Ixxxii 



rupee in tlie month or 12 rupees in the year, the total wages would 

 amount to Rs. 33 and it was more or less this sum that the labourer 

 got from his master every year. This did not include the wages of 

 his wife. 



Mr. PacJde, Golledor of Tinnevelly. — The wages of labour in this 

 district were high. Four annas a day for men coolies had been the 

 general rate for the previous 10 years. At harvest time everywhere 

 and throughout the year in the northern taluks the rate had been as 

 high as six annas a day, but latterly there was a decrease and during 

 the non-cultivation season of 1872 any quantity of labour was pro- 

 curable at Palamcottah at from three annas to three annas and-a-half 

 per diem. At the cotton screws at Tuticorin men coolies were 

 receiving four annas a day, and in the coffee estates on the hills the 

 same rates prevailed. The agricultural pullars attached to the land 

 received their wages in kind as formerly. The position both of the 

 free labourers and the indlars in this district was remarkably good ; 

 they were better fed and clothed than similar classes in any of the 

 districts south of Madras, and their houses as a rule were superior to 

 and were very diflferent from the squalid huts that were to be found 

 elsewhere. 



Mr. Brandt, Sub-Collector of Tinnevelly. — The following was the 

 result of his experience and of enquiries made unofficially among 

 those personally acquainted with the matter, and among some of the 

 labourers and coolies themselves. The hereditary cultivating peasants, 

 pnllars as they were there called, who not many years previously had 

 been absolute slaves and whose condition was but little above slavery, 

 were invariably paid in grain, whether in zemindaries or lands held 

 by other landowners. The working season was about 8 or 9 months 

 in the year, of which some 60 days they were employed in cultivation 

 and some 40 days in harvesting operations ; during the rest of these 

 8 or 9 months they got some odd work in the way of baling water 

 and so on. 



The earnings of apullan and his wife during the working season 

 in the Valliyur division of the N^nguneri taluk were as follows : — 



Kotahs. Merkals. Measures. 

 Two measures of rice a day or for 9 



months ... 

 Harvest allowances ... 

 Gleaning 



Special allowances called sivatan- 

 tranis or nallanashtam (allowances 

 for good or for bad) as in the case 

 of a birth, marriage, maturity of 



a child or death in the family ... 6 



Calculating the kotah at Rs. 6 in money this was Hs- 36 in the year. 

 The expenditure was as follows : — 



RS. 



Value of diet and household expenses... ... ... 24 



Drink, without which they would not work ... ... 6 



Clothing ... ... ... ... ... ... 6 



Total ... 36 



