The mode of settling the Mohturfa on looms is remarkable for the precision of its exaction. Every circumstance of the weaver's family is considered; the number of days which he devotes to his loom, the number of his children, the assistance which he receives from them, and the number and quality of the pieces which he can produce in a year; so that, let him exert himself as he will, his industry will always be taxed to the highest degree. [114] This method is so detailed that the servants of the government cannot enter into it, and the assessment of the tax is therefore left to the heads of the villages. It is impossible for a weaver to know what he is to pay to the government for being allowed to carry on his business till the yearly demand is made. If he has worked hard, and turned out one or two pieces of cloth more than he did the year before, his tax is increased. The more industrious he is the more he is forced to pay.
The tax-gatherers are thorough inquisitors. According to Rikards, upward of seventy different kinds of buildings—the houses, shops, or warehouses of different castes and professions—were ordered to be entered into the survey accounts; besides the following implements of professions, which were usually assessed to the public revenue, viz.: "Oil-mills, iron manufactory, toddy-drawer's stills, potter's kiln, washerman's stone, goldsmith's tools, sawyer's saw, toddy-drawer's knives, fishing-nets, barber's hones, blacksmith's anvils, pack-bullocks, cocoa-nut safe, small fishing-boats, cotton-beater's bow, carpenter's tools, large fishing-boats, looms, salt-storehouses. If a landlord objects to the assessment on trees, as old and past bearing, they are, one and all, ordered to be cut down—a measure as ridiculous as unjust—as it not only inflicts injury upon the landlord, but takes away the chance of future profit for the government. Mr. Rikards bears witness, as a collector of Malabar, that lands and produce were sometimes inserted in the survey account which absolutely did not exist, while other lands were assessed to the revenue at more than their actual produce. From all this, it is obvious that the Hindoo labourer or artisan is the slave of the tax-collector, who, moreover, has no interest in the life of his victim.
Labour being almost "dirt cheap" in India, whenever speculating companies of Englishmen wish to carry out any particular scheme for which labourers are required, they hire a number of Hindoo Coolies, induce them to visit any port of the country, and treat them abominably, knowing that the poor wretches have no protection. The operations of the Assam Tea Company illustrate this practice:—
"An inconsiderate expenditure of capital placed the Assam Tea Company in great jeopardy, and at one time it was feared the scheme would be abandoned. The number of managers and assistants appointed by the Assam Company to carry on their affairs and superintend their tea gardens, on large salaries, was quite unnecessary; one or two experienced European superintendents to direct the native establishment would have answered every purpose. A vast number of Coolies (or labourers) were induced to proceed to Upper Assam to cultivate the gardens; but bad arrangements having been made to supply them with proper, wholesome food, many were seized with sickness. On their arrival at the tea-plantations, in the midst of high and dense tree jungle, numbers absconded, and others met an untimely end. The rice served out to the Coolies from the Assam Tea Company's store-rooms, was so bad as not to be fit to be given to elephants, much less to human beings. The loss of these labourers, who had been conveyed to Upper Assam at a great expense, deprived the company of the means of cultivating so great an extent of country as would otherwise have been insured; for the scanty population of Upper Assam offered no means of replacing the deficiency of hands. Nor was the improvidence of the company in respect to labourers the only instance of their mismanagement. Although the company must have known that they had no real use or necessity for a steamer, a huge vessel was nevertheless purchased, and frequently sent up and down the Burrampooter river from Calcutta; carrying little else than a few thousand rupees for the payment of their establishment in Upper Assam, which might have been transmitted through native bankers, and have saved the company a most lavish and unprofitable expenditure of capital." [115]
Ay, and the expense is all that is thought worthy of consideration. The miserable victims to the measures of the company might perish like brutes without being even pitied.
On the verge of starvation, as so many of the Hindoo labourers generally are, it does not excite surprise that they are very ready to listen to the offers of those who are engaged in the "Cooley slave-trade." In addition to the astounding facts given by us in the previous chapter, in regard to this traffic in men, we quote the following from the London Spectator of October, 1838:—
"Under Lord Glenelg's patronage, the Eastern slave-trade prospers exceedingly. The traffic in Hill Coolies promises to become one of the most extensive under the British flag. A cargo arrived in Berbice about the beginning of May, in prime condition: and the Berbice Advertiser, one of the most respectable of the West India journals, states, that out of 289, conveyed in the Whitby, only eight died on the passage, and very few were ill. Only one circumstance was wanting to make them the happiest of human(?) beings—only eight women were sent as companions for the 280 men; and the deficiency of females was the more to be regretted because it was 'probable they would be shunned by the negroes from jealousy and speaking a different language.'
"The same newspaper contains a very curious document respecting the Hill Cooley traffic. It is a circular letter, dated the 8th January, 1838, from Henley, Dowson, and Bethel, of Calcutta, the agents most extensively engaged in the shipment of labourers from India to the Mauritius and British Guiana. These gentlemen thus state their claims to preference over other houses in the same business:—
"'We have within the last two years procured and shipped upward of 5000 free agricultural labourers for our friends at Mauritius; and, from the circumstance of nearly 500 of the number being employed on estates in which we possess a direct interest, we can assure you that a happier and more contented labouring population is seldom to be met with in any part of the world, than the Dhargas or mountain tribes sent from this vast country.'