We have received a note from Mr. Robert Elliot, a
most com- petent witness as to the condition of labourers in Madras, which, on account of its importance, we give here rather than in its usual place. It explains the reason of the danger in Madras better than any number of articles could do :—" Clifton Park, lCelso, N.B., August 8, 1877.—Sir—In your last week's article on India, you say that there are at least one million of persons in the Madras Presidency whose whole property, including their clothes, would not in a good year sell for ten shillings.' I am afraid this is calculated to give your
readers an exaggerated idea of the wealth of the Presidency. If the occupations of the population have been correctly returned in the last Census, there are probably at least five millions whose whole personal property, when new, might approach the sum you mention. In a year of famine like the present such property would be far from new, and therefore probably worth three or four shillings, at the most. And yet, after making these statements of the probable truth, I am almost afraid that I may have conveyed too favourable an idea of the condition of the poorest classes in the Madras Presidency.—Obediently yours, RonErer H. &mom." The economic condition of the Madras Presi- dency is in many respects different from that of the rest of India, and deserves a separate Parliamentary inquiry. The normal state of some districts is always worse than that of Tipperary in the year before the famine.
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