " been sufficiently considered in the administra- 
 " tion of Indian affairs, but the Government is 
 " satisfied that it is called upon to pay more 
 " attention to it, both from motives of justice 
 *' as well as from sound principles of political 
 " wisdom. 
 
 " With a view of essentially counteracting the 
 " public evil which arises from the precarious 
 " tenure by which native office in this country 
 " is held, I am earnestly directed to press on 
 " you the justice of endeavoui'ing to substitute, 
 " for the present shifting and vacillating state 
 " of things, a system better calculated to win 
 " the confidence of the people, and to give to 
 " this class of servants, on whom the well-being 
 " of the Government essentially depends, a feeling 
 *' of self-respect, and the assurance that the 
 
136 
 
 " administration of our provinces as far as it 
 " relates to the employment of higli native 
 " officers, instead of being a system of expediency, 
 " is founded on the principle of giving high 
 " and honorable employment to men of the 
 " highest character and consideration in the 
 " country. 
 
 " Under this system of duration the people 
 ;" would be free from the disquietude which now 
 " always attends frequent alteration in their 
 " immediate superiors. The appointment of a 
 " new collector, instead of producing, as it is at 
 " present apt to do, a struggle of contending 
 " interests and a general anxiety throughout the 
 " province, would be generally unfelt." 
 
 These excellent sentiments were put forth more 
 than twenty years ago, but precept is one thing 
 and practice another. The tahsildars were said to 
 be exposed to more temptation than any other class 
 of men, and it is admitted, on all hands, that the 
 scantiness of income in responsible situations is the 
 greatest of all barriers to honesty, but nothing has 
 been done to remedy this evil. For instance, fifteen 
 months ago an application was made to have the 
 pay of two native collectors, in the district of 
 
137 
 
 Vizagapatam, raised to £10 a month, — no great 
 sum for a magistrate and land-steward over a 
 hundred thousand men, with a revenue of at least 
 £12,000 a-year to manage, — but the Commissioner 
 in the Northern Circars refused even to entertain 
 the recommendation; he thought £8 a month 
 ample! So far from these appointments being 
 generally held for years together, half-a-dozen 
 tahsildars are frequently discharged in a month. 
 
 On this point I can speak from experience, 
 from facts that have come under my own 
 observation. In 1842 I was appointed to officiate 
 as collector and agent to the Governor of Madras 
 in Vizagapatam, and during the short interval 
 between my predecessor's departure and my arrival 
 to assume charge, the head-serishtadar and one-half 
 of the whole superior servants of the district 
 had been suspended or dismissed by the senior- 
 assistant, who had temporary charge of the 
 province. On my arrival a hope was expressed 
 that the individuals newly selected were persons 
 in whom confidence could be placed. The assis- 
 tant's reply was, " Oh, we go to the bazar 
 here for tahsildars," and so of course any 
 officer who acted as he did must go. But some 
 
138 
 
 very clever and experienced men were afterwards 
 induced to accept the situation of tahsildars, 
 although not without much difficulty at first, 
 and only after the system of revenue settlement was 
 changed in the province. It is not pretended 
 that they were immaculate, for what can be 
 expected when the salary is insufficient to meet the 
 legitimate expenses of the office; but any effi^rt to 
 remedy this is useless, unless a collector gave the 
 servant extra remuneration from his own pocket. 
 
 In the Northern Circars the superior native 
 servants have not the smallest confidence in 
 the duration of office. It chanced that, in 1844, 
 I was sent unexpectedly to officiate as collector 
 and Governor's agent in Ganjam. At that time 
 there were only four talooks in that district 
 owned by Government, the rest of the district 
 being held on zemindary tenure. Out of the 
 four tahsildars three were officiating, their fixed 
 appointments being clerkships in the native 
 accountant's office, and the highest pay of the 
 substantive appointment was 30 rupees per 
 mensem* Not one of these men would accept 
 permanently the post of a tahsildar, that " situa- 
 " tion of high and honorable employment,'* but all, 
 
139 
 
 both personally and by letter, entreated to be 
 sent back to their old appointments before the 
 Governor's agent, then absent on furlough, should 
 return. They alleged that, under his admini- 
 stration, a tahsildarship was not worth three months' 
 purchase, and this was quite true under the worth- 
 less fiscal ryotwar system which that gentleman 
 followed. But as I found them, so I left them, 
 and the description holds good of Ganjam at 
 the present date, as I shall hereafter have 
 occasion to show. So far from the situations of 
 tahsildar being coveted or sought for by the 
 ablest and best of the native population, in 
 these parts it is often extremely difficult to get 
 a decent and creditable person to accept the office 
 at all. 
 
