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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
NOVEMBER, 1911
gross produce, were paid by the cultivators alone from their share, they had really only about 23 per cent. As regards lands under dry cultivation, the demads were made in a mnost arbitrary nantier, and were invariably increased if the out-turn of the crops happened to be better than usual. The sale of grain, moreover, was a strict monopoly, the price being fixed by the manager. All importation was forbidden, and it was an offence punishable by exorbitant fines, even to lend a neighbour such small quantities of grain as he might require for his immediate support. The grain.was taken from the cultivators at the rate of 7 and 8 fanams" per kalam, and sold back to them from Government granaries kept in different parts of the district, at 9 and 10 fanams per kalam. Wben Mr. Wallace, the first Collector of Trichinopoly, settled the Government revenue, he had to base his settlement on the prices of grain prevailing in the neighbouring districts, as its natural prices in the Trichinopoly district itself could not be ascertained in consequence of the Government monopoly in it which had iong been subsisting there. Tanjore, which was in the Nawab's possession during the years 1774-5, was almost rained, as Schwartz, the well-known Lutheran Missionary, puts it in a letter to his English friends in 1799, by his "inhuman exactions." In 1774-5, the year of his sole management, the Nawab extorted from the landholders no less than eighty-one lakhs of rupees- som not yet reached with all the development of the natural resources of the country under the influence of peace and improved administration in the course of more than a century of British role. The highest revenue exacted by the Marathas of Tanjore was 57 lakhs of rupees, and that was by Raja Pratậpsing in 1761.9* In Tinnevelly from 1770 to 1780, the usual grain rents prevailed, and the Nawab's Government took 60 per cent of the gross out-turn of the wet land ; and from 1780 to the end of the century 50 per cent. after deducting before the division some small cultivation expenses, besides ready-money cesses of varying amounts.95 In Nellore, the Nawab took 55 per cent, while the village fees absorbed 3 per cent., leaving only 414 per cent, to the ryote.96
Besides the income derived from the land, the Nawab had various other sources of revenue, all of them of a ready-money character, by which he squeezed out the poor inbabitants of their last coins. This was in general known as the “Sayer" or miscellaneous revenge and, as usual, rented out to the highest bidders. It comprised the duty on salt, transit duties collected at inland stations on all kinds of merchandise, personal and professional taxes, called Motur pha, sometimes levied on houses or shops and sometimes as a poll tax, on mercbants, weavers, oilmakers, fishermen, goldsmiths, brass-smiths, dyers, painters, cotton-spinners, etc., all assessed on no fixed principles; and the export and import duties. The evil of renting the transit duties tended to the multiplication of stations where they were exacted, so much so that in some cases they were erected three miles off each other on the same road. "So unsupportable," complains Colonel Fallerton, is this evil, that between Negapatam and Palghatcherry, not more than three hundred miles, there are about thirty places of collection; or, in other words, a tax is levied every ten miles upon the produce of the country." But their number was not so great a check on the trade a. the uncertainty and variation of rates. The effect was, the trade was checked very greatly. N. enterprises involving the transport of goods for long distances could be undertaken, as the profit. would be swallowed up in customs; and the variation of rates rendered & safe calculation of prof. impossible. That such a system, or rather the want of it, such as this, should have the effect of
# 30 Janame made a pajoda; so that a fanam equalled 1 anns and 10 pies of our present ourrency.
Trichinopoly District Manual (lat Edn.), pp. 180-1, quoting Mr. Wallace's Settlement Report for Fasli. 12:1 (1801-2).
n Wilks' Historical Sketches, I, Appdr. 523, et seq.
► The average land revenue for the 3 years ending 1901-2, inoluding cesses of Tanjore, is 64'18 lakhs. For Madras Administration Report for 1901.2, pp. 82, et seq.
Tanjore District Manwal, 1st Edition, pp. 810 and 467. * Tinnevelly Mannal, 70-1. "Nellore Manual, ..
