complete and unsafe records of the Government collector. There is no record of rights in land not under cultivation; and the records which do exist are not admitted to be correct, as between the Government and themselves, by the parties chiefly interested. The villagers availed themselves of the confusion of the mutiny to destroy these papers whenever they could gain possession of them. Papers prepared on doubtful data are no evidence against the right derived from ancient usage, which is the true charter of the people's rights.

As far as the experiment has extended the result has been unhappy. So long as the mischief is partial, the courts of law and numerous detachments may keep in check all resistance; but we believe that any general attempt to bestow the land of India upon foreign or native capitalists in fee simplethat is to say, on a tenure heretofore unknown in India, and which manifestly is unfair to the community at large-will be met by an outbreak of rebellion such as we have not yet seen or anticipated.

We will endeavour to illustrate the financial and social effect of the indiscriminate sale of waste lands by the case of Berar, which was assigned by the Nizam in 1853. There is a peculiar fitness in this instance, because we observe that the sale of waste lands was originally pressed upon the Home Government in relation to these districts; and the writer of this paper is able to discuss the question with an actual knowledge of fact, as he was an eye-witness, and indeed the responsible Government agent for the land settlement for seven years after the district came under English management.

The valley of Berar is known to be one of the most fertile and populous districts in Southern India; but two causes had reduced the cultivation and impoverished the people. The one was the famine which happened in 1833, and the scarcity of 1845; the other was, that the revenue farmers of the Nizam, by their exactions, had disheartened the cultivators, and

an immense proportion of the richest land was covered with Babool jungle.

On a rough estimate there were about 1,000,000 acres of good land wholly uncultivated. This land was offered to the villagers on leases of about seven years; for the first one or two years without any rent, for the remaining five years there was a fixed graduated charge, and at the expiration of the term the land was to come under full assessment.

On these conditions the land has been taken up as fast as ploughs could be brought into operation; and the whole face of the country is changing from mere forest and waste into one sheet of cultivation -the people prosperous and contented, the municipal rights fully satisfied, and the revenue increased.

When the whole of this land shall be brought under cultivation, and the seven years' leases have expired, the financial result will be that the revenue will have benefited about £100,000 per annum, and this not only without any prejudice to the interests of the people, but with the full advantage of large profits; for the Government revenue at the utmost only absorbs one-third of the profit, and in Berar it is probably scarcely one-fifth.

But if, instead of letting out this land, which had been ten, twenty, and thirty years out of cultivation, it had been divided into blocks and sold at 58. per acre to the foreign capitalists in fee simple, the result would have been as follows:

The Government would have realized £250,000, which, capitalized and invested at five per cent., would have given a permanent revenue of £12,500 instead of £100,000, which, under the present system, will be realized. But besides this, every acre of land which is brought under cultivation is liable to certain municipal dues, which are the hereditary rights of the village and district officials. The deshmooks and deshpandeas receive five per cent. on the fixed

revenue. The potails, putwarrees (accountants), blacksmiths, dhairs, barbers, priests, and temples are each entitled to certain grain huks or dues, usually commuted into small money charges, and which may be computed altogether at about twenty per cent. on the Government revenue, but is paid separately and in excess of the Government demand.

Under the operation, then, of the resolution of Government, the revenue would have been reduced seven-eighths, and all municipal dues, real property, the fruit and the reward of service done and doing, and which in the present condition of the country are held to be essential to the comfort and wellbeing of each village community, and which from ancient usage has become engrained into their social system, would have been annihilated, in order that certain foreign speculators might realize enormous profits.

We do not admit that the cultivation of the land-or in the cant phrase, the development of the resources of the country-was in contemplation. The secretary of the Landowners' Association stipulated that any condition requiring the grantee to bring any portion of the land under cultivation within any specified time should be struck out; and we believe that the resolution would merely have given rise to extensive land jobbing in a rich district like Berar; but in any case, what would the social condition of a district have become, when the people found that the land which they believed had been allotted to each village for its own benefit, was handed over to strangers, and the rights and dues of all the more influential and useful members of the community suddenly abolished in favour of a non-resident proprietor? There Iwould have been feud and incendiarism, and bloody affrays in every village, and the most prosperous and best contented province in India would have been reduced to anarchy and desolation.

This and other tentative measures relating to the land are forced

upon Government by European capitalists at the present juncture, because the rise of prices all over India indicate a probably enormous increase in the value of land. The gold and silver fruit of the Indian tree having been shaken in its other branches, the possession of land seems to offer apples of fresh promise to the enterprising speculator. We believe that, like the fruit on the shores of the Dead Sea, they would turn into dust and ashes in their mouths. We do not believe that Europeans anywhere in the plains of India could follow out-door employment without infinite danger to their own health and life, and rapid deterioration and degeneracy in their progeny. We are told that indigo-planters are healthy men, more like English farmers. We all know perfectly well that there is no such person as an European indigo-planter. The natives, under compulsion, grow indigo, and deliver the plant into the factories at a price far below its real value; the Europeans manufacture the dye, working through the medium of paid native functionaries, and living themselves surrounded by every luxury, without the slightest exposure. The moment they realize a large fortune they retire to England; but this is not settling, nor would India receive any benefit from the temporary presence of men who would transfer their families and all they possess to another country when it suited their purpose.

