To sum up the comparison of the old native land-tenure, with the improved system in force under the English: it appears that, under the native governments, the rents were oppressive and variable, all improvements were overcharged in re-assessing the land, and the greatest extortion was exercised in the collection of the tax; under the new system, all rights and tenures are perfectly defined, the leases are sufficiently long to encourage improvements, which are not reckoned at their full value in re-assessment, and in every instance where large outstanding balances and increased difficulty of realization showed the rents to be excessive, they have been lowered. For a long time the oppressive taxes imposed by the former native rulers, remained unchanged under the Company's government; but experience showed the disadvantage of any tax so heavy as to check production, and the land-rents have, for years, been everywhere progressively diminished where they were formerly too large, within the older possessions of the Company. In the new territories, the village system has been everywhere introduced, the liberal features of which have been dwelt upon above. Moderate as is the demand of government under this system, it has been still further reduced lately, and in all territory, the land-tenure of which shall be hereafter settled, government will require only one half of the net produce, an amount equal on the average to one-eighth of the gross produce.

In reading this account of the various land-tenures in India, it may strike some persons that it would be advantageous if the fee of the soil were transferred to the actual cultivators. This plan, however, would be utterly impracticable. In the first place, the whole capital of the country is in the hands of the bankers, who would soon become proprietors of all the soil, and make infinitely worse landlords than any government. Secondly, even if this certain evil could be avoided, such a transfer would reduce the production of the country by diminishing those incentives to labour, which even now operate but feebly upon the indolent native of India.

The revenue of India is about twenty-four millions and a half sterling. Of this sum more than one half is drawn from

the land-tax. The rest is raised by the customs, opium monopoly, and by the imposts on salt, tobacco, spirituous liquors, and other articles of luxury. The net product of the opium monopoly is two millions and a half sterling per annum. This may be considered a tax upon the Chinese, and so much gained by the Indian tax-payers.

The expenses of the government, in time of peace, nearly balance the receipts, but the wars into which the Company has been constantly forced, have necessitated repeated loans, the payment of the interest on which absorbs one-eighth of the revenue, and occasions a constant deficit in the budget.

The amount of the revenue, above mentioned, when divided by the number of inhabitants, gives only eighty-four cents for each person. This appears very light taxation, and will appear still lighter when it is recollected that more than one half of this sum represents, not taxes proper, but the rent of land, which, in any other country, would go into the pockets of private individuals. Yet the taxes are probably nearly as heavy as the country could bear under any other system; for India is a poor country; "poorer," in the words of Lord Macaulay, “than the poorest countries in Europe." Notwithstanding the old, and almost inveterate, belief in the wealth of the Indies, it is well for us at the present day to recognise this fact. The mass of the population have no property at all. The soil is all in the hands of the sovereign; the disposable capital is held by a limited number of bankers and tradesmen. This concentration of all capital in the hands of a few persons enables them to make a show quite disproportioned to the general wealth of the country, and from this are derived the very erroneous impressions that have so extensively prevailed with regard to the great wealth of oriental nations.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE REVOLT.

Indian Rebellion not a matter of Surprise-Revolutions and Rebellions common under Native Governments-Rebellion did not originate among the People-Character of the old Native Governments-Nature of the English Conquest, and Character of their Rule-Evidence that the Rebellion was not a Movement of the People-The Rebellion was not in its Origin a Military Mutiny-The real Instigators were the Moosulman Princes-It was the dying Effort of Islamism-Character of the Mahommedan Population of India-Favourable Circumstances for the Rebel Leaders Abortive Attempts of the Rebels to arouse the Mass of the Population-The Moosulman Character of the Movement evident in its Development-AtrocitiesNoble Stand of the English-The Revolt in Oude-Sympathies of the Population of India-The Disaffected Classes-The probable Result of the Rebellion if it had not been restrained.

