GREAT TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 39 



Survey budget should be reduced from 240,000Z. to 200,000^. Two 

 topographical parties were abolished, one full party was transferred 

 to Mysore, its cost being defrayed from the revenues of that State, 

 and similar reductions were made in the Trigonometrical and 

 Revenue Survey branches. These reductions, however, did not 

 entirely commend themselves to the Secretary of State. Further 

 information was called for, Lord Salisbury expressing at the same 

 time his hesitation in sanctioning to the full the proposed reductions 

 except on general financial grounds or in consequence of some 

 recent undue growth of survey expenditure.* The Government of 

 India replied to this in August 1876, setting forth full details of 

 the expenditure during the previous 10 years. Even this informa- 

 tion, however, was not conclusive. The data, in the words of the 

 Secretary of State, gave — 



no indication of any enlargement of these establishments, which may not be regarded 

 as a reasonable result of the increased desire for improved information, such as that 

 which it is the function of the Survey Department to furnish to other branches of the 

 administration. 



His Lordship wenr, on in his replyf to lay stress on the general 

 usefulness of the work of the Department : — 



I continue to attach much importance to the steady progress of the construction and 

 publication of good maps of all parts of the British provinces in India, feeling sensible 

 that without them serious obstacles are necessarily interposed in the way of the acquisi- 

 tion of that complete statistical knowledge of the country, the absence of which has so 

 long been a discredit to our administration, and the application of which is so requisite 

 for the purpose of progressive government. 



I should therefore be glad if, when the time comes for considering the details of the 

 budget for the ensuing year, your Lordship should find yourself in a position to avoid 

 further reductions in the grant to the Survey Department. 



These were statesmanlike words and undoubtedly would have 

 borne fruit in at least arresting further reductions. But in the 

 meantime a grave misfortune had arisen. A famine was over- 

 spreading huge tracts of country, aggregating some 200,000 square 

 miles, in Madras and Bombay, and 36 millions of people were in 

 the most serious plight. It was, in fact, the most grievous calamity 

 of its kind experienced in British India since the beginning of the 

 century. J This terrible state of things and the heavy expenditure 

 caused thereby, which, of course, were not foreseen at the time the 

 Secretary of State's despatch was written in January 1877, made it 



* Geographical Despatch to India, No. 3. dated 24th February 1876. 



+ No. 1, dated 4th January 1877. 



J Report of the Indian Famine Commission, paragraph 60= 



