33 



scale, of pack bullocks and carts reduced the cost of carriage of 

 goods to 50 per cent, of what it was 20 or 30 years before. 

 The Collector remarks that cheap prices increased the consump- 

 tion of luxuries and ameliorated the condition of the lower 

 •orders. Taking the Presidency as a whole, however, there can 

 be no doubt that between 1830 and 1850, and more especially, 

 between 1835 and 1845, the condition of the agricultural classes 

 was wretched. For detailed particulars regarding the income 

 and the style of living of the different classes of ryots, refer- 

 ence may be made to the account of Mr. Bourdillon printed as 

 appendix B, section III, to this memorandum. 



18. The principal measures adopted by Government during 

 this period for the development of the 

 to ameiiorTtrthe cond^ couutry and the amelioration of the condi- 

 tion of ryots and the ^|qj, ^f ^he agricultural classes were (1) the 



state of communications. ■■ , . . • n .-, -i i' t \s> ^i. 



abolition of the sayer duties and oi the 

 duties on interportal trade ; (2) the abolition of the tobacco 

 monopoly in South Canara and Malabar and of a large number 

 of petty and vexatious imposts ; (3) the relinquishment of 

 the right claimed by former Governments to tax improve- 

 ments to lands carried out solely at the expense of the land- 

 holders ; and (4) the construction of the Cauvery, Goddvari and 

 Kistna anicuts. Sir Charles Trevelyan's famous report on the 

 sayer or inland transit duties in 1834 contains a graphic 

 account of the frightful oppressions suffered by the people and 

 the demoralization caused by the levy of these duties. " If 

 we were to encourage swamps," says Sir Charles Trevelyan, 

 " or accumulate mountains between the different districts of 

 the country, we could not paralyse their industry so effectually 

 as by this scheme of finance." These duties were abolished 

 in the Madras Presidency in 1844 or ten years after the issue 

 of Sir Charles Trevelyan's report. In the report of the Public 

 Works Commission in 1852, we have an account of the state 

 of communications and of the measures taken to improve them. 

 At the time when most of the districts were acquired by the 

 British, says this report, " there was not one complete road 

 throughout the whole Presidency on which it would have been 

 possible to employ wheeled carriages ; their use was therefore 

 very limited, and the distant traffic of the country had nowhere 

 the advantage of them. Trucks were used by those who collect- 

 ed stone for the dams and the tank embankments, and in some 

 localities the harvest was brought in by carts upon wheels 

 either formed of solid pieces of timber or cut from a single 

 block of stone. These carts were drawn by several pairs of 

 bulloc*ks and carried nearly a ton, but they were never used for 

 distant jolimeys. Even the main streets of the largest towns 



5 



