Settlement have necessarily impoverished the peasantry and made them more resourceless and helpless in years of bad harvests. The late Sir William Hunter, speaking in the Viceregal Council in 1879 about the Bombay Settlements, said that "the fundamental difficulty of bringing relief to the Deccan peasantry . . . is that the Government assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year." This fundamental difficulty has not been removed since, and the assessment commenced after 1896 is more severe, and is likely to leave the cultivator more impoverished and resourceless than the assessment commenced after 1866.

9. No Check on Enhancements provided in the Revenue Law.-My Lord, the revenue law of the Province provides no adequate check on these ́ assessments. The assessment made is not based on estimates of the produce of the fields, but on a scientific but thoroughly unpractical appraisement of the intrinsic value of the land, and an examination of the fiscal history of the Talooka. Enhancements are made not merely on the equitable grounds of extension of cultivation and rise of prices, but also on the vague and indefinite ground of improvements effected by the State. A new road constructed, a new line of railway opened, and even the general advance of the country in times of peace, may be, and are, included under this third head as a ground of enhancement; and it will be obvious to Your Lordship that the condition of the Deccan peasantry can never improve so long as the Deccan Settlement Officer is armed with this comprehensive power to raise

the rental-with the general advance of the country. So far as the cultivator of the Deccan is considered, the blessings of peace and the benefits of a civilised administration add to his impoverishment, