Land Settlement. more familiar to Anglo-Indians, and none more obscure to the English public, than that of land settlement.' Nor has any subject given rise to more voluminous controversy. It will here suffice to explain the general principles upon which the system is based, and to indicate the chief differences in their application to the several Provinces. That the State should appropriate to itself a share of the produce of the soil, is a maxim of finance which has been recognised throughout the East from time immemorial. The germs of rival systems in India can be traced in the survival of military and other service tenures, and in the poll tax of Assam and Burma. The early development of the Indian land system was due to two conditions, a comparatively high state of agriculture, and an organized plan of administration,—both of which were supplied by the primitive village community. During the lapse of generations, despite domestic anarchy and foreign conquest, the Hindu village preserved its simple customs, written only in the imperishable tablets of tradition. In the ancient village community, the land was held, not by private owners, but by of India. occupiers under the village corporation: the Hindu revenue was due, not from individuals, but from the village community represented by its head-man. The harvest of the hamlet was dealt with as a common fund; and before the general distribution, the head-man was bound to set aside the share of the king. No other system of taxation could be theoretically more just, or in practice less obnoxious, to the people. This ancient land system may still be found in parts of India, both under British and native rule; and it prevailed almost universally before the Muhammadan conquest. Ancient land system Musalmán land tax. The Musalmáns brought with them the avarice of conquerors, and a stringent system of revenue collection. Under the Mughal Empire, as organized by Akbar the Great, the share of the State was fixed at one-third of the gross produce of the soil; and an army of tax-collectors intervened between the cultivator and the supreme government. The vocabulary of our own land system is borrowed from the Mughal administration. The zamindár himself is a creation of the Muhammadans, unknown to the early Hindu system. He was originally a mere tax-collector, or farmer of the land revenue, who agreed to pay a lump sum from the tract of country assigned to him. But the Hindu chief or local magnate was often accepted by the Mughals as the zamíndár, or revenue contractor, for the lands under his control. In this way, the Indian zamíndárs as a body are of mixed origin, and represent in some cases not merely an official status, but hereditary rights. If the Hindu village system may be praised for its justice, the Mughal farming system had at least the merit of efficiency. Shah Jahán and Aurangzeb, as we have seen,1 extracted a larger land revenue than we obtain at the present day. When the responsibility of governing the country was first The Comundertaken by the East India Company, no attempt was pany's made to understand the social system upon which the payment efforts. of land revenue was based. The zamindár was conspicuous The and useful; the village community and the cultivating rayat did camíndár. not force themselves into notice. The zamindár seemed a solvent person, capable of keeping a contract; and his official position as tax-collector was confused with the proprietary rights of an English landlord. In Bengal, the zamíndár has been raised by law to the status of a proprietor, holding at a quit-rent payable to the State, fixed in perpetuity. In Madras and most other parts of India, the actual cultivator has been raised to the same status, subject also to a quit-rent, fixed at intervals of thirty years. The aim of the British authorities has Growth of everywhere been to establish private property in the soil, so far private as is consistent with the punctual payment of the revenue. rights. in India. The annual Government demand, like the succession duty Landed in England, is the first liability on the land; when that is property satisfied, the registered landholder in Bengal has powers of sale or mortgage scarcely more restricted than those of a tenant in fee-simple. At the same time, the possible hardships, as regards the cultivator, of this absolute right of property vested in the owner have been anticipated by the recognition. of occupancy rights or fixity of tenure, under certain conditions. Legal titles have everywhere taken the place of unwritten customs. Land, which was merely a source of livelihood to the cultivator and of revenue to the State, has become a valuable property to the holders. The fixing of the revenue demand has conferred upon the holder a credit which he never before possessed, and created for him a source of future profit arising out of the unearned increment. This credit he may use improvidently. But none the less has the land system of India been raised from a lower to a higher stage of civilisation; that is to say, from holdings in common to holdings in severalty, and from the corporate possession of the village community to individual proprietary rights. With regard to the money rates of the assessment, ample 1 See ante, pp. 240, 241, and post, pp. 351-353 The Land Settlement. Village evidence exists. They may be broadly stated to vary from 4d. to 4s. 6d. per cultivated acre, according to the quality of the land. The average is about 2s. per cultivated acre. In the North-Western Provinces they average 2s. Iid. per acre. In the Punjab, with the same system of Land Settlement, but an inferior soil, they average is. 4d. But the actual share of the crop, represented by these rates, is a very difficult problem. The Mughal assessment was fixed at one-third of the produce. Under many native rulers, this rate was increased to one-half, and under some to three-fifths. For example, I found that in Párikud the Rájá's officers used to take ths of the crop on the threshing-floor, leaving only two-fifths to the cultivator.1 The English revenue officers adhere to the old theory of a third of the produce, but they make so many deductions in favour of the peasant, as to reduce the Government share to about one-seventeenth of the crop. This question will be discussed in some detail in my general comparison of English and Mughal taxation. It must here suffice to say that the Famine Commissioners, the only body who have had the whole evidence before them, estimate the land tax throughout British India at from 3 per cent. to 7 per cent. of the gross outturn.' The old native basis of division, although retained in name in some Provinces, has disappeared in practice. Instead of the ruling power