 If we turn to the offices of head and deputy- 
 serishtadars of districts the same remark still holds 
 good. The holders of these appointments have no 
 greater security of duration in office than the 
 tahsildars possess, yet these situations are really 
 honorable, and being, comparatively speaking, 
 handsomely remunerated, they ought to be filled 
 by parties of the highest ability and consideration 
 in the country. During the last ten years the 
 serishtadars and deputy-serishtadars have been 
 
140 
 
 dismissed, in some cases twice over, in nearly 
 every district in the Northern Circars. I 
 will notice, for examples' sake, somewhat in 
 detail the treatment experienced by some of these 
 superior native officials, and out of the many 
 cases that have come personally under my ob- 
 servation I shall take up a few individual 
 instances only of modern date. 
 
 In Kajahmundry, then, the office of head-serishtadar 
 was held from 1844 to 1852, by a native named 
 Cumbum Nursingarow.* This gentleman had filled 
 appointments of consideration in the revenue 
 department elsewhere for many years, having 
 been in continuous employment for a period of 
 twenty-seven years. He was specially selected 
 for this office, and for seven years he was always 
 spoken of by his immediate superior, the collector 
 of Rajahmundry, in his yearly reports, with in- 
 creasing satisfaction. The revenues of this misma- 
 naged district greatly increased under Nursingarow's 
 supervision, through the improved system intro- 
 
 * Serishtadar properly signifies an accountant, but in tlie 
 Madras Provinces the head serishtadar is the native collector 
 and principal confidential adviser of the European functionary 
 in fiscal matters. Every order issuing from the collector's office 
 is countersigned by him. 
 
141 
 
 duced by him since 1844. The engineer depart- 
 ment, indeed, has stated that all the increase of 
 public revenue in Rajahmundiy was caused by the 
 fortunate circumstance that a huge dam was com- 
 menced to be built, by forced labor, across the 
 river Godavery, in 1846 ; but no person at all ac- 
 quainted with the condition of the district believes 
 this tale, and the local engineers themselves will 
 hardly venture to repeat now the statements which, 
 in the first instance, they so confidently advanced. 
 
 It chanced that, about the end of 1850, the 
 owner of the ancient zemindary of Pittapoor 
 died, leaving an infant family, who were in 
 consequence made wards of Government. On the 
 casualty being reported, the collector of Eajahmun- 
 dry, accompanied by his head-serishtadar, at once 
 proceeded to Pittapoor, to take charge of the 
 inheritance. The principal surviving relatives, male 
 and female, displayed on that occasion a passive 
 resistance to the mandate to deliver over to 
 the collector's custody the jewels of the family 
 and the personal property, together with the care 
 of the landed estates. The Pittapoor zemindary was 
 a very valuable one, and the zemindar (deceased) 
 had had woful experience of the results of Go- 
 
142 
 
 vernment-guardiansliip in the Madras Provinces, 
 He had been a ward himself for some twelve 
 or fourteen years, and his estates, so far from 
 having been nursed and made over to him 
 with a large cash surplus, were placed in his 
 hands, at the end of the minority, in so dila- 
 pidated a condition and with such an enormous 
 public debt, that the young man was glad to 
 cede one-half of the lands to Government, to 
 enable him to retain the rest. Under his own 
 administration, from 1844 to 1850, the estates 
 left to him again yielded a large surplus, but 
 mismanagement seemed to pursue them under 
 official administration. By the accounts published, 
 no surplus accumulations appeared up to 1855, and 
 in that year no less a sum than 65,000 rupees of 
 the current settlement of the estate was uncol- 
 lected and unaccounted for by the collector. The 
 Government, in reviewing the collector's settlement 
 report, passed over this loss without a comment, 
 and this in a tract fertilized to some extent by 
 that extraordinary work the Kajahmundry Annicut. 
 As a very small part of the valuables known 
 to belong to the zemindar was voluntarily given up, 
 in the first instance, to the collector by the surviving 
 
