Settlements in this Presidency. Under a treaty of 1815 between France and England, modified by two subsequent conventions entered into in 1818 and 1837 between the Governments of Madras and the French Possessions,1[1] it was agreed that the French, in consideration of an annual payment, should undertake to manufacture no salt in their territories, that the Madras Government should supply them with such salt as they required 'for domestic use and consumption' at cost price, and that they should retail this 'at nearly the same price' as it fetches in adjoining British territory.
In Gódávari, as elsewhere, fish-curing yards have been established in which salt is sold at a little over cost price for use in the curing of fish caught in the sea. There are four of these; namely, at Coringa, Gudarugunta (near Cocanada), Uppada (near Pithápuram) and Konappapéta, further north up the coast. At least three-quarters of the fish cured are small. The larger kinds chiefly include mango fish, sharks and skates. The demand for salted fish is great and exceeds the supply, though the method of curing is primitive if not inadequate. Prices, however, are kept down by the merchants, who make the fishermen advances and so have them in their power.
Salt-earth is at present declared to be contraband only in the Pithápuram and Tuni divisions, certain villages in the Tótapalli zamindari in Peddápuram taluk, the Cocanada and Nagaram taluks, and the Amalápuram taluk less the division under the deputy tahsildar of Kottapéta. Elsewhere the saline soils are neither plentiful enough nor rich enough in salt to constitute a danger to the revenue. The Salt Act is not in force in the Agency, but no saline earths exist there and the supply of salt is all obtained from the low country.
No saltpetre is made in the district, either crude or refined.
The abkári revenue consists of that derived from arrack, toddy, foreign liquor and hemp-drugs. Statistics regarding each of these items, and also concerning opium, will be found in the separate Appendix.
The arrack revenue is managed on what is known as the contract distillery supply system, under which the contract for the exclusive privilege of the manufacture and supply of country spirit in the district is disposed of by tender, an excise duty is levied on the spirit issued from the contractor's distillery or warehouse, and the right of retail sale in licensed shops is sold separately by auction every year. Wholesale vend dépôts are opened by the contractor at places fixed by the Collector, and the number of retail shops is definitely limited. The rates at which the spirit should be sold to the
- ↑ 1 The first two of these papers are printed in extenso in Aitchison's Treaties, etc. (1892), viii, 214-22.
