A sum of 20 millions sterling was voted as compensation to the planters.
The currency of the colony, which had formerly twelve shillings to the pound sterling, was assimilated to that of England in 1842.
Both were admirable civil servants, and they had a mutual admiration for each other's sterling qualities.
A loss of £120,000,000 sterling within 13 years, falling on a limited area, and on one class within these two countries, constituted indeed a calamity on a national scale, calling for national effort to contend with its devastating action.
Irrigation protects large tracts against famine, and has immensely increased the wheat output of the Punjab; the Irrigation Commission of 1903 recommended the addition of 62 million acres to the irrigated area of India, and that recommendation is being carried out at an annual cost of 12 millions sterling for twenty years, but at the end of that time the list of works that will return a lucrative interest on capital will be practically exhausted.