143 
 
 relatives of the Pittapoor family, the head serish- 
 tadar advised the collector and magistrate, both 
 verbally and in writing, to issue a warrant to 
 search the premises, but the collector did not see 
 occasion to follow this course. Eventually, how- 
 ever, about a month later, a considerable amount 
 of the family property, valued at half a lac of 
 rupees, was made over to the collector's keeping. 
 On this one Timmarauze was named manager of 
 the estate, on a salary of 250 rupees a month, and 
 an unemployed attache or candidate for office was 
 appointed to be tahsildar or collector of the Pitta- 
 poor zemindary. The salary of 250 rupees a month 
 awarded to the sinecure office of manager was liberal 
 enough, but it was not paid by the Government, 
 which always enjoins a wholesome parsimony when 
 the disbursement of salaries from the public treasury 
 to native servants is required. It will be seen 
 what sort of character this Timmarauze, the mana- 
 ger, turned out in the sequel, also what manner 
 of man the tahsildar proved himself to be. 
 
 The manager and tahsildar were no sooner fairly 
 installed in office, than, in concert with each 
 other, they got up charges against C. Nursingarow, 
 the head-serishtadar of Eajahmundry, of having 
 
144 
 
 been engaged in a nefarious conspiracy to plunder 
 the zemindar's estate, for which end it was 
 alleged that he had destroyed or made away 
 with many of the zemindar's accounts. Every 
 credence was given to this statement by the 
 magistrate, who immediately suspended his head 
 native assistant and sent him to jail. After a 
 tedious enquiry, this functionary was sent to the 
 Session's Court for trial on charges of forgery and 
 the destruction of public accounts, — acts which had 
 led, it was said, to the perpetration of tremendous 
 frauds on the Pittapoor estate. The collector and 
 magistrate was himself the accuser, the prosecutor, 
 and the committing magistrate, and his written 
 statement, explanatory of the offence, which ac- 
 companied the criminal calendar, filled several 
 sheets of foolscap-paper, closely written. Bail, 
 although tendered, was refused, and the highest 
 native officer in the province was incarcerated, 
 because the magistrate averred, " he had been 
 *' heard to say, that death was preferable to 
 " dishonor." The incarceration was thus shown 
 to be an act of humanity on the magistrate's 
 part to guard his native subordinate from the 
 dreadful crime of suicide. 
 
145 
 
 One of the counts in the monster indictment set 
 forth that the head serishtadar had failed to bring 
 to the collector's notice the fact that the property 
 and jewels of the Pittapoor family were not forth- 
 coming, agreeably with the zemindary accounts in 
 his possession. In answer to this charge the serish- 
 tadar informed the Court that he had, both orally 
 and in a written statement, brought the circum- 
 stance to notice which he was accused of having 
 concealed. The existence of any written memoran- 
 dum was, at first, denied, but Avhen, by order of the 
 Court, the collector's records were searched, the 
 paper was discovered, and the prosecutor admitted 
 that it must have been laid before him. 
 
 In making a return of this document to the 
 Sessions' judge, the prosecutor requested the Court 
 to bear in mind that, although it did seem that 
 the accused serishtadar had apprized him of the fact 
 of the missing jewels, &c., he had yet, with the 
 accounts of the estate avowedly in his possession, 
 concealed from him (the collector) a deficit of 
 67,000 rupees in cash, which was apparent on the 
 face of them and which had been embezzled through 
 his villany. The magistrate furnished a statement 
 of this loss in detail, and quoted it as " a damning 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 " proof of the prisoner's guilt." This statement 
 was prepared in the native accountant's office of the 
 collectorate, to the head of which, in substitution of 
 Nursingarow, the manager Timmarauze had been 
 advanced, the secret originator of the criminal 
 charge. 
 
 This " damning statement," when submitted to 
 examination, was proved by the accused, to the 
 satisfaction of the Court, to be an entire fabrication 
 from beginning to end, and the judicial proceedings 
 having been protracted to the almost fabulous term 
 of sixteen months ! the serishtadar in the end was 
 fully and honorably acquitted. Of the trial itself 
 little more need be said, save that the Amildar of 
 Pittapoor, one of the original conspirators, during 
 his examination in support of the charge, perjured 
 himself so grossly that the judge committed him to 
 custody, and he was, in consequence, dismissed 
 from office. 
 