The Resolution implies that there is no difference of opinion about the advantage of Europeans settling in India; on the contrary, the minutes and reports from all parts of the country express doubt, and the scheme is chiefly held to be practicable only on the tops of hills. The Government of Madras for that Presidency says, 'Only a very small proportion of the whole also can be regarded as at all suited to the purpose of European settlers; and this Government declines to admit them wherever the land is subject to 'recognised rights of the village communities.' The Commissioner of Mysore, with reference to the

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supposed salubrity of that table land, produces medical statistics to prove that the climate is wholly unsuitable. The Resident Hyderabad says, 'I consider the climate of the two Berars, where alone blocks of waste of sufficient size are available, would be fatal to any attempt at European colonization.' The Commissioner of the assigned districts confirms this view. The Governor of Bombay for the whole of that Presidency observes, "The settlement of Europeans in this country in such numbers as to be worthy of being termed the colonization of India, has always appeared to me a chimera. The best part of the country is fully occupied. Where the revenue survey has been introduced, even the inferior soils are rapidly being brought into cultivation. It will not pay to buy out the natives, and they cannot be turned out to accommodate settlers.' He adds that the climate is so hostile, that if the land were unoccupied no extensive settlement could be made; and he judiciously remarks, 'for any political purpose such an occupation of the soil would be useless. In times of difficulty, indeed, the presence of a small number of dispersed families in a remote district would be rather an embarrassment than an advantage.'

We might multiply these opinions from every part of India, had we space for further extracts. For our own part, we do not believe in European settlement at all, it is merely a money speculation. As soldiers, as administrators, as rulers, as merchants, as engineers, there is profitable, creditable, and useful occupation for Europeans in every grade; and for the free and advantageous employment of their capital and enterprise; but not as settlers on the land, or as colonists in any shape. The climate undermines European life, and the children degenerate, even though the father live to a good old age. There is the antipathy of race, and an irreconcileable difference in habits, feelings, and sympathies; and there would be a constant collision

of interest on the very point where the native is most sensitive. When the late Lord Metcalfe proposed as a theme, the state of native feelings towards their European superiors, he was surprised to learn, from the essay of a mild Hindoo student, that we never entered a house or left it, sat down or rose up, ate, drank, slept, or talked, without in some way offending the taste, and shocking the sentiments and feelings of our native acquaintance and dependents. And it was with reference to these views that that benevolent and sagacious statesman observed, we should one morning wake up and find the whole thing blown up.'

This was not believed until its prophetic truth was almost realized in 1857, when the sudden outburst of latent hatred in classes which we best understood and had most benefited, painfully proved the real danger of our position in India. What saved us then was the inaction of the agricultural classes over the greater part of India. We had generally respected their rights in the land, and we were repaid by their allegiance in our time of greatest need. In the North-West Provinces and Oude there was a tendency to popular insurrection, because, under a wellintended but vicious fiscal settlement, their rights in the land had been jeopardized and invaded by confiscation and sale; but as a general rule, all their rights, real or supposed, dormant or active, had been recognised and secured.

And is our only safety-valve to be removed by an ignorant interference with these interests, upon a vague and mistaken idea that Europeans could teach the natives a better system of cultivation, and improve their moral condition? The natives of India are better farmers than Europeans and Americans, and have beaten them whenever and wherever the experiment has been tried. The potails and permanent tenants have a practical knowledge of the rotation of crops and the management of their land, equal or superior to the best farmers in England; and the gar

deners and cultivators of wet land will show a weight of crop exceeding in value and amount anything that could be elsewhere shown. What is required to make India a garden of abundance and fertility, doubling, trebling, and quadrupling the present produce, is simply an equal and moderate assessment, and just and efficient laws. This is the true plan to develope the resources of India. There is no want of capital, labour, skill, or industry. All these advantages would be brought into full play if we ceased to disturb the native mind with crotchety ideas, or to alarm them with tentative schemes suggested and forced upon Government by interested parties.

The Minister of State and his experienced Council have not, then, exceeded their duty in placing under restriction the wholesale alienation of land, on conditions not compatible with the interests of the rest of the tax-paying community, and which was likely to violate and ride over the hereditary rights of the native inhabitants. The resolution of the GovernorGeneral was vague, crude, and dangerous, hastily prepared and suddenly brought forward; and Sir C. Wood, on every consideration of prudence and discipline, was bound to modify the unauthorized act of the Local Government. We wish that his veto had been more decided; the sale of waste land, even under the conditions allowed, is liable to extensive abuse; and the new rules laid down by Mr. Beadon, the governor of Bengal, and now in force, prove too clearly that the snake has been scotched but not killed.

