40 



square miles and the population 6 millions. The effects of the 

 famine were most severely felt in the Ganjam district on account 

 of its comparatively isolated position ; in the Ceded districts, 

 however, in which the ryots had made large gains owing to 

 the high price of cotton which ruled during the years of the 

 American war, the famine was comparatively mild. The period 

 of high prices continued till about 1870 when there was a 

 sudden reaction. The loans for public works, which had caused 

 the influx of silver into India, ceased ; and remittances of large 

 sums to England for the payment of Home charges and the 

 interest on loans already contracted became necessary ; and on 

 account of these and other causes prices fell heavily. There 

 was considerable uneasiness caused also by the continual increase 

 of taxation, which, though lighter than it was before 1850, was 

 still severely felt, as the increase synchronized with a period of 

 falling prices. The fact was that the inflated prices of the 

 years of the cotton famine had led to extravagance and when 

 the reaction came, the ryots were unable to adapt themselves to 

 the altered conditions. In the Bombay Presidency especially, 

 the agricultural classes, finding that their lands had acquired 

 value, borrowed largely on them from Marwadi soukars, and 

 the repeal of the usury laws and the enforcement by the Civil 

 Courts of extortionate contracts without considering whether 

 the terms agreed to were equitable, had led to distress and 

 riots. In the Madi-as Presidency, however, the agricultural 

 classes who were not in the hands of soukars to the same 

 extent did not suffer similarly. But that they felt considerably 

 upset even in the comparatively prosperous district of Tanjore 

 will be evident from the following remarks of the Collector of 

 that district extracted from a report written by him in ]871. 

 *' So long as prices ruled at between double and treble the 

 commutation rate, and ^ro tanto reduced the Government de- 

 mand to between one-third and one-half of what it used to be, 

 the Tanjore mirasidar could well afford to pay his kists in 

 advance and at the same time indulge in the luxuries of 

 litigation as well as in a high style of living. A deficiency in 

 the outturn of his harvest was then a matter of comparative 

 indifference to him. Now, however, a marked decline in prices 

 has considerably altered this state of things. Not even the 

 wealthier landed proprietors escaped the process of distraint 

 under Act II of 1864 this year, and it is a fact that in Ap: :1 

 and May, the months of heavy kists, jewels of no small value 

 came into the money market for loans which were obtained on 

 12 and, in several instances, as much as *24 per cent, interest. 

 I, of course, do not mean to say that the Government demand 

 does not, on the whole, now leave a liberal margin ef profit to 