 While the trial was proceeding the collector 
 and magistrate placed himself in communication 
 with the Commissioner in the Northern Circars. 
 In an elaborate official report he pointed out how, 
 by the unprincipled artifices of his head native 
 servant, the estate of his ward had been plundered 
 
147 
 
 of thousands of pounds. He said that everybody 
 in the district of Eajahmundry was probably aware 
 of the gigantic fraud and robbery committed against 
 the property of the young zemindar of Pittapoor 
 when it happened, except himself, " to such a state 
 " of isolation had he been reduced by the powerful 
 " combination of that mighty corporation the 
 '^ Cutcherry." From this position he had, of course, 
 been only extricated by his new friends, Timmarauze 
 and the Amildar. 
 
 In anticipation of a conviction, and under 
 the circumstances recited, the collector requested 
 authority to dismiss the accused native official per- 
 manently from office, and he pressed the Commis- 
 sioner, if he was disinclined to permit this, to allow, 
 at least, the removal of this native officer, on the 
 ground that, even if he was acquitted, cordiality and 
 co-operation between himself and the serishtadar 
 could never be expected in the same province. 
 The Commissioner, so importuned, authorized the 
 removal of the accused from office, and on the 
 receipt of this permission the collector issued the 
 following order : — 
 
 " Cumhum Nursingarow, 
 
 " It has been already intimated that you were 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 " suspended from office till the close of an enquiry 
 '' into your conduct. From the subsequent in- 
 " vestigation it has been proved that jewels and 
 " cash, to a very large amount, belonging to the 
 " late zemindar of Pittapoor, have been embezzled 
 ** through your connivance or mis-conduct when 
 " deputed to that place to bring the estate under 
 " the charge of the Court of Wards. You have 
 " also committed other irregularities, and, being 
 " untrustworthy, the Commissioner in the Northern 
 " Circars has been addressed, who has authorized 
 " your removal. You are, accordingly, hereby 
 " dismissed from office from the date of your 
 " suspension, being unfit for Government employ- 
 "ment; no pay will be given from the date of 
 " your suspension.'^ 
 
 It may be noted that the collector dismissed the 
 deputy-serishtadar also, although he acknowledged 
 that he was not mixed up with the charges against 
 the principal serishtadar, on the ground that he had 
 not assisted in unravelling the frauds in which 
 C. Nursingarow had been engaged ; frauds that 
 appear never to have existed, as it will presently 
 be shown, by the Government officer's unqualified 
 admission. 
 
149 
 
 Upon the full acquittal of the serishtadar by 
 the Sessions' judge, Cumbum Nursingarow addressed 
 himself to the Commissioner in the Northern Circars, 
 and made known to that gentleman the fact that 
 the enormous embezzlement of which he had been 
 accused was a total fabrication. He showed that no 
 property whatever had been lost to the Pittapoor 
 estate, and that the accounts manufactured to prove 
 the losses were spurious. Wlien the address setting 
 forth these facts was forwarded to the collector, the 
 Commissioner drew his particular attention to these 
 statements and desired an answer. The collector 
 accordingly replied in a letter dated the 2nd Novem- 
 ber, 1853, so much of which as it is necessary to 
 quote will be given in the writer's own words. 
 
 The first few paragraphs relate to the employment 
 of Timmaranze in the double capacity of Pittapoor 
 manager and of Government serishtadar, to which 
 post he was specially nominated because the col- 
 lector needed, he said, "a trustworthy person to 
 '^ be near him in the crisis of the district.'* 
 An apology, for having entertained a person in 
 so high a capacity who had proved himself so 
 worthless, was tendered to the Commissioner. This 
 done, the collector proceeded to make a clear 
 
150 
 
 confession that all the previous charges of em- 
 bezzlements were totally unfounded. 
 
 " With much difficulty," he wrote, " I have been 
 " enabled to obtain from Timmarauze an explanation 
 " regarding the loss of 67,000 rupees, and this 
 "" is so unsatisfactory that it must be deemed to 
 " be an admission that there was no such deficiency. 
 " He has the hardihood to say that he never saw 
 *' ]bhe account, that he had nothing to do with 
 " the preparation of it, and that the responsibility 
 " rests with two young officers of the account 
 " department in whom I had not the slightest 
 *' confidence. 
 
