12 



NOETLING : PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



proprietor, rejecting fractions, 136,876 viss, which at i£ tecals, the value at the wells, 

 is equal to 17 10 tecals per annum. From this sum there is to be deducted only a 

 trifle for draw ropes, etc., for I could not learn that there was any further duties 

 or expense to be charged on the produce, but the merchants say they gain only a 

 neat 1000 tecals per annum for each well, and as we advance we shall have reason 

 to think they have given the maximum rather than the minimum of their profits, 

 hence, therefore, we may infer that the gross amount produce per annum is not 

 182,500 viss. 



M Further the four labourers' shares of onesixth deducting the king's tythe, will 

 be 2250 viss per month of thirty days or in money at the above price twenty-eight 

 tecals fifty avas, or seven tecals twelve avas each per man per month, but the wages 

 of a common labourer in this part of the country, as the same persons informed me, 

 is only five tecals per month when hired from day to day; they also admitted that 

 the labour of the oil drawers was not harder than that of common labourers, and the 

 employment was in no way obnoxious to health. To me the smell of the oil was 

 fragrant and grateful, and on being more indirectly questioned (for on this part of the 

 subject perhaps owing to the minuteness of my enquiries I observed most reserve) 

 they allowed that their gain was not much greater than the common labourers of the 

 country, nor is it reasonable to expect it should, for, as there is no mystery in draw- 

 ing of oil, no particular hardships endured, or risk of health, no compulsion or pre- 

 vention pretended, and, as it is the interest of the proprietors to get their work 

 done at the cheapest rate, of course the numbers that would flock to so regular and 

 profitable an employment would soon lower the rate of hire nearly at least to the 

 common wages of the country ; besides I observed no appearance of affluence 

 amongst the labourers, they were meanly lodged and clad, and fed coarsely, not 

 on rice, which in the upper provinces is an article of luxury, but on dry grains and 

 indigenous roots of the nature of Cassada, collected in the wastes by their women and 

 children; further it is not reasonable to suppose that these labourers worked con- 

 stantly, nature always requires a respite, and will be obeyed, however much the 

 desire of gain may stimulate, and this cause must more particularly operate in 

 warm climates to produce what we often improperly call indolence. Even the rigd 

 Cato emphatically says, that the man who has not time to be idle is a slave. A due 

 consideration of this physical and moral necessity ought perhaps to vindicate 

 religious legislators from the reproaches too liberally bestowed on them for sanc- 

 tioning relaxation ; be that as it may, I think it is sufficiently apparent that the 

 article of wages is also exaggerated, and that 500 viss must only be considered as 

 the amount produce of working days, and not an average for every day in the year. 

 The labour of the miners, as I have observed above, is altogether distinct from the 

 oil drawers, and their pay proportioned to the hardships and risks they endure. 



" Assuming therefore as data, the acknowledged profit of 1000 tecals per 

 annum for each well, which we can hardly suppose exaggerated, as it would 

 expose the proprietors to an additional tax, and the common wages of precarious 

 employment in the country, that is one month with another, including holy days 

 the year round, four and a quarter tecals per month as the pay of the oil drawers, 

 which includes the two extremes of the question, it will make the average produce of 



( 58 ) 



