THE WORST INSTANCE OF OFFICIAL AVERAGES 487

Incidentally, note may be taken of the fact that when a householder in Berar is in a position to purchase salt according to his requirements, he provides for 25 lbs. per head per annum, more than twice the average consumption.

The out-turn of wheat in this most fertile Province during the past nine years was lamentably low. The average for the whole region in 1896-97 was put at 754 lbs. Actually the produce was only one-fifth of that average'; as witness the following:

What possible good can it possibly do to the Indian authorities to allow so misleading an average as that of 754 lbs. per acre to remain on record? They assert 12 bushels should be reaped; they acknowledge but 21 bushels were actually reaped. Yet the high average remains to delude the Viceroy and to mislead the public.

The very optimistic opinion of the Resident at Hyderabad is scarcely borne out by the Census returns. There ought, in 1901, if all had been as excellent as was described, a population of 3,332,114 inhabitants; there were on March 1, 1901, only 2,752,418

-or one person out of eight 2 not there when the counting took place.

Agric. Statistics, p. 371.

2 Stat. Abs., No. 35, p. 1.

'I have never concealed my opinion as to the extreme gravity of our financial position, and I believe that

66

NOTHING BUT THE FACT THAT THE PRESENT SYSTEM [IN INDIA] IS

ALMOST SECURE FROM ALL INDEPENDENT AND INTELLIGENT CRITICISM
HAS ENABLED IT SO LONG TO SURVIVE."

SIR LOUIS MALlet,

Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India.

VAIN ATTEMPTS TO SECURE SECRECY 489

THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY.

Amongst the papers concerning the Inquiry of 1888, only the letter of the Madras Government to the Government of India and the observations of the Board of Revenue were given to me. I cannot, therefore, furnish details for the south like unto those already given for other parts of the Empire. The Madras authorities found it difficult to do all that was required of them: 'some Collectors have pointed out that the collection of such evidence is incompatible with the secrecy enjoined.'1 As to the reports received, 'His Excellency in Council desires to express his general concurrence in the conclusion of the Board and the majority of the officers consulted that, in this Presidency, no considerable proportion of the population suffer from a daily insufficiency of food in ordinary years.' Some of the collectors were decidedly of a different opinion. Mr. Le Fanu, for example, was of opinion that 'grinding poverty is the widespread condition of the masses.' Mr. Conklin and another were of opinion that in certain sections of North Arcot many poor people go through life on insufficient food. The Madras authorities continue: 'It is, of course'-[why of course, considering there are ample statistics in every district in the Presidency ?]-' very difficult to form any idea as to the real condition of the poorer classes, and still more difficult to ascertain the

In respect to that secrecy' the Madras Government, in the covering letter to the Government of India, have this paragraph :--

... the Press in Madras were aware of the institution of the inquiry forming the subject of this communication soon after the date of the first of the Circulars under reply, and they refer to a notice regarding it which appeared in the Hindu newspaper of the 23rd September last. This, however, was a letter from a Bengal correspondent, stating that the Indian Mirror had announced the institution of the inquiry. The article to which the Board make allusion, and which was published in the Hindu of the 23rd September, was, apparently, based upon information supplied by the Bengal Press. I am to state that every care has been taken by the authorities here to prevent the inquiry becoming in any way public,'

condition in past years so as to frame any reliable comparison; but the Government consider that it is undoubtedly true that wages have risen, that articles which formerly were luxuries are daily more and more becoming necessaries' [true, but where, and amongst what section of the population?], and that the old thatched hut has been and is being largely replaced by the tiled house, for ample evidence of these changes is furnished by everyday experience. At the same time the Government entertain no doubt that the native labourer generally speaking lives almost from hand to mouth, and has little reserve save a few cheap ornaments upon which he can fall back to meet bad seasons and want of work.'

It is a favourite maxim with Sir Henry Fowler, and is often repeated by him, that the portion of the produce taken by the Government amounts to eight per cent. only on the gross yield. This statement is confuted elsewhere by Government statistics-twenty-six years' old when used by me, and, therefore, available to Sir Henry Fowler, who was made Secretary of State for India on the 10th of March, 1894. It will, therefore, be well to record what cultivators of 1901 say concerning the proportion of their produce which is actually taken by the authorities.

In reply to an appeal, publicly made, for information on this point, I have received a number of communications and much information. Dewan Bahadur R. Raghunath Row, who passed from the Madras subordinate service to become Prime Minister of Indore, writes:

Expenses of cultivation of ordinary lands means the value of the seed and the wages paid to coolies employed by the cultivator of lands. This is generally thirty per cent. of the gross. It does not include anything for the feeding of the cultivator, much less for the proper nourishment of his family; it does not include the cost of any manure used. For other lands, viz., superior and inferior

GOVERNMENT BENEFIT EVERY WAY

491

lands, expenses of cultivation are generally greater; more seed is wanted for inferior soils; more weeding for superior soils, particularly the black cotton soil.

The word "etc." in the circular order of the 1878 Edition is a convenient loophole. It may be said that it includes the remission for bad years.

'Now the Government are said to get one half of the net produce which is never less than twenty-five per cent. of the gross. This is only in theory. Actually they receive on an average more than fifty per cent. of the gross. On paper it is shown to be between twenty-five and thirty per cent. of the gross, by over-estimating the gross produce. 'If the gross be 100, the Government professes to deduct

29 for cultivation expenses,

'15 for bad seasons,

'28 for Government assessment,

28 for the ryot.

'If these would tally with the actuals the ryot would have sufficient left to him to tide over one or two bad years; but the actuals are different.

Suppose the gross produce in reality amounts to 75 instead of 100, the result would be-

'28 Government assessment, or 38 per cent.

14 for the ryot, or 18 per cent.

or two-thirds of the net to Government and one-third of the net to the ryot.

As the real amount of the gross produce decreases, so the share of Government would go on increasing and that of the ryot decreasing.

'A village measuring 305 acres of wet land has been assessed on the estimated gross produce of 8,557 to 9,000 colams; while it never produced more than 6,200 on an average. The yield since the years of the re-settlement,