42 



The salt-tax has probably in this Presidency been raised to the 

 highest point at which it will not injuriously affect consumption. 

 The greater facilities for carriage afforded by the extension 

 of railways have, doubtless, -tended and must continue to reduce 

 the tax to the inland consumer, but consumption is neverthe- 

 less not increasing proportionately with the increase of wealth 

 and population. The tax, however, being an indirect one, is 

 not likely to be the subject of complaint unless enhanced to a 

 prohibitive rate, but it is deserving of serious consideration 

 whether it is not now so high as to be a financial mistake in this 

 Presidency. The other Imperial taxes, except the income-tax, 

 do not seem to call for remark ; but as regards this latter tax, 

 the opinions collected are almost universally condemnatory of 

 it, not so much as being in its present form felt as a heavy 

 burden, but as being unequal in incidence and incapable of fair 

 adjustment, as calculated to demoralize those who assess and 

 those who pay, as aggravating the burden of municipal taxation, 

 as maintaining a feeling of distrust as to the financial policy of 



Government The experiment of local taxation is 



of much more recent introduction and the time has not yet 

 arrived for forming a just judgment as to its merits. It cannot 

 be doubted that the pressure of this taxation is more severely 

 felt, and it must be confessed that the house-tax, as a method 

 of providing funds for elementary education beyond the limits 

 of municipalities, is at present regarded with strong dislike by 

 the great majority of rate-payers. The application of the tax 

 up to the present time has been comparatively limited and its 

 extension will be gradual and cautious." 



21. Before the country had time to recover from the shock 

 ine f 1876 78 causcd by the sudden fall in prices below 

 the inflated level they had attained in the 

 sixties, by the new and unfamiliar forms of taxation and by 

 the succession of laws issuing out of the legislature, it was 

 visited with the famine of 1876-78, the most terrible in point 

 of magnitude, intensity and duration, that was known for 

 upwards of a century. This calamity was the result of a 

 drought extending over three successive years and affecting a 

 tract of country 1^00,000 square miles in extent with a popu- 

 lation of 36 millions ; and no country which is purely agricultural 

 can, of course, expect to make head against a disaster on such 

 a scale. The area which suffered in the Madras Presidency 

 alone was 74,000 square miles containing a population of 16 

 millions. Notwithstanding the gigantic efforts made by the 

 Government, three-quarter million of persons on an average 

 having been relieved daily for a period of 22 months, and the 

 cost of the famine including revenue remitted amolinting to 