 " When the account was brought to me I sent it 
 " to be examined in the serishtadar department 
 " before I adopted it, remarking that any error in 
 " a magisterial case would be a very serious matter 
 *' and that I could not possibly excuse it. My 
 " impression is that I sent it up for examination 
 " a second time, owing to a doubt that arose, but 
 " I cannot positively say I did so. At all events 
 " I thought I had done all in my power to secure 
 " a full and perfect scrutiny of the account in 
 " question. 
 
 *' When I communicated the deficiency of 67,000 
 
151 
 
 " rupees to the Sessions' Court I had no idea that 
 ** the two individuals above-said would have dared 
 " to deceive me, after having given them so serious 
 '' a warning, nor that Timmarauze would have 
 *' been guilty of such gross and culpable disregard 
 " of duty. I can say nothing in palliation of this 
 " grievous error. It is most vexatious to me to 
 " find that a man, on whom I placed so much 
 " reliance, has laid himself open to the imputation 
 " of having concocted a false account to ruin the 
 " late head serishtadar, or that he was so senseless 
 " as to permit an account to issue from his depart- 
 " ment, either without inspecting it himself or 
 " causing it to be carefully examined by his 
 '^ subordinates. 
 
 " I submit that this is a very extreme case, 
 " and that the recklessness and obtusity of 
 " Timmarauze are so unprecedented and incom- 
 " prehensible that they mar the idea that he was 
 '' a party to a conspiracy against the accused 
 " serishtadar, for no man of ordinary sense would 
 " have joined in such a scheme. For my own 
 ^' share in the transaction I can only express a 
 " hope that, though I deliberately put my signature 
 " to an account without testing its accuracy, it 
 
152 
 
 will be borne in mind that the party most likely 
 to suffer the greatest injury from it was a most 
 able accountant, from w^hose scrutiny there was 
 no possibility of its errors escaping notice. 
 Although it was harmless, therefore, in this view, 
 I have no wish to make any attempt to justify 
 it. I admit that it is indefensible, but as the 
 responsibility for the accuracy of every account 
 issuing under a collector's certificate had not 
 then been declared to rest on the head of the 
 office, as it now does, Timmarauze is answerable 
 for rendering a false account." 
 Comment on this letter is uncalled for. The false 
 account sent up as '^ a damning proof of the guilt 
 "of the prisoner" fell harmless, for the magistrate 
 apparently conceived that incarceration in a common 
 jail, and harassing detention in Court for sixteen 
 months, were nothing to a black man. It may be 
 remarked, however, that while the serishtadar's 
 trial was pending, the guardian and uncle of the 
 young zemindar was, in like manner, sent to the 
 criminal jail on a charge of robbing hi^ relative 
 and ward of property of which this 67,000 rupees 
 formed a part. Of course he was triumphantly 
 acquitted, but it will scarcely be credited that 
 
153 
 
 Englisli barristers were brought four hundred miles 
 to support this prosecution, and that the expenses of 
 this discreditable trial were paid for out of the 
 zemindar's funds. This is a specimen of the manner 
 in which the funds of Government wards are wasted, 
 and it accounts in some measure for the fact of there 
 being no surplus revenue up to 1854 in Pittapoor. 
 
 The Commissioner, on receipt of the letter quoted 
 at length above, declined to interfere, and referred 
 the dismissed serishtadar to Government for redress. 
 The Madras Government, when appealed to, simply 
 stated that " the removal of the sheristadar from 
 " office Avas approved." In answer to a farther repre- 
 sentation of his wrongs, in which the ex-serishtadar, 
 disclaiming all wish to serve again under the collector 
 of Eajahmundry, simply requested that his fitness 
 for employment might be recognized, inasmuch as 
 the judge who had tried him had offered him a 
 judicial appointment, the Governor in Council curtly 
 observed, that " the employment of the petitioner 
 " in any branch of the public service ivas j^^ohi- 
 " Mted. " This resolution was passed in the teeth 
 of an order promulgated by Government a few 
 months previously, which enjoined that no native 
 servant whose pay exceeded 10 rupees a month 
 
