village accountants and revenue-officers of small local subdivisions of districts. It was no doubt this inherent difficulty of creating a joint responsibility where it did not, naturally or in fact, exist, that led to the abandonment of the design to make villageSettlements, and to the adoption of the separate field or 'raiyatwárí' system. As a matter of fact, a sort of joint responsibility is kept up in certain villages where the rights of co-sharers have survived to this day. § 32. Progress of the system in Bombay. The defects of the survey-Settlement, as at first worked (up to 1835), acted as a warning to the authorities; and a new departure was then made. An experimental resurvey of the Indápur taluk having proved successful, the same method was followed elsewhere. In 1847 three of the ablest Settlement Superintendents met and were able to formulate the results of practical experience, in the shape of a complete scheme for the survey and assessment of village lands. It was not till 1865 that a local Act was passed specifically legalising the system. This Act has in its turn been repealed; and the whole law has now been completely revised in the Land-Revenue Code (Bombay Act V of 1879). There is but little mention of a Settlement (although the term does occur in the Code); there is really a survey and assessment only. There is no procedure like that of Upper India,-proposing a certain sum as the assessment on the whole village, discussing the matter with the village proprietary body, and perhaps making a reduction and coming to terms with the representatives, who then sign an agreement to be responsible. Under the Bombay system, every acre is assessed at rates fixed on almost scientific principles, and then the occupant must pay that assessment or relinquish the land. § 33. Outline of the Bombay System. The system will be described more in detail in the sequel, but here I may generally indicate the outlines of the procedure. A certain convenient unit of division is selected to form the survey number' or 'field.' Every field or lot is surveyed, and then the work of classification begins. The soil-classes are noted, and each field is examined and a sort of diagram of it made, which shows not only its soil, but any defects which reduce its value. It is thus ascertained for every field what is its relative value; in other words,-taking the maximum rate for the class as one whole or sixteen annas (on the Indian method of reckoning),—whether the field can be assessed at the maximum or at something less,-at fourteen annas, at twelve annas, and so on, down to a minimum. The department charged with this work becomes highly experienced in the process, so that it can be performed with the greatest accuracy and fairness. Cultivation is usually classed into wet and dry: the process just described treats land only on its dry aspect; if there is irrigation, then an additional rate may be charged, which will be higher or lower according to the goodness and value of the source of irrigation; the rate is only applied to such land as is really capable of irrigation from the source in question 1. Next, the Settlement Officer begins his work as assessor of actual rates; he has before him the facts of soil classification on its unirrigated aspect, and the details of the means of irrigation where they exist; he has to fix what are to be the full or maximum rates for dry soil, and what are to be the additional rates for irrigation. These rates he 1 Wet cultivation is rice land, or land that is always flooded for cultivation. A 'dry' field may have a well or other means of partial watering, that does not make it 'wet' land. Wells are not now charged for directly, but a certain addition may be made to the rate, on account of an easy supply of subsoil water regarded as one of the qualities of the soil. calculates with the aid of all the data he can collect, regarding former history, the general situation, climate, proximity to market, &c. Having thus arrived at the absolute or full rates, the field diagrams, which show the relative values, at once enable the rates to be applied. A sixteen anna field pays the full; an eight anna field the half, and so on. : In Bombay (just as in Madras) the occupant of such a survey number holds it on the simple terms of paying the revenue; if he admits that he is (or is proved by a decree of Court to be) holding on behalf of some one else, as a tenant, or in an inferior position, then the 'superior holder's' name is entered in the register, not his he becomes the inferior holder,' and it is the superior who is entered in the register as the 'occupant' responsible for the assessed sum. Any one who is recorded as the responsible holder can simply resign (if he does not like to pay the assessment) any field in his holding. The assessment is fixed for a period of thirty years, so that a man who elects to hold continuously, knows for certain that, during that long period, all the profit he can make will go to him. At the beginning of each year, he can signify to the mámlatdár (or local revenue officer of a taluká subdivision) what fields he wishes to hold and what he wishes to give up: as long as he does this in proper time, he is free to do as he pleases. If he relinquishes, the fields are available for any one else; if no one applies for them, they are usually auctioned as fallow (for the right of grazing) for the year, and so on, till some one offers to take them up for cultivation. Nothing whatever is said in the Revenue Code about the person in possession (on his own account) being 'owner' in the Western sense. He is simply called the occupant,' and the Code says what he can do and what he cannot1. The occupant may do anything he pleases to improve the land, but may not without permission do any The right of occupancy'-the right to be an occupant-is itself declared to be a transferable and heritable property (Code, section 73); but that is quite a different thing from VOL. I. Y saying that the occupant is the proprietor of the soil. In the official language of the Presidency, the occupant is said to hold on the survey tenure.' thing which diverts the holding from agricultural purposes. He has no right to mines or minerals. These are the facts of the tenure; you may theorize on them as you please; you may say this amounts to proprietorship, or this is a 'dominium minus plenum'; or anything else. The question of tenancy is just as simply dealt with. I have stated that if it appears that the occupant is in possession in behalf of some one else, that some one else is recorded as the superior holder,' and he becomes the inferior holder.' What sort of 'inferior'-whether a tenant or on some other terms-is a simple question of fact and of the agreement or the custom by which he holds 1. If an occupant dies, one (the eldest or managing) heir must be entered as the succeeding occupant who has to pay the revenue; for there can only be one registered revenuepayer for each field or recognized share of a field with a separate survey number; though of course there may be several sharers (joint-heirs of the deceased owner, for instance) in it. Which of them is so entered depends on the agreement of the members of the family, or on the result of a Court decree, if there is a dispute. Sharers can always get their shares partitioned, recorded, and severally assessed, as long as there is no dispute as to what the shares are. I should here add that BERÁR was settled on the Bombay system. $34. The Revenue-Systems of other Provinces. The retrospect just brought to a close embraces all the older, and most of the larger, provinces of India. The others that have special systems really need but little pre 1 There is also no artificial tenant right. In Bombay, as in all other provinces, there are jágír and other 'inám' holdings which are revenuefree, or only lightly assessed, and occasionally other tenures in which there may be a superior holder drawing a revenue from the estate: there the actual occupants are suboccupants, not tenants, as they do not hold in consequence of any contract with the superior. fatory comment. ASSAM, of which a small portion only had been permanently settled, when it formed part of Bengal; the little province of COORG, and the great and growing province of BURMA, are all of them managed under local systems of Land-Revenue Settlement which have this great advantage; they are free of all theories and artificial creations, with all that has elsewhere necessarily followed from such creations. They are (in this manual), therefore, classed as varieties of the RAIYATWÁRÍ system. But they have little or nothing in common with the systems of Bombay and Madras, except this one thing, that there is no middleman-landlord, or overlord, or ideal corporate body-between the actual soil-occupant and the State. In the map, which indicates by different colours the area which each Settlement system I have been reviewing occupies, I have ventured to give the same tint to Madras and Bombay and Berár, because the systems differ only in detail; but I have given a different tint to Assam and Burma, though I have endeavoured to indicate their connection with the raiyatwárí system by making it a different shade or tint of the same colour. SECTION IX.-THE MACHINERY OF BRITISH LAND- § 1. Modern organization of Territory. Perhaps I ought next to devote some space to describing how the various British revenue systems are worked; how the records are preserved; how the land-revenue is collected; how questions of revenue-law and matters of executive management are disposed of under each system, and in each province. But, as a matter of fact, each province must, in the sequel, have a separate chapter on this subject, and it would be of little use to present a series of provincial abstracts in this place. Some of the most |