classes of prodigality and indolence, and among the lower, a character of helpless dependence on Government, extreme poverty, and, generally, very low conditions of existence. Nowhere do we see a spirit of enterprise, of initiation, or of progress.

I do not think that this is an overstatement of the impression conveyed to the mind of an outside observer like myself by a study of the accounts which reach us from different parts of India; and when it is remembered that the state of things, which I have very briefly described, is precisely that which the science and experience of modern societies would have predicted as the inevitable result of the economic conditions which have prevailed, I think it must be allowed that, if there be no relation of cause and effect between them, it is at least a strange coincidence that they should be found side by side.

I have confined my remarks to the economical and social aspects of this question, but I am not sure that, from a political point of view, it is not even more important.

By a perpetual interference with the operation of laws which our own rule in India has set in motion, and which, I venture to think, are essential to success -by a constant habit of palliating symptoms, instead of grappling with disease-may we not be leaving to those who come after a task so aggravated by our neglect or timidity, that what is difficult for us may be impossible for them?

3rd February 1875.

L. M.

APPENDIX N

FURTHER MINUTE BY SIR LOUIS MALLET ON INDIAN LAND REVENUE

I am afraid that I only find in the Minutes of Members of Council on my paper of 3rd February last a confirmation of the grounds upon which I ventured to express my uneasiness at the confusion of principles which prevails in the administration of the land revenue system of India.

I

Sir Henry Montgomery urges that "volumes have been written on the subject during the past century, and I doubt whether the advocate of either side has been persuaded by the arguments of his opponent. would ask, why have volumes been written on the subject if it is one of no practical significance, and written, not by speculative philosophers, but by men engaged in the matter-of-fact work of administration? I fear that, until some rational and consistent principle be adopted by the Government of India, many more volumes will continue to be written upon it, and that, if our efforts to promote education in India are attended with any success as time goes on, it may take a form which may make it impossible to regard it with indifference.

Sir E. Perry asserts that "Government in India has always assumed the right to take what it chooses from the land, and describes the limits within which this right has been exerted during 3000 years! This

is a long time to go back for a land system, but, confining ourselves to the Mogul Empire, it seems to me a very unsafe defence of our present policy.

Sir E. Perry would, I think, readily admit that the doctrine of Government to which he refers, although very appropriate and sufficient at the Court of the Great Mogul, might be made to form an inconvenient text for House of Commons orators and newspaper correspondents appealing to the British householder. And even

now, is it not nearer the truth to say that the Government of India takes, not what it chooses, but what it dares ?

This brings me to some of the remarks of Sir G. Campbell and Sir H. Maine, which equally appear to me to ignore that the source from which the Government of India derives its power has changed and is changing daily, and that, if India is to be maintained, and rendered a permanent portion of the British Empire, this must be accomplished in some other way than by placing our future reliance on the empirical arts of despotism.

Sir G. Campbell says that the question is one of words. I cannot agree in this opinion. I am afraid, as Sir H. Maine has detected, that Indian Governments find their account in this obscurity, and know well enough that, by holding this question in suspense, they keep two strings to their bow, and escape the horns of a grave dilemma.

Sir G. Campbell's statement of the case appears to me to beg the question at issue. He says, "We now take, as nearly as we can, half the rent of lands not

permanently settled, and whether we call that rent revenue or rent, the fact is the same." Certainly, but the whole point of the discussion is whether, if we called our demand revenue instead of rent, we should be able to continue to take that half, or whether, if we called it rent, we ought not to take the whole, and whether the system which has grown up gradually is not so full of inequality, and injustice, and uncertainty, as to be a source of future danger and disaffection. Instead of consoling ourselves with the thought that the land under the Mogul Empire was more heavily burdened than now, is it not a more profitable question to ask, what will be the verdict on our land system when the agencies of western civilisation, which we are bringing to bear on India, have borne their fruit on modern native opinion, and is it not better to prepare in time for changes which can hardly be avoided if the unity of the Empire is to be secured?

One effect of the present attitude of indifference assumed by the Government on this question, of itself no slight evil, is that while, unless I am much mistaken, the land revenue has now become such a vital Imperial resource that the provincial redistribution of it which would be inevitable in any scheme of federation would be an almost insuperable obstacle to such an experiment, the facilities which it affords indispose those engaged in the work of governing to look at all in the direction of the financial reforms, which are, as it seems to me, the necessary condition of a policy of centralisation and unification. For, if this policy be

pursued, the day must come, and ought not to be distant, when, even with a people so helpless and so silent, there must be some recognition of the duty of redistributing the fiscal burdens of the people in the several provinces with a greater regard to equality. When that day arrives the question of revenue and rent will not be a "speculation oisive."

I have said that the present system is unequal. It is unequal both between province and province, between district and district, and between man and

man.

I append a statement of the contributions per head of population and per square mile to the land revenue of India, by Bengal, Bombay, Madras, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjab respectively, which speaks for itself.

The recent papers from Madras reveal various forms of inequality in the different districts of the Presidency, and a very dangerous pressure in some.

I need only refer to the recent correspondence on the subject of the late resolution of the Government of Bombay, to show the confusion and mischief at work in that important province.

The accounts which I have received of certain recent Bombay settlements strongly confirm everything which I have said as to the practical importance of clearly distinguishing between rent and revenue. Assessments have been raised seventy or eighty per cent. in one stroke, in conformity with certain artificial and arbitrary rules often at variance with actual facts, and raised distinctly under the influence of the rent theory,