Ixxxiii 



In Shermddevi in the Ambasamu- 

 dram taluk, a pnllan was reckoned 

 to get about a measure and-a-half 

 and his wife a measure a day in 

 the working season or 



Allowances at peshanam harvest ... 

 Do. at kar harvest ... 



Swatantram ... ... •... 



By other field labour 



Gleaning 



Extra jobs 



Kotahs. Merkals. Measures. 







equivalent to Rs. 42 per annum. The expenditure was fully equi- 

 valent to the income. For a considerable part of the year these 

 labourers could not take a full meal at all. 



A cooly or day labourer's wages varied from two annas to three 

 annas four pies per diem and his wife's earnings were taken at from 

 one anna four pies to two annas, according to the nature of the work; 

 for mere carrying and light jobs the lower rates were given ; for the 

 higher, such work as erecting mud walls^ rude building operations 

 and so on, was exacted. The higher rate was that usually paid by 

 the Public Works Department. They were paid sometimes in kind 

 and sometimes in money. Allowing for feast days, days on which 

 religious ceremonies, bathing in oil, &c., were performed, a cooly 

 would not work more than two-thirds of a month and the working 

 season could not be put down at more than 8 months ; the earnings 

 of a cooly and his wife might accordingly be taken at between Rs. 48 

 and Rs. 60 a-year, according to the nature of their work, and taking 

 their expenditure as equivalent to 7 kotahs of paddy (or at Rs. 6 a 

 kotah) equivalent to Rs. 42 or at the higher rate as equivalent to Rs. 

 55 a year, there was a margin of saving which, however, was actually 

 but seldom put by. There was, however, no doubt that this class was 

 better off than the hereditary farm servants. 



The slicinars or palmyra-climbers simply got a share of the sweet 

 toddy and the jaggery or coarse sugar which they collected, from 

 their employers. One shanan could not extract the produce of more 

 than 30 trees in the working season and from this he got a share and 

 sold such of the jaggery as he did not require for consumption. The 

 working season comprised some 8 months and his earnings could not 

 be more than Rs. 3 or Rs. 3-8-0 per mensem, or in other words Rs. 

 24 or Rs. 28 a-year. They had only one meal a day, consisting of 

 rice or other grain, with some toddy or jaggery during the daytime. 



On the whole, the labouring classes could earn little more and 

 often not enough to keep them in the bare necessaries of life ; where 

 a man and his wife had children not old enough to contribute their 

 small quota of labour, they were still more hardly pressed ; when their 

 children were old enough to labour, their family earnings would be 

 more, while their expenditure was not proportionately increased. 

 There had been no increase in the wages of the hereditary farm 

 labourers nor was their any likelihood of its increase. These people 