A REVOLUTION is no new thing in India. The whole history of that country under its native princes, before the establishment of the English power, is a narrative of usurpations, revolts and rebellions. The English government is the only power that has ever ruled for a hundred years without such attempts being made against its existence, and the fact of a rebellion having finally broken out against it, should not, therefore, be taken a priori as a proof of the injustice of its policy, or the tyranny of its administration. The student of Indian history will rather wonder that fifty thousand men, from a country situated on the other side of the world, should by any course of government, or any rule however wise, have maintained, for so long a time, an order before unknown, and exacted a universal obedience never before given to any sovereign in India; that they should have maintained this order and exacted this obedience from one hundred and eighty millions of people, differing from them and each other in language, religion, and every bond of sympathy, and comprising nations and classes whose whole employment and

aggrandizement had, before their time, been derived from public conquest or private pillage.

The rebellion, however, is a fact, and as it has been considered in Europe, however unjustly, the experimentum crucis of English policy in India, it is interesting to investigate what were the real objects and aims of the movement. Before doing so, however, it will be well briefly to examine some opinions that have generally obtained credence, both in England and this country.

In the first place we are met by a theory that the revolt was a popular revolution, like the great movement which in the end of the last century, overthrew the Bourbon dynasty in France, or like the universal uprising in America which delivered our nation from transatlantic domination.

This theory, then, represents the rebellion as an attempt, on the part of the downtrodden masses, to throw off the oppressive and hated yoke of the stranger. That this should be believed, was, perhaps not unnatural, and yet this very belief shows what entire ignorance prevails with regard to India and its inhabitants. Any one who has read Indian history, knows that the natives have always been "under the yoke of the stranger;" that when it was heaviest, it never excited a murmur; and that no popular resistance has ever been called forth, even by the most grinding tyranny. The "rights of man" are abstractions which the oriental mind has never grasped. It looks upon tyranny as the normal manifestation of power, and the best evidence of a strength which it is dangerous to resist.

The people of India, then, the masses of the population, never could or would rebel; but even supposing that they had that consciousness of their rights, and that disposition to resist infringements upon them, which, even in Europe, only prevail in a very different condition of society, it is quite incredible that they should rebel under the English government, when they had endured, uncomplainingly, centuries of oppression from other rulers.

Some people, however, imagine that the real grievance has been annexation, and the substitution of the Company's

government in place of native princes, for, say they, "After all the English are foreigners, and their rule, even if more lenient, must be as distasteful to the people, as foreign rulers always are. There can never be towards them the same sympathy as exists with native governments, which, even if harsher, are yet composed of men of the same race, who have ruled the country for centuries, and secured that popular allegiance which is never paid to any but an ancient dynasty.”

This argument, which is advanced by the members of an influential party, proceeds upon assumptions quite as false as the first, though entirely different. The ancient native dynasties, ruling peacefully over millions of attached subjects, are a complete myth. India has always been a prey to adventurers of one kind or another, of whom the most successful occupied for the time, the seat of authority. Violence was their passport to the capital; violence, the policy of their government; and by violence, they were overthrown to give place to some other, who gained and abused his power in the same way.* The position of a native prince was thus very similar to that of the priest of Diana, at Aricia :

"The Priest who slew the slayer

And shall himself be slain."

* I may here cite an instance of this state of things from very recent history of the Punjab, a territory that has since, fortunately for itself, been annexed by the English. When Runjeet Singh died, he was succeeded by his son, Khurruk Singh, who was imbecile and poisoned by his son, Nao Mhal Singh, who, returning from his father's funeral pyre, was grievously, if not mortally wounded by a beam which fell upon him, perhaps by chance, in passing under a lofty gateway. When wounded, he was taken care of by the two Rajpoot brothers, whom that old tyrant Runjeet Singh had fallen in love with, and bought when they were slaves-Goolab Singh and Dhyan Singh. They suffered no one to enter his chamber until he was dead-a consummation in which they are supposed to have assisted. His mother, Ranee Kour Chand, then claimed the supreme power, which was contested by Sheer Singh a pseudo-son of Runjeet. The Ranee was beaten to death by her slave girls, who threw her body out of the window. Sheer Singh then became king, but was assassinated at a review by Sirdar Ajeet Singh, at the instigation of Dhyan Singh. His little son was also sought out and murdered. The two conspirators returned to the city together in a carriage, and Ajeet, having "his hand