154 
 
 should be dismissed, unless a written statement of 
 his offence was furnished to him, his defence heard, 
 and a specific order passed thereon. This order was 
 yiplated, as all similar orders were, in the case of 
 Gumbum Nursingarow. His dismissal by the col- 
 lector was based on the fact of his being " privy 
 " to, and cognizant of, enormous embezzlements." 
 Honorably acquitted on this charge, the collector of 
 course fell back on the averment that the e^- 
 serishtadar was "utterly untrustworthy," and this 
 general allegation was held to be a justification of 
 the dismissal and ruin of an old and meritorious 
 native public servant, in the face of numerous 
 certificates, granted by the collector, of Nursinga- 
 row's probity and proved efficiency.* 
 
 While the native functionary was thus uncere- 
 moniously ejected from office the collector of Eajah- 
 mundry was appointed to be political agent to the 
 Governor of Madras in Ganjam, a situation of much 
 greater dignity and importance. His advent in 
 that district at once created there that " feeling 
 
 * A memorial was sent to England by C. Nursingarow in 
 1855, bringing to notice the injustice lie had received at the 
 hands of the Local Government, and in 1856 an answer was 
 sent cancelling his exclusion from public employment. Nur- 
 singarow's restoration to office is, however, hopeless. He is 
 now dewan to the Rajah of Vizeanagrum, and admirably con- 
 ducts the revenue administration of that princely estate. 
 
155 
 
 " of disquiet and insecurity,'* the existence of which 
 the Government had so greatly deprecated on the 
 change of superior officers in the provinces, and not 
 without reason. The new agent had not been in- 
 stalled in office more than a few weeks when he 
 ejected most of the superior native servants of Gan- 
 jam, beginning with the head serishtadar, an officer 
 of forty years' service, who was about to retire on his 
 full pension with an honorary distinction to be con- 
 ferred by Government for some acknowledged political 
 services. The agent caused this distinguished native 
 officer to be apprehended, and he was forwarded in 
 custody to the Sessions' Court of Chicacole on a 
 criminal indictment. The charge, when looked into, 
 was considered by the presiding judge to be so frivo- 
 lous and vexatious that he declined to put the pri- 
 soner on his trial, and finally he struck it off his file. 
 But, although fifteen months have since elapsed, the 
 case of the serishtadar is still under consideration. 
 The papers have been before the proper authorities 
 for many months, and, as the man is old and in 
 a bad state of health, death will probably relieve 
 him from his troubles before a decision is passed in 
 his case. One charge against the ex-serishtadar of 
 Ganjam was, that he had assumed a more honor- 
 able designation in his official . addi'ess than was 
 
156 
 
 accorded to such a functionary in the southern 
 districts of the Madras Presidency, and there 
 were other criminations of a like contemptible 
 sort, but not one public delinquency of the smallest 
 consequence has been sought to be established against 
 him by credible evidence.* 
 
 When the very highest native functionaries of the 
 State are thus treated, the inflated proclamations of 
 the local Government are proved to be delusive clap- 
 traps, to be appealed to in Parliament and quoted in 
 public documents, if need be, but to be thrown aside 
 in daily practice as idle words. Where, in the in- 
 stances quoted, has the faintest desire been exhibited 
 to raise the superior native fiscal appointments in 
 public estimation? Is the incarceration of an old 
 servant of one district in jail for many months, 
 on charges which the collector in the end was 
 constrained to admit were false, likely to increase 
 the reputation of the uncovenanted native ser- 
 vice? Does the consignment of the highest func- 
 tionary of another province to the criminal dock on 
 
 * Before leavIn<T India in October, 1857, the author received 
 a letter from the Ganjam ex-serishtadar stating that the home 
 authorities had ordeicd the payment of the full pension of his 
 late office to this native functionary. The Court of Directors 
 have, in most instances, when the cases have been properly 
 brought before them, laudably interfered to prevent the oppres- 
 sion of the native public servants by the local Government. 
 
