pressed the magistrate received a letter from Captain Robinson, who was in charge of the bazaars at Elichpur in the Hyderabad territory,[14] where the dearth had become even more felt than at Sagar, requesting to know what measures had been adopted to regulate the price, and secure the supply of grain for the city and cantonments at Sagar, since no good seemed to result from those hitherto pursued at Elichpur.  He told him in reply that these things had hitherto been regulated at Sagar as he thought ’they ought to be regulated everywhere else, by being left entirely to the discretion of the corn-dealers themselves, whose self-interest will always prompt them to have a sufficient supply, as long as they may feel secure of being permitted to do what they please with what they collect.  The commanding officer, in his anxiety to secure food for the people, had hitherto been continually interfering to coerce sales and regulate prices, and continually aggravating the evils of the dearth by so doing’.  On the receipt of the Sagar magistrate’s letter a different course was adopted; the same assurances were given to the corn-dealers, the same ability and inclination to enforce them manifested, and the same result followed.  The people and the troops were steadily supplied; and all were astonished that so very simple a remedy had not before been thought of.

The ignorance of the first principles of political economy among European gentlemen of otherwise first-rate education and abilities in India is quite lamentable, for there are really few public officers, even in the army, who are not occasionally liable to be placed in the situations where they may, by false measures, arising out of such ignorance, aggravate the evils of dearth among great bodies of their fellow men.  A soldier may, however, find some excuse for such ignorance, because a knowledge of these principles is not generally considered to form any indispensable part of a soldier’s education; but no excuse can be admitted for a civil functionary who is so ignorant, since a thorough acquaintance with the principles of political economy must be, and, indeed, always is considered as an essential branch of that knowledge which is to fit him for public employment in India.[15]

In India unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe.  In England not more than one-fourth of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the lands around them.  Three-fourths of the people have incomes independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon them fail.  The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value to four times the amount of the annual rent of their lands.  They have also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare that more than one or two of them fail, or are considerably affected, the same season.  If