essential matters of management must also be further discussed in another connection in the remaining sections of this chapter. I will therefore here offer only a brief outline of what, with some slight modifications, is the general framework or basis of constitution COMMON TO ALL PROVINCES, as regards their land-revenue administration.

In all provinces the district is the starting-point. The Magistrate and Collector, as he is called in the Regulation Districts, and Deputy Commissioner, as he is called in the rest, is the head of the district: and he is supported by Assistants and Deputies, who are either general assistants or are in charge of subdivisions of the district, in which such assistants are practically chiefs, only acting under the general control of the district head.

Of the multifarious duties of the District Officers I am not here going to speak; they are described elsewhere 1.

In all provinces but Madras, a varying number of districts forms a division, which is presided over by a 'Commissioner.' The duties of this officer are those of inspection and general control in the districts; to hear appeals in any case from district orders; and to be the channel of communication between the district and the higher revenue authorities and the Government.

At the head of the revenue-administration in Bengal, Madras, and the North-West Provinces, is a Board of Revenue; in the Panjáb there are two Financial Commissioners with Secretaries, who in fact, though not in name, form a Board. In Burma there is a Financial Commissioner instead of a Board. In the Central Provinces, Oudh and Assam, the Chief Commissioner is himself the chief revenue authority.

Under the district there are now, in all provinces, small local subdivisons, which are to our administration, what

the pargana was to the Mughal system. But they are, for convenience, usually made larger than the old pargana or taluká, and sometimes consist of several such areas combined.

In Bengal for a long time, as there were only a certain number of district Zamíndárs to deal with, local centres of revenue-management and collection were not thought of; but of late years, as the estates subdivided, Government estates became more numerous and business generally increased, a system of subdivisions of districts has been adopted, and these subdivisions are usually under SubDeputy Collectors, and are, in fact, very much like the tahsil subdivisions of other provinces to be next mentioned.

In all Northern and Central India, the district (which, if large, may have one or more primary subdivisions) is always subdivided into 'tahsíls,' which are groups usually consisting of several parganas of the older system. The head (native) official who receives revenue at his local or tahsil treasury, is called a Tahsíldár. This term is in use in certain districts of Assam, all over the North-West Provinces, Oudh, the Central Provinces, the Panjáb, and in Madras. In Bengal, the Tahsíldár is only known as a minor official in certain special cases, as in Government estates, or where there are numerous numerous small holdings. The Tahsíldár is usually assisted by a Náib or Deputy Tahsíldár.

In Burma there is a somewhat similar system, of course under Burmese nomenclature.

In Bombay the same system obtains, except that the local areas are called 'talukás,' retained, I believe, without aggregation from the older system. The officers in charge are called 'mámlatdár' aided by subordinates called 'kárkun.' In Madras, the Mughal administration was not sufficiently generally established to make its divisions well known. The district subdivision is the 'taluk,' and the native officer is (as stated) the Tahsíldár.

The object of this universal local subdivision, in its

slightly varying forms, is the same. The local officervested with small criminal, and sometimes with civil-court powers-has to receive the revenues of the local area, to keep a close watch over the agricultural and social condition of the sub-district, and to see the village officials are doing their duty. For this purpose the Tahsíldár (or whatever he may be called) has not only an office and treasury establishment, but also a staff of kánúngos (or Revenue Inspectors), one of whom usually remains at the tahsil headquarters to compile statistics and see to the despatch of the proper returns to the district headquarters, while the others constantly move about, check the work of the village patwárís, and see that they do their duty in keeping a record of all changes in the maps, and in the proprietary interests as they occur by inheritance, gift and sale (and to some extent by mortgage), as well as in keeping the statistics of crops sown, and other matters which local rules require.

The Agriculture and Land Record Department aids the district officer, especially in seeing that this important duty is carefully and punctually fulfilled, as it is on the proper performance of it that several important features of district administration depend.

Some of these duties of the local establishments are of modern introduction; they may be reckoned as among the results of the Famine Commission of 1879, but success is already beginning to be attained. And in the NorthWest Provinces, where the system has been longest in operation, the improvement in the records and statistics has already been very considerable. Indeed, though we have not yet arrived at the wished-for ideal of revisions of Settlement being carried out by the district staff absolutely without extraneous aid, a step in that direction has been taken. The cost of the latest revisions will hardly be one-third of what it used to be; and both the labour involved and the duration of the work will be greatly curtailed.

As far as the general working of the system is concerned,

-the collection of the revenue, and other branches of general duty, it is a matter of fact, for years past, that these local agencies have worked well. Sales of estates for revenue-arrears are now rare, and coercive processes seriously carried out are also rare. In most cases the issue of notices (dastak') or very temporary detentions at the tahsíl, are quite sufficient.

§ 2. Other branches of the Revenue Officer's duty.

I have purposely avoided mentioning other branches of work for the district staff; many, such as Excise, Stamps, and Registration of Assurances, are foreign altogether to my purpose. But even those directly and indirectly connected with land-revenue can only be enumerated. These are first, the disposal of matters connected with the collection, recovery of arrears, and the suspension and remission of land-revenue; next, questions of boundary, and those matters of land-revenue law which require to be dealt with by revenue-officers. In some provinces cases between landlord and tenant as to enhancement, ejectment, improvements, and the like, are heard by Revenue Courts. In all provinces, the registration of transfers of proprietary interests; the making of partitions of estates; the management of estates of which Settlement has been declined, or which are under direct management by reason of default in revenue payments; the management of estates of minors and others under the Court of Wards; the special Settlement of alluvial areas, or measures taken for reduction by reason of diluvion; assessment of revenue-free areas when the estate lapses, or the assignment for life or lives falls in; acquisition of land for public purposes; making loans for agricultural improvements, and to aid cultivators for general agricultural purposes;-these are all matters of a Land-Revenue officer's duty. There may be also work in connection with the law under which certain cesses are levied for roads and schools and to meet the costs of famine relief, and in Bengal in connection with embank

ments1 and special surveys. The Land-Revenue Administration has also to watch the effect of the Settlements, whether the assessments work well or bear hardly, and to take note of the condition of the people, as evidenced by the frequency of mortgages and sales of land, and to study the general question of indebtedness of the agricultural classes. Irrigation questions and appeals regarding rights of water, and right of taking water-channels across land, also occupy no little time in canal districts; while (in the Panjáb, for example) schemes for the construction of canals in districts where the soil is good, but the rainfall is so scanty that canal irrigation is the only condition under which husbandry is possible, have led, of late years, to questions of colonization on an extensive scale, and of the location of villages under appropriate rules. Lastly, in certain districts, the results of local mistakes in Settlements of past years, or of the improvidence of certain classes, or both combined, may have also left us a legacy of duty in securing relief from hopeless debt, in the shape of several Encumbered Estates Acts,' or 'Raiyats' Relief' Acts.

The mere enumeration of these matters will show how the land-revenue administration of an Indian district is in fact the central part of Government, and how it comes into contact with almost every other branch of administration which can be named.

SECTION X.-RÉSUMÉ OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LAND-
REVENUE ASSESSMENTS.

§ 1. Objects of Settlement.

The duty of making or revising assessments of land-revenue is a separate branch; it may be undertaken by the Collector, and will be more frequently so in the future; but

1 Embankments, i. e. by which floods are kept out of culturable lands. This work, always laid on

local authorities from ancient times, is of great importance in many parts of Bengal proper.