ooxhx 



rack-rebt their villages to middle-men, and the under-tenants are con- 

 sequently deprived of all chance of accumulating capital, and are 

 little better than serfs of the soil ; the bulk of the ryots in Zemindari 

 estates would hail a change to Government management with joy. I 

 limit these remarks to the Zemindari system as it is worked here. 

 There may be liberal native landlords in other districts, whose policy 

 produces different results ; but in the Ganjam Zemindaries, the profits 

 of the soil are divided between the ryot, the Zemindar, the renter and 

 the Government. In the Government taluks, the ryot and the Govern- 

 ment divide the produce, the ryot taking by far the larger share. There 

 can be no question which class lives under the more favorable con- 

 ditions, and in fact, when the famine fell upon Zemindari estates, the 

 misery and mortality were far greater than in Government taluks." 



(4) Extract from the Report of Mr. Cotton on the condition of the Ryots 

 in the Kalahasti Zemindari, in the North Arcot district, quoted 

 by Mr. W. Dighy in his Memorandum on private relief in the 

 Madras Famine 1877, p. 129, Appendix I, to the Report of the 

 Famine Commission. 



" The Maderpauk division is the southern portion of Kalahasti 

 Zemindari of the North Arcot district. The division contains 178 

 villages, not including hamlets ; the population of which in 1871 

 amounted to 73,085 ; half to two-thirds of these are ryots, or people 

 who earn their livelihood by agricultural pursuits. The greater 

 number of the ryots, of whom the population chiefly consists, are 

 always exceedingly poor, much more so, than in villages belonging to 

 Government, for the following reasons : — The ryot who ploughs and 

 cultivates the land has no real right of occupancy, and hence has no 

 interest in improving his land by sinking wells and manuring it. The 

 effects of this system can be seen at once by comparing the Inam vil- 

 lages of the Zemindari, with those directly under the Zemindar's 

 control. In the fields of the former there are wells, the land is manured, 

 and the owner consequently gets good crops and is generally well to 

 do, living in a good substantial house. In the fields of the latter, there 

 are no wells ; and the fields having no fixed occupants are not manured, 

 and give but a poor return to the labour expended on their cultivation ; 

 the villages [sic in origine) attached to the lands bear invariably a 

 poverty-stricken look. 



'' The Zemindar, Venkatappa Naidu, O.S.I., collects his revenue, 

 not in money, as is done in Government villages, but in kind. The 

 Zemindar is supposed to receive one-half of the outturn of the crop 

 and the cultivator is supposed to receive the other ; but he rarely gets 

 more than a quarter, the other quarter generally going to the subordi- 

 nate Zemindari officials. What remains to the cultivator, after paying 

 everything, is hardly sufficient to keep him and his family in food till 

 the next harvest ; so that, it is a case of living from hand to mouth. 

 If the crops fail for one year for want of water or other causes, most of 

 the cultivators are left absolutely destitute ; and not only the culti- 

 vators and their families, but also the coolies, who, though not actually 

 cultivating themselves, earn their livelihood by working for those that 

 do. The cultivator, when his crops fail, has to use the seed, that he 

 had put by for sowing, as food ; when this is exhausted, he sells his 



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