ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 31
of the country, through the medium and instrumentality of whom alone, any criminal complaint of personal grievance suffered by the subject can reach the superior courts. Imagine, at the same time, every subordinate officer, employed in the collection of the land revenue to be a police officer, vested with the power to fine, confine, put in the stocks, and flog any inhabitant within his range, on any charge, without oath of the accuser, or sworn recorded evidence in the case.”
To this Mr. Martin adds, “If anything could open the eyes of those who uphold the Ryotwar System at Madras, these torture revelations ought to do so. The late Mr. Sullivan, member of Council at Madras, declared to the author, that when he saw the cartloads of silver leaving his cutchery (treasury) for Madras, and remembered the poverty of the people from whom it was collected, he shuddered at the thought of their prospect during the ensuing year, as the demands of the government were inexorable and a certain amount of money must be forthcoming.”
The Pressure of Inland Transit duties will be considered later when we come to the economic condition of India during the Company’s rule.
As over against this pressure of taxation we have very little information regarding the income of the people.
Nothing gives a better idea of the pressure of the tax than its comparison with the income : but our knowledge of the income of the people is very scanty. According to Munro the average wages of an agricultural laborer was between 4s. and
6s. monthly and that the cost of subsistence was between 18s. and 27s. a head per annum.
What was the pressure of the tax we do not know. Circumstantial evidence goes to prove that it must have been great.
IV
Mr. Martin sums up the entire financial history most succinctly as follows :—
“The expectations raised by Clive of the prosperity which would follow the territorial acquisitions of the Company, were so far from being fulfilled, that it was found on this (when the Dewanee of Bengal and Behar was granted to the Company) and on subsequent occasions, that increase of revenue was almost invariably attended with more than commensurate