FYZ
425
It may be remarked also, that a great deal of distress may exist in July and August, and remain comparatively obscure; in January and February all the officers are in camp among the people, and no indication of want is left unnoticed. But one thing is certain, that the averages of the whole years are most deceptive as to the abundance or scarcity of food the average prices of each grain in its proper season of abundance should alone be regarded. There has been a condition of things in which coarse grains like barley and peas sold for 15 sers for the rupee during the months from June to August, and only scarcity existed. In what number of cases that scarcity resulted in death from inanition or famine diseases we cannot tell. That without Government aid scarcity is likely to become famine, through the mere agency of panic, is more to be dreaded in that particular season which the natives have picturesquely named the " khali fasl," when the earth is bare of all that is green and promising, when the parched soil cannot be broken up by the plough, and labour for daily wages is with Government will never require to take action in the difiBculty obtained. shape of storing grain except after a bad kharif, succeeded by a poor rabi, and attended by exportation. Any one bad season may render it advisaIt must always be borne in mind that there is able to open public works. no such distinction between scarcity and famine as that in one men are badly fed, in the other they die of starvation. The difference lies simply in the proportion of the population which must be relieved by State aid It is too true that persons die of starvation in every scarcity, or must die. and particularly during the rains, when the rising of a river may stop access to means of relief; or the attenuated traveller may die of exhaustion and exposure to the flood. Fyzabad has a railway running through its entire The same length, and a great river which borders it for sixty miles. means of communication by which it is drained of its stores in good years should be able to bring it relief in bad years.
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some places, and are now higher than in probably hardly so high as in Bara Banki. Gonda, but J, There are in Fyzabad very numerous artificial advantages in the shape of irrigation wells and tanks for these the tenants should fairly pay. The law courts in Fyzabad have decreed very numerous tenures to Brahmans and Chhattris who were old proprietors, and who are to pay two annas in the rupee less than the tenants whose lands In very many, perhaps the majority of cases, those adjoin theirs. tenants are Kachhis or Chamars, many of them paying very high rents, ,such as high-caste men cannot afford to pay, and the result is that these decree-holders are found coming forward and praying for leave to give up these lands with the accompanying privileges. In the neighbourhood of Fyza;bad I found land in which the Kachhi occupants had to dig their own wells every year, and one or two always fell in with the first effort to draw water, yet their rent had been raised from Rs. 3 to Rs. 6-8-0 per local bigha, or Rs. 32 per acre. Further south, rents had been raised from Re. 1-8-0 to Rs. 2 per loca;l bigha. Eents are
rising rapidly in
,
declared to be the rise in Government land revenue, but have been generally the case. I found very high rents paid both by zamindars and tenants near D^r&ganj, which is a perpetual rent-free
The cause was
this cannot