157 
 
 a charge so preposterous that the judge refused to 
 entertain it, tend to increase the self-respect and 
 confidence of a class of men in whose reputation 
 their rulers profess to take a deep interest, and 
 whom they desire sincerely to elevate and maintain? 
 It will possibly be observed that these are 
 extreme cases, but this is not the fact. So far as 
 my opportunities for judging extend, the practice of 
 degrading the native servants, instead of endeavour- 
 ing to elevate them, is systematically practised in 
 the northern provinces of the Madras Presidency. 
 When the agent in Ganjam proceeded to England 
 in 1855, another ofiicer obtained charge of the pro- 
 vince, who, adopting the sentiments and policy then 
 in the ascendant, soon showed himself to be a fitting 
 successor to the senior that preceded him. The cam- 
 paign proceeded vigorously against all the public 
 native servants in the province, until, I believe, 
 hardly one that served in January, 1854, under the 
 former governor's agent, Mr. Onslow, now remains 
 in office. I have at this moment on my table a 
 proclamation ostentatiously published by this new 
 officer, inviting private information against all the 
 public servants without distinction. It was printed 
 at the mission press in Vizagapatam, in the native 
 
158 
 
 language, and thrown broadcast throughout the 
 
 villages in the Ganjam district. Literally translated, 
 
 it runs thus : — 
 
 " Proclamation. 
 
 " The acting collector, convinced of the great 
 
 " benefits resulting from the free admission of, and 
 
 " from private consultation with parties who desire 
 
 " to give information against the native servants of 
 
 " Government, has resolved to grant interviews to 
 
 " such at his private residence. To this end, on 
 
 " each Tuesday and Friday, at 7 o'clock a.m., he 
 
 " will receive all those who wish to bring to light 
 
 " charges of bribes taken, of torture used towards 
 
 " ryots, concealment of crimes, smuggling of salt, 
 
 " and such like grave offences committed by public 
 
 " servants against the State. Parties who cannot 
 
 " converse in Teloogoo, or English, must bring an 
 
 " interpreter with them. Informers who desire to 
 
 '* bring to light misconduct of a more trifling nature 
 
 " against the servants will, in like manner, be 
 
 " admitted to an audience on every Monday and 
 
 *' Thursday morning. This announcement is made 
 
 " for general information, and it must be strictly 
 
 " adhered to. 
 
 (Signed) a * * # * 
 
 '' Acting Collector." 
 
159 
 
 The foregoing proclamation is an excellent com- 
 mentary upon the order of Government enjoining on 
 all officers in the provinces the propriety of giving 
 confidence to their native servants, and a support 
 commensurate with the arduous duties they are 
 called on to perform ; it is a fitting specimen of the 
 way in which disquietude is sought to be removed 
 by new officials. It admirably carries out the desire 
 of the Government that the advent of every newly- 
 appointed officer in a district should not lead to 
 " a struggle of contending interests, and a general 
 " anxiety in all quarters." So far as I can perso- 
 nally judge, the insecurity felt by tahsildars and 
 others twenty years ago in the Northern Circars has 
 increased, and is increasing yearly. In my judg- 
 ment the higher native uncovenanted servants are 
 treated, year after year, with greater and greater in- 
 dignity by their superiors. The orders issued from 
 time to time by Government, pretending to enforce an 
 opposite course of proceeding, seem to me to be shams, 
 for those officers of the covenanted service who treat 
 them most as waste paper, and who violate them 
 systematically both in the letter and the spirit, 
 generally rank the highest in Government favor, 
 
160 
 
 and are most frequently singled out before others 
 for promotion and advancement. 
 
 There is nothing, in my judgment, that renders 
 the British Government in India so distasteful to 
 the educated classes as the want of courtesy which 
 most officials show to native servants of eminent 
 capacity, and who, but for our domination, would 
 fill with credit the offices of governors in the pro- 
 vinces afflicted by ryotwar maladministration. It 
 is daily asserted in the highest quarters that the 
 principle of our rule is to recognize no distinction 
 between a dominant and a subject race. This is 
 indeed the theory of our Government, but in prac- 
 tice, so far as the territories of the Madras Presi- 
 dency are concerned, the cultivators are ill-treated 
 and coerced, the educated classes are subjected to 
 the greatest indignities, and the native landed 
 gentry are plundered of their possessions by their 
 Anglo-Saxon masters. 
 
 BimMpatam, 
 
 July, 1856. 
 
 BiCHABOSON BbOTUEKS, PRINTERS, 23, CORNUILL, E. C. 
 
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