"_Please discourage relief works in every possible way._ It may be, however, that when agricultural operations are over, some of the people may want work. This, however, except on works for which there is budget provision, should only be given if the collector is satisfied that without it the people would actually starve. _Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work._ And if a relief work be started, task-work should be rigorously exacted, _and the people put on the barest subsistence wage_; so that we may be satisfied that if any other kind of work were procurable elsewhere, they would resort to it." In accordance with the letter and spirit of these instructions the famine-stricken multitudes were literally starved off such scanty works as were open. The "barest subsistence wage" was fined down, smaller and smaller, until the people abandoned the works in despair, and returned to their villages to die. Nay, in some places, the public works which had been duly sanctioned in the yearly budget were transformed into relief works; and the labourers upon them, instead of being paid at the ordinary market rates, were reduced to the "barest subsistence wage, task-work being rigorously exacted." A beneficent but economical Government took advantage of the dire extremity to which its subjects were reduced to reap this unexpected profit out of their miseries. None the less, "the Viceroy in Council unhesitatingly accepts the statement of the local government, that no one who was willing to go to a relief work need have died of famine." The License Tax.