Ixzx 



was wortli Rs. 30 or Rs. 2| per month. Taking the whole Presi- 

 dency, he was of opinion that it would probably not be much wide 

 of the mark to assume the average earnings of unskilled labourers to 

 bo about Rs. 3 a month. There was no doubt that the wages of 

 labour had increased since fasli 1263 (1853-54) though not in propor- 

 tion to prices, the latter having risen by 100 per cent, while the 

 former rose by about 50 per cent. So far the condition of the labour- 

 ing classes must be held to have improved. 



Mr. P. Chentsal Row. — The money wages of labourers everywhere 

 nearly doubled, but wages to agricultural labourers were paid in grain 

 and continued unaltered. A full grown labourer in Nellore (of which 

 Mr. Chentsal Row was a native and a landholder) got from I| to 2 

 tooms^ of paddy or one toom of jonna or ragi monthly with a cumbli 

 and a pair of slippers a year. This was all that had been always paid. 

 The condition of the agricultural labourers had not materially or at all 

 improved, excepting in towns and villages in the vicinity of the 

 railway. 



Mr. Wedderhurn, Collector of Goimhatore. — Wages were good and 

 employment general ; in some places skilled labour, such as, that of 

 the carpenter, the mason, &c., was very high owing to the extension 

 of the railway. 



There was an increase in money wages ; grain wages were the 



same as to quantity ; but more 

 valuable relatively to money. The 

 cultivators or field-hands of the 

 irrigated lands working for the 

 landlords remained in much the 

 same condition ; ryots cultivating 

 their own lands, in other words, 

 owners of dry land, had, by the 

 sinking of wells at their own cost, 

 without being charged for the improvement, as was usual under the 

 old native system, advanced in wealth and comfort. The ryot pro- 

 prietor and his sons worked their well, tended the cattle, and ploughed 

 the fields J all worked who had not the means to be idle; the females 

 also spun. 



Next there were the lowest classes in every village who earned 

 their subsistence by cutting grass, weeding fields, &c. ; except in 

 unfavorable seasons when grass failed or cultivation was not carried 

 on, they maintained themselves according to their own standard ; 

 when there was no thought of the morrow and people multiplied 

 without the restraints which better circumstances or higher standards 

 of living entail, there was no likelihood of much advancement. But 

 though emigration agents were beating up for recruits in every village 

 and bazaar, and promised food, clothing and Rs. 6 per mensem, 

 apparently they met with limited success; 90 in a population of If 

 millions appeared before him as magistrate, to be attested, in the 

 course of 12 months from November 1871 to November 1872. There 

 was neither fear of the sea nor of distant travel and those that went 

 had usually no local tie. 



» A toom = 37-1 Madras measures ; its value in the country was about Rs. If. 



