But these concessions, great and valuable as they are, would have been of little avail, if the assessment on the land had continued at its former rate, but the conviction that the land assessment of Madras is far too high, especially on the better lands, has at last gained ground, and a general revision was commenced. It has been unfortunate that the question was complicated with that of a new survey of the Presidency, and has thus shared in the delay which attended an expensive, though a most necessary, measure. That a fresh and accurate survey was necessary, and would amply justify the cost, could not be doubted, but it was not sufficiently remembered that many years must elapse in arranging the preliminaries and carrying out the details of this great measure, that in the meanwhile the yearly revenue must be collected according to the old. surveys, and that if they could be used in raising a heavy assessment, much more could they be used in levying a lighter one. The reduction of the assessment has therefore made but partial progress, but it has happily in some instances been carried sufficiently far to afford fair indications of its results, though in many districts the taxation remains at a rate now admitted to be excessive.

It is our purpose in the present Article to shew what has been the result of the reduction of the assessment, in those instances where it has been carried sufficiently far to afford fair indications of its effects on the cultivation of the country and the revenues of the Government. We consider the facts which we are now able to adduce afford triumphant proof that, in order to improve the finances of the Madras Presidency and to raise the condition of its people, no new system of management is required; that the ordinary principles of political economy are applicable to the land tax, as much as to other taxes; and that they complete the proof that the depression of the Madras Presidency has not been owing to the manner of collecting the land tax, but to the weight of the tax itself.

We are desirous of offering this proof at the present moment, because the writings of several influential authors are calculated to give an opposite impression. The most able Journal in India still attacks the principles of Munro in Madras, while it advocates the introduction into Bengal of a principle precisely the same, embodied in Mr. Grant's "Ryetty Bill." This bill is intended to aid the breaking-up of the large Zemindary estates of Bengal into small Ryetty tenures, but what is the difference between Ryetty in Bengal and Ryotwary in Madras, the Journal in question has not explained. Miss Martineau, in her late popular sketch of the history of British India, has been led. to repeat the attacks formerly made on the system of Munro,

as if, instead of cherishing all proprietary rights which he found existent, Munro had broken them down. And in a late article in the Quarterly Review, the systems of collection were discussed with little or no reference to the comparative pressure of the taxation.

Were these the mere speculative opinions of authors little harm might result, but unfortunately the same views have been taken by the Government of India, and lead to practical results of serious importance. The North West Provinces under a village settlement have been prosperous-those of Madras under a Ryotwarry settlement have been depressed. This effect is attributed to the method in which the dues of Government have been collected, or to the tenure by which the land is held, instead of to the fact that in the one case the demand of Government is very light, and in the other it is ruinously heavy; in the former the Government demands only one-tenth of the gross produce, in the latter it often demands 75 per cent. The interference has been that the Village system ought to be introduced into districts to the state of which it is entirely unsuited, and where the attempt is likely to be highly prejudicial.

A further effort therefore to distinguish between the pressure of taxation and the method of collection cannot be considered superfluous. In a passage written in 1856 the Government offer the following objections to introducing the Ryotwarry system into some of our new territories:

"As regards the Ryotwarry system generally, his Lordship in Council observes, that the most obvious objection to it, is that the jumabundu, which involves the examination of each field, is necessarily an annual operation, and throws upon the officer in charge of the district an amount of labour which effectually bars the progress of any other busiAnother principal objection is the excessive amount of inquisitorial interference which it involves on the part of the Government officers at every stage of agricultural operations, which evil is very much aggravated by the enormous amount of power lodged, and necessarily lodged, under this system, in the hands of subordinate and ill-paid revenue officers, and the very bad use made of it by them.

ness.

"With all these vices the Ryotwarry system seems to his Lordship in Council to possess no virtue, which does not either equally distinguish, or may be made to distinguish, a Village system of settlement, carefully executed in the first instance and faithfully administered afterwards. There is under it no encouragement to industry or enterprize, no room for independent action, and consequently little hope of either future improvement, whether by extension of cultivation or expenditure of capital, or of the increased prosperity of the people."*

* It is most remarkable that the Government of India should, after writing this passage, have insisted upon retaining in their new districts the very portion of what was supposed to be the Ryotwarry system, which brought it into such ill

This passage embodies the objections usually urged against the Ryotwarry system, but it attributes to it some evils which form no part of the system, and others are refuted by the results which we are now able to lay before our readers.

Our chief illustration is taken from the district of South Arcot, and our information is derived from "Papers relating to the revision of assessment in South Arcot" printed by the Government of Madras among the "Selections from the Records of the 'Madras Government. The first of these papers is a report by the Collector demonstrative of the excessive amount of the assessment, and giving an able and concise history of the revenue administration of that district. This report brought to a close half a century of discussion, and we would strongly recommend the paper to our readers as one of painful interest. We shall make some considerable quotations from it, for it laid before the Government the facts that the land assessment was in itself excessive, that it was proved to be so by its effects on the district, and that it was so in comparison with the assessment of the districts of the Madras Presidency, with the rates prevailing in the North West Provinces, with those of Bombay, and with the tribute of the Zemindary estates of Bengal.

