size. miles in Sind (Karáchi), 12,045 square miles in Bengal (Lohárdagá), and 11,885 square miles in the Central Provinces (Raipur); down to 937 square miles in the North-Western Provinces (Tarái), 957 square miles in Madras (Nílgiris), and 989 square miles in Oudh (Lucknow). The average population is 800,723 souls, similarly ranging from 3,051,916 in Bengal (Maimansingh), 2,617,120 in the North - Western Provinces Their (Gorakhpur), and 2,365,035 in Madras (Malabar); down to varying 91,034 in Madras (Nílgiris), 144,070 in the North-Western Provinces (Dehra), and to 231,341 in the Central Provinces (Nimar). Districts from their extreme smallness, or other circumstances which render them quite exceptional,-such as the little hill District of Simla, the backward and only partially inhabited tract of Northern Arakan, the Calcutta-Suburban District of Howrah,—are not included in the above. The Madras Districts are, on an average, the most extensive in area, and the most populous. In every other Province but Madras, the Districts are grouped into larger areas, known as Divisions, each under the charge of a Commissioner. But these Divisions are not properly units of administration, as the Districts are. They are aggregates of units, formed only for convenience of supervision, so that an intermediate authority may exercise the universal watchfulness which would be impossible for a distant Lieutenant-Governor. The Districts are again partitioned out into lesser tracts, SubDistricts. called Sub-divisions in Bengal, táluks in Madras and in Bombay, and tahsils in Northern India generally. These SubDistricts are the primary units of fiscal administration. The tháná, or police circle, is the unit of police administration over the whole of British India. The preceding sketch of Indian administration would be The Secreincomplete without a reference to the Secretariat, or central tariat: bureau of each Province, which controls and gives unity to the whole. From the Secretariat are issued the orders that regulate or modify the details of administration; into the Secretariat come the multifarious reports from the local officers, to be there digested for future reference. But although the Secretaries may enjoy the social life of the Presidency capitals, with higher salaries and better prospects of promotion, the efficiency of our rule rests ultimately upon the shoulders of the District officers, who bear the burden and heat of the day, of the Govern with fewer opportunities of winning fame or reward. The Secretariat of the Supreme Government of India consists of India; ment of seven branches, each of which deals with a special department of the administration. The officers who preside over them are named respectively, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Secretary in the Department of Revenue and Agriculture, the Financial Secretary, the Military Secretary, the Public Works Secretary, and the Secretary in the Legislative Department. In the Presidencies, Lieutenant-Governorships, and Chief-Commissionerships, the Provincial Secretariat is formed on the same model, but the Secretaries are only from one to three or four in number. THE LAND-TAX.-The land furnishes the chief source of Indian revenue, and the collection of the land-tax forms the main work of Indian administration. No technical term is 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 Hindu village community. During the lapse of generations, despite domestic anarchy and foreign conquest, the Hindu village preserved its customs, written or the imperishable tablets of tradition. In the ancient Hindu village community, the land was held, not by private owners, but by occupiers under the village corporation: the 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 a primitive people. 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. This The Musalmáns brought with them the avarice of conquerors, He zamindár. and a stringent system of revenue collection. Under the Musalmán Mughal Empire, as organized by Akbar the Great, the share land-tax. 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 The Muhammadans, unknown to the early Hindu system. 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 mag- His twonate was often accepted by the Mughals as the zamindár, or fold origin. 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, an attempt was made pany's to understand the social system upon which the payment of land revenue was based. Elaborate orders were issued to this end in 1769; but the Company's servants were too engrossed with conquest, with the annual investment,' and with their private trade, to find time for minute inquiries into the rights of the peasantry. The zamindár was conspicuous and useful; The the village community and the cultivating rayat did not force themselves into notice. The zamindár seemed a solvent landlord. 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 zamindár, under the Permanent Settlement of 1793, was raised to the status of proprietor, holding at a quit-rent payable to the State, fixed in perpetuity. In Madras, under the ráyatwárí system of holding direct from the State, and in 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 Growth of the British authorities has everywhere been to establish private private rights, property in the soil, consistently with the punctual payment of the revenue. The annual Government demand, like the succession duty in This subject has been fully discussed in the chapter on the Mughal Empire. Vide ante, pp. 298, 299, 305, 311, etc. . efforts. zamindár made Landed property in India. Individual England, is the first liability on the land. When that is satisfied, the registered landholder in Bengal has powers of sale or mortgage scarcely more restricted than those of an English 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 peasant-tenures, under carefully ascertained conditions. Legal titles have everywhere taken the place of unwritten proprietary customs. Land, which was merely a source of livelihood to the rights. cultivator and of revenue to the State, has become a valuable property to the owner. The fixing of the revenue demand has conferred upon the landholder 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; and he sometimes does so with disastrous results. 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. Rates of land-tax. Govern ment share of the crop. With regard to the money rates of the assessment, the Famine Commissioners in 1880 reported the average rate throughout India at about 2s. per cultivated acre, ranging from 4d. to 4s. 6d., according to the quality of the land. In the North-Western Provinces the rates of assessment average Rs. 1. 11. 4. per cultivated acre. In the Punjab, with the same system of Land Settlement, but with an inferior soil, they average just under one rupee. These latter figures are taken from the Census Report of 1881. Taking the nominal conversion of the rupee at 2s., the average rate in the North-Western Provinces would be 3s. 5d., and in the Punjab a fraction under 2S., per acre. The rupee, however, is now (1885) worth, at the current rate of exchange, only is. 6d., and not 2s. The actual sterling land-tax would therefore be about 2s. 7d. in the NorthWestern Provinces, and 1s. 6d. in the Punjab, per acre. 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, the author found that in Párikud the Rája's officers used to take 48ths of the crop on the threshing-floor, leaving only two-fifths to the cultivator.1 See Hunter's Orissa, vol. i. p. 34 (ed. 1872). THE LAND SETTLEMENT? 441 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 in practice to about one-seventeenth. This question will be discussed in some detail in dealing with the 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 out-turn.' 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, according to the Famine Commissioners, only 5 per cent. of the produce of the fields. ment. The means by which the land revenue is assessed is known The Land as Settlement, and the assessor is styled a Settlement Officer. SettleIn Lower Bengal, the assessment existing in 1793 was declared to be fixed in perpetuity; 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 Village Survey, which determines the area of every village, and, Survey. as a rule, 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 tend to affect the value of the land and its Process of Settle produce. With these facts before him, he proceeds to assess ment. 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 Our first adopted in its entirety. Engagements, sometimes yearly, some- attempts, 1768-89.. times for a term of years, were entered into with the zamindárs |