As regard the redemption of the land-tax, we have first to consider the aspect of the times under which this resolution was published. According to Mr. Laing's own statement, all India had been convulsed by an attempt, which proved abortive, to supplement the land-tax of India by indirect taxation. The last five years' experience had proved, even to the conviction of the Minister of Finance, that the people of India

would not submit to new taxes; and the Government had been compelled not only to abolish such taxes, but also to repay actual collection. At the same time, there has been a steady increase of expenditure. New charges, both military and civil, have become necessary to meet political danger and social advancement. Within ten years the costs of Government have risen from £29,000,000speaking in round numbers-to £40,000,000 per annum; and there is little prospect that this expenditure will be materially reduced. In this critical state of our financial condition, the Local Government thinks it is safe to sell its birthright in the perpetual fund of the land-tax, to bring into the treasury at one fell swoop the income of twenty years, and to relinquish all future claim. Extravagant and reckless incumbents have occasionally practised the same trick upon their hereditary estates; but they have left behind them a name which would hardly suit a respectable government.

The land revenue of India, properly understood and properly administered, is the safest, least oppressive, most elastic, and most just source of supply that was ever possessed by any nation. It is based upon real property, which the Government holds and the people cheerfully admit, under the sanction of ancient usage, as confirmed by the oldest country records, and the institutes and statutes which have come down to us.

The land revenue may not have been popular, elastic, or successful under the different schemes of collection which have disfigured our own fiscal management; and infinite abuses, worse than any we have practised, have prevailed under native Governments, which have farmed out the revenue to contractors; but a just and moderate land assessment, fixed under regular survey, and with a due regard to locality, soil, and other incidents, would never oppress the people, and is universally considered to be a right of property held by the Government over the soil.

To sell this permanent and substantial right on any vague calculation of political economy, the principles of which do not apply to India, appears to be the wildest and most profligate waste of resources that was ever proposed by any Government; and we doubt not that such will be the public opinion on this part of the points in issue. We, therefore, do not detain the reader by unnecessary argument.

We shall now consider, as carefully as our short space may admit, the subject of the perpetual settlement which the Home Government has sanctioned. This measure is to be gradually introduced, after a careful survey, whenever the assessment shall appear to have reached a true average rate, and to have been fixed on a fair basis. Many good reasons are given, all having more or less weight: and the views of the Minister of State are supported by a successful and sagacious statesman, Sir John Lawrence. But Mr. Mangles and other able men dissent from the measure.

We cannot but consider that it deviates from the true principle on which our revenue in India should rest. The Government demand is essentially ruled by proportion; and this proportion is a variable quantity, depending upon the market value of the produce of the soil. If a perpetual settlement were fixed too high, it must be given up; if too low, it is a permanent abandonment of a resource which would always be useful to Government, and under an improved condition of the people might become necessary. sent, and under the usage of the country, the Government has an undoubted right to receive an enhanced revenue should the value of produce permanently rise and its own necessities increase. The question is, is it better to retain this ancient right, and avail ourselves moderately of its profits as expenditure increases, or by limiting ourselves in respect to this resource, be driven into new and unpopular taxation at some future time? It is observable that with

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a permanent rise of prices there has been a corresponding increase of expenditure. This is the experience of the last ten years in India, and is universally true in the history of every nation advancing towards civilization. The fact is significant.

The Minister of State appears to have been mainly influenced in this measure by the arguments of Colonel David Baird Smith in his famine Report, and by the apparent success of the perpetual settlement in Bengal; and we propose, therefore, to analyse briefly the true value of Colonel Smith's remarks upon the revenue; and then to determine how far the prosperous condition of Bengal is attributable to the principle of perpetuity in the settlement.

Colonel Smith, without any experience in revenue management, had taken up an idea that a perpetual settlement was the panacea for all evils incident to fiscal rule in India, and it was quite natural that he should endeavour to prove his doctrine in his Report upon the famine.

Stated shortly, his argument is this: The people had improved under a thirty years' settlement in the North-West Provinces, therefore they would still more improve under a perpetual settlement. But what is the proof of improvement? He argues that the famine of 1837 caused the death of 800,000 persons. The famine of 1861 only caused the death of 80,000. There was the same area and equal intensity of famine, therefore the people must have acquired larger resources from the settlement.

But the whole hypothesis rests upon data merely imaginary_and factitious. Colonel Smith had not the slightest ground to say that the loss of life by famine in 1861 amounted to 80,000 souls; and he had still less right to assume that the loss of life in 1837 approached to 800,000 persons. Neither has he any reliable data to show that the area of the famine was the same in either year; and his inference that, because the price of grain rose in 1861 to eight seers