The district of South Arcot was one of the most highly assessed of the Madras Presidency; and its Revenue history details perhaps as large an amount of suffering as was ever endured by a people exempt from war and invasion. The report describes a district of great fertility, lying on the sea coast, and having the advantage of close proximity to the capital of the Presidency, with great resources of irrigation.

"On the assumption of the Carnatic in 1801, this province came under our Government in a lamentable state of disorder and decay, the principal cause of which was the excessive taxation to which it had been subjected during the last years of the Nawab's Government. The report of the Collector (Mr. Garrow), dated the 12th July 1803, shows that in the embarrassed state of the Nawab's finances the Dewan Raiyagee was summoned to the Durbar in 1774, and called upon to enter into an engagement to raise the revenue of the Soubah to 47,25,000 Rupees, though nothing equal to that sum had been before collected, Raiyagee added 3 lakhs of Rupees for Sanderward, or office expences, and distributed the districts on rents to managers for 50,75,000 Rupees. Among the expedients resorted to for raising this enormous sum new repute. The interference of the native officials, and the repression of improvement, arose chiefly from the taxation of improvements, especially wells and fruittrees. While these taxes are retained there is an excuse for constant interference, there is no independent action, and little improvement. At the very time when in Madras these taxes have been abandoned, and the Court of Directors in their appeal to the country cite this as one of their best deeds, the Supreme Government of India have resolved on retaining it.

imposts were added to the land revenue. The revenues were thus increased for a time, but as the land revenue had been before sufficiently onerous, the cultivators became impoverished, and the country was plunged into a state of ruin.”

It would be a pleasant task if we had to trace the gradual improvement of the country under British rule. But before we come to improvement we have a dreary waste to pass through. The history is the same as in Salem. An endeavour was made on the part of the revenue officers to raise a revenue not far short of that of the native Government, and to raise this on the land then in cultivation. The assessment of the land was made in consequence at a rate far too high. The very authors of the assessment declared it to be too heavy, but, once imposed, the question of reduction rested, not with the local officers, but with the remote government, and the subject continued under discussion for upwards of fifty years. Thus the pressure of native taxation weighed with all the force of British authority, and not only this, but prices gradually fell and increased the pressure of the tax.

Under such circumstances it was impossible that even the blessings of peace, with the best system of land tenures, should counteract the effects of such taxation, and a decreasing income, contracted cultivation, and emigrating population, marked the effects, when the result was in 1853 finally laid before the Government, by the Collector, in the report above alluded to. It shews the final result to have been that, after 50 years of British rule, seventy-three per cent. of the assessed land lay waste; of an assessment of fifty-one lakhs of Rupees a little more than seventeen were realized; nearly thirty-four lakhs were upon lands which found no tenants. Of the waste land no less than 95,616 Cawnies, bearing an assessment of (£88,500) 885,016 Rupees, were lands lying under tanks and channels, for which irrigation was available, had the taxation allowed of their cultivation. The finest lands of the district lay useless.

These facts are thus stated in the report. After showing that the original assessment had been formed on the principle of taking one-half of the gross produce, and that the gross produce upon which the assessment was founded was, by the admission of the revenue officers, "rated higher than the lands yielded on the average," it gives a table of the rates at which the land assessment stood at the date of the report, and then proceeds as follows:

“The average result of the above rates per Cawney and per Acre is exhibited in the following table.

The figures marked (*) shew the rates in acres.

"The rate per acre on the total cultivation is thus shewn to be Rupees 3-14-3, although 8-10ths of the cultivable area in these talooks consists of Poonjah or unirrigated lands, and it seems impossible that such a revenue could have been realized, had not the cultivators been able to take advantage of three circumstances.

"1st. Irrigated or wet land registered as single crop pays no extra cess when a second crop is raised upon it.

"2nd.

The Ryots have always been allowed in this district to sink wells for the improvement of their lands without the Jeerwah or assessment being increased.

"3rd. The cultivation of indigo and the oil-seeds in demand for the European markets has enabled dry lands to be taken up, which would otherwise have been abandoned under so heavy an assessment.

"But notwithstanding the above aids to the agricultural class, the evil effects of over-assessment are clearly displayed in the manner in which cultivation has been arrested, and the condition of the people fails to exhibit that improved prosperity which might have been otherwise expected after half a century of peace under a mild Government. The statements laid before Mr. Commissioner Cotton, who was appointed in 1839 to investigate the state of the land revenue of this Presidency, show that the cultivation of the Hooloos talooks did not then exceed 43 per cent. of the irrigated, and 22 per cent. of the unirrigated lands, and in forwarding these accounts the Collector observed "a large portion of that which is confessedly the best land in the district, both irrigated MARCH, 1859.

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