28 



cash. Hence, if the circulating medium was limited in quan- 

 tity, its ' duty,' that is, the number and amount of the 

 transactions in which it had to be exchanged for goods or 

 labour, was still more limited and prices were high. After 

 the general introduction of British rule, a heavier ' duty ' was . 

 thi'own upon the cii'culating medium by the extension of 

 trade, by the greater demands of the revenue for cash (espe- 

 cially of the land revenue, assessments in kind being converted 

 into assessments in coin), by the system of the British Gov- 

 ernment of paying its army and its officers in money. The 

 circulating medium could not expand to the extent demanded 

 by this altered state of things ; importation of bullion was 

 not sufficient to make up the amount annually withdrawn from 

 circulation by waste, by being hoarded or by being converted 

 into ornaments; or at any rate was not sufficient to increase 

 the currency in proportion to the greater ' duty ' thrown on it, 

 while at the same time, with peace and a settled government 

 there was a great extension of cultivation and consequent 

 increase of production. Hence prices steadily fell." ^^ This 

 period was one of acute suffering to the agricultural classes and 

 the revenues declined greatly in several districts. 



17. In the reports of the Collectors on the state of the 

 several districts during this period, and those of the Com- 

 missioners appointed to enquire into the causes of the decline of 

 the revenues in the several parts of the Presidency, we have 

 full information regarding the condition of the ryots in those 

 days. I shall here mention the principal facts gathered from 

 these reports as regards typical districts. Notwithstanding the 

 large remissions sanctioned by Sir Thomas Munro in the assess- 

 ment of the Ceded districts, we find the Collector of Cuddapah, 

 Mr. Dalzell, writing to the Board in 1828 as follows : " The 

 present system of revenue management is clearly favorable to 

 the more substantial class of ryots in a degree beyond that of 

 our predecessors (Hyder and Tippoo), but it is to be feared 

 that the case is different with the poorer cultivators. . . . 

 Our system, it is true, admits of the entire remission of rent 

 when cultivation is prevented or crops are actually destroyed by 

 want of water, but it does not allow much for deficient crops. 

 . . . . The ryots are more in the hands of merchants than 

 perhaps you are prepared to hear. . . . The peasantry 

 are too poor to more than keep up their cultivation with 

 Takavi when they have met with no extraordinary losses. 



^^^ *''''^'"''"' "-^ ^^oral and Material Progress of India for 1882-83, vol. I, page 

 Tocn ^ "^°^^ detailed explanation of the causes of the fall of prices between tSSO and 



1850, see also the Article from the Bombay Quarterly Journal, 1857, printed in the 

 appendix A, section III. "^ ^ , 



