Rather more than one-half of the population of the State is supported by agriculture, and the Census gives the following figures
as regards the cultivators of the soil : —
Rent receivers . . 731,803
Ordinary cultivators . . 4,064,950
Agents, managers, etc. . . 34,540
Farm servants and farm labourers . . . . 2,788,212
There has, during the past ten years, been an extraordinary increase in the number of rent receivers, the Census says, and this shows that the pressure on the land is increasing, and the ownership and profits thereof are being increasingly appropriated by rent receivers. The number of farm labourers and field servants has been swollen by peasant proprietors who have lost their holdings and by indigenous artizans thrown out of employment by cheaper imported articles. The bania, or money-lender, seems to be increasing in power in the Nizam's Dominions, as well as in other parts of India.
Concerning the wages received by farm servants and farm labourers, nothing definite is known, because such people are largely paid in kind, and are more or less the slaves of the cultivators. "To sell into slavery"
