538 EEPOET — 1891. 



pointed out that the sort of knowledge of the agricultural conditions of 

 an Indian district necessarily gathered by an assessing officer in the 

 process of fixing the land-revenue demand for a term of years ought, for 

 the proper administration of the charge, to be continuously available 

 during that term of years to every officer in charge of a district. The 

 foundation of this knowledge is the returns and records which are 

 annually prepared by the village accountants— officials, usually hereditary 

 officials, who have existed in India for ages before our time. Attention 

 has therefore been directed to the improvement of this indigenous 

 agency and to its more effective supervision in each district by a staff of 

 native officials acting under the orders of the district officer and his 

 principal assistants. The object in view has been to provide for each village 

 a record, always kept up to date, of all essential particulars bearing on 

 its agricultural efficiency, so that from harvest to harvest the i-esponsible 

 functionaries may be supplied with sufficient and trustworthy infor- 

 mation as to the extent and character of the crops grown, as to the 

 prosperous or depressed condition of the peasantry, and as to any risk 

 there may be of famine or scarcity. In this way, if famine comes, it will 

 take no one by surprise, and those concerned will be able to battle with 

 it to the best advantage, because they will possess detailed knowledge of 

 the actual circumstances of particular tracts. If scarcity comes, not 

 amounting to famine, the district officer by timely suspensions or re- 

 missions of the laud-revenue demand, or by the institution of timely 

 relief works, if required, may be able to avert that terrible weakening of 

 the health of the people, due to hard times, which when the sickly 

 autumn months come round culminates in appalling mortality. If there 

 is neither famine nor scarcity the continuous maintenance of correct 

 records of the state of agriculture will enable the next reassessment of 

 the land revenue to be made with speed, and in proportion as the whole 

 system is efficient, the people will be spared, at intervals of twenty or 

 thirty years, the harassment of inquiries by a small army of strange 

 officials, and that cruel drag upon agricultural improvement which 

 consists of prolonged uncertainty as to the rate of land-tax or State rent 

 that they will have to pay. 



If the fii-st great work which in part resulted from, or at least was 

 lai'gely influenced by, the labours of the Famine Commission was the 

 revision of the law of landlord and tenant in Upper India, the second 

 great work has been this thorough and extensive organisation of agri- 

 cultural inquiry which I have been endeavouring to describe. There is 

 a third great wox-k which deserves mention, though it is not really com- 

 parable in extent and complexity with the other two. In each province 

 ^ famine code has been prepared which will serve as a manual of famine 

 relief for the guidance of all concerned on the next occurrence of famine. 

 I have already explained that due regard is being paid to the extension 

 of canal irrigation. As to railway extension, as probably the most 

 powerful of all prophylactics against famine, I leave that subject for the 

 next paper, which is to deal with recent improvements in communi- 

 ■cations. I will only remark, lest I appear to have overlooked so very 

 important an item in agricultural conditions, that in India generally, 

 including native states, there were 8,492 miles of railway open in 1879- 

 80, and that there were open in 1889-90 (by the last return), 16,097 

 miles. The railway mileage has thus been nearly doubled in eleven years. 



I suppose I ought also to say a very few words on what are known as 



