Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.67

v3.c43.t1.67

Distribution of Crops.—To each *charas*, *charsa*, or skin of land, there is attached twenty-five bighas of irrigated land for wheat and barley, with from thirty to fifty bighas more, called *mar*, or *mal*, dependent on the heavens for water, and generally sown with gram. Of the twenty-five bighas of land irrigated from the well, the legislature sanctioned one bigha of opium, and ten to fifteen biswas (twenty biswas are a bigha) of sugar-cane. But in these days of anarchy and confusion, when every one follows his own view of things, they cultivate two of opium and three of cane, and perhaps two of barley, instead of twenty-five, to feed the family! What an unnatural state of agricultural economy is this, when the cultivator sometimes actually purchases food for his family, in order that he may bestow his time and labour on this enervating exotic! But should the foreign markets be closed, and famine, as is not unusual, ensue, what must be the consequence, where the finest corn-country in India is converted to a poppy-garden! In Haraoti they manage these things better; and although its old politic ruler makes use of the districts in Malwa, which he rents from the Mahrattas, for the culture of opium, being himself a trader in it, yet I do not believe he permits its demoralizing influence to enter within his proper domain. It is pleasing to see some traces of the legislative wisdom of past days, and old Zalim knows that it is by the more generous productions of the plough that his country must prosper. But our monopoly acted as an encouragement of this vice; for no sooner was it promulgated that the Compani Sahib was contractor-general for opium, than prince and peasant, nay, the very scavengers, dabbled in the speculation. All Malwa was thrown into a ferment; like the Dutch tulip-bubble, the most fraudulent purchases and transfers were effected by men who had not a ser of opium in their possession. The extent to which this must have gone may be imagined when [636], according to the return, the sales, in the first year of our monopoly, exceeded one million sterling, in which I rather think we gained a loss of some £40,000! It is to be hoped the subject is now better understood, and that the legislature at home will perceive that a perseverance in this pernicious traffic is consistent neither with our honour, our interest, nor with humanity.