xxxvu 



criptions of agricultural produce. The assessments o£ Sir Thomas 

 Munro in the Madras districts failed from this cause. So did the 

 early Revenue settlement of the Bombay territories, and also the 

 permanent settlement of Bengal, which occasioned the ruin of the first 

 proprietors. And quite recently we have had a striking example of 

 the same phenomenon in the case of the Punjab. It is stated in the 

 report of the Board of Administration for the years 1849-50 and 

 1850-51, printed for the Court of Directors, that fixed money assess- 

 ments were substituted in 1847 for the system we found in existence, 

 and that in the whole of the Punjab a reduction of the land tax, equal 

 to "25 per cent., has been effected. The demand for food has not 

 decreased ; it has probably increased ; for although the army of the 

 late Government has been disbanded, there are not, between the 

 Sutlej and the Khyber, less than 60,000 fighting men with, perhaps, 

 five times that number of camp followers. Hence there is a larg'er 

 demand than before for food over the country generally, though the 

 market round about Lahore is more limited. The labour employed 

 on canals, roads, cantonments, and other public works must cause the 

 circulation of large sums of money, and inci'ease the demand for food. 

 The pay of our army within the limits (of the Punjab) has been esti- 

 mated to be equal to one million six hundred and fifty thousand 

 pounds. The expenditure by the various civil establishments, the 

 Commissariat and Executive departments, and the different works in 

 progress under the Board, are probably equal to another million ; 

 so that nearly double the Punjab revenues are at present spent in the 

 country. In despite, however, of large reductions (of assessment), 

 the complaints during the past year on the part of the agriculturists 

 have been Uoud and general. Prices (in many villages) have fallen a 

 half. The cry of over-assessment is loud and general. There has 

 been a very general demand among the agriculturists for a return to 

 grain payments, and to a division or appraisement of the crops every 

 season. 



" It is clear from these statements of the Board of Administration 

 that the specie in the Punjab must have been largely increased under 

 our rule, even if we make the most ample allowance for the re-export 

 of a portion of it, remitted by our sepoys and camp followers to their 

 homes in the older provinces. And yet, in the face of this large 

 inci'ease of coin in circulation, prices have fallen nearly 50 per cent. 

 The Board, following the example of our early Collectors, attribute 

 this decline of prices to abundant harvest and extension of cultiva- 

 tion ; but it may well be doubted whether the increase of production 

 in the Punjab, up to the time referred to in the Board^s report, had 

 more than kept pace with the increased consumption due to the 

 presence of our army, numbering with its camp followers nearly four 

 hundred thousand souls. The phenomenon of a great and sudden fall 

 of prices is not singular, or confined to the Punjab, but was equally 

 observable in other parts of India when they first passed under the 

 rule of the British Government. The fall in the former, as in the 

 latter case, will be of a lasting character, and an explanation for it 

 must be sought in some cause of wider and more enduring action than 

 the casual state of the harvest, or the extension of land under tillage. 

 These circumstances may have contributed to the effect, as already 