taking from 33 to 60 per cent., the average land tax of the British Government throughout India is only 5 per cent. of the produce of the fields. The means by which the land revenue is assessed is known as Settlement, and the assessor is styled a Settlement Officer. In Lower Bengal, the assessment has been accomplished once and for all; but throughout the greater part of India the process is ever going on. The details vary in the different Provinces; but, broadly speaking, a Settlement may be described as the ascertainment of the agricultural capacity of the land. Prior to the Settlement is the work of Survey, which determines the area of every village, and in some Provinces of every field. Then comes the Settlement Officer, whose duty it is to estimate the character of the soil, the kind of crop, the opportunities for irrigation, the present means of communication, their probable development, and all other circumstances which Process of tend to affect the value of the produce. With these facts before him, he proceeds to assess the Government demand upon the land, according to certain general principles, which may vary in the several Provinces. The final result is a Settlement Report, 1 See my Orissa, vol. i. p. 34 (ed. 1872). 2 See post, pp. 352-354. Settlement. which records, as in a Domesday Book, the whole agricultural statistics concerning the District. manent LOWER BENGAL, and a few adjoining Districts of the North- The PerWestern Provinces and of Madras, enjoy a Permanent Settle- Settlement ment, i.e. the land revenue has been fixed in perpetuity. When of Bengal. the Company obtained the diwání or financial administration of Bengal in 1765, the theory of a Settlement, as described above, was unknown. The existing Muhammadan system was adopted in its entirety. Engagements, sometimes yearly, some- Our first times for a term of years, were entered into with the zamindárs attempts, 1768-89. to pay a lump sum for the area over which they exercised control. If the offer of the zamindár was not deemed satisfactory, another contractor was substituted in his place. But no steps were taken, and perhaps no steps were then possible, to ascertain in detail the amount which the country could afford to pay. For more than twenty years this practice of temporary engagements continued, and received the sanction of Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India. Hastings' great rival, Francis, was among those who urged the superior advantages of a permanent assessment. At last, in 1789, a more accurate Permanent investigation into the agricultural resources of Bengal was carried out; and the Settlement based upon this investigation was declared perpetual by Lord Cornwallis in 1793.1 Settle ment, 1793. of Lower The zamindárs were thus raised to the status of landlords, Proprietors created by with rights of transfer and inheritance, subject only to the law. payment in perpetuity of a rent-charge. In default of due payment, their lands were to be sold to the highest bidder. The assessment of Lower Bengal was fixed at sikká Rs. 26,800,989, Fixed equivalent to Rs. 28,587,722, or say 2 millions sterling. By land tax the year 1871-72, the total land revenue realized from the same Bengal, area had increased to Rs. 35,208,866, chiefly owing to the 1793. inclusion of estates which had escaped the original assessment on various pretexts. While the claim of Government against the zamindars was thus fixed for ever, the law intended that the rights of the zamíndárs over their own tenants should equitably be restricted. But no detailed record of tenant-right was inserted in the Settlement papers; and as a matter of fact, the cultivators lost rather than gained in security of tenure. The rights of the landlord, as against the State, were defined by the Regulations of 1793; the rights of the tenants, as against the landlord, were 1 The personal aspects of this measure, and the parts played by the Court of Directors, the Governor-General (Lord Cornwallis), and his chief Indian adviser (John Shore), are narrated ante, pp. 295, 296. Intermediate tenureholders. The ' reserved' by those Regulations, but were not defined. landlord could therefore go into Court with a precise legal status; the cultivator could only shelter himself under vague customary rights. The zamindár is the only person recognised by the revenue law; but in a large number of cases the zamíndár has in effect parted with all his interest in the land, by means of the creation of perpetual leases or patnis. These leases are usually granted in consideration of a lump sum paid down and an annual rent. The patnidár may in turn create an indefinite series of subtenures beneath his own, such as dar-patnis, se-patnis, etc. I have mentioned that the Permanent Settlement of 1793 was not preceded by any systematic survey. But in the course of the past thirty years, Lower Bengal has been subjected to a professional survey, which determined the boundaries of every village, and issued maps on the scale of 4 Imperfect inches to the mile. This survey, however, has only a toposurvey of graphical value. Few statistical inquiries were made, and no Bengal. record obtained of rights in the soil. Even the village landmarks then set up have been suffered to fall into decay. Cultivators By two stringent Regulations in 1799 and 1812, the tenant oppressed, was placed at the mercy of a rack-renting landlord. If he failed to pay his rent, however excessive, his property was rendered liable to distraint, and his person to imprisonment. At the same time, the operation of the revenue sale law had introduced a new race of zamindárs, who were bound to their tenants by no traditions of hereditary sympathy, but whose sole object was to make a profit out of their newly purchased property. The rack-rented peasantry found little protection in our Land Law courts until 1859, when an Act was passed which considerably of 1859. restricted the landlord's powers of enhancement in certain specified cases. 1799-1812. Land re form of 1859. The Land Law of 1859 divided the cultivators into four classes-First, those who had held their holdings at the same rates since 1793. It ordained that the rents of such tenants should not be raised at all. Second, those who had held their land at the same rent for twenty years. It ordained that such tenants should be presumed by law to have held since 1793, unless the contrary was proved. Third, those who had held for twelve years. To such tenants it gave a right of occupancy, under which their rents could be raised only for certain specified reasons by a suit at law. held for less than twelve years. Fourth, those who had These were left by Act x. of 1859 to make what bargain they could with the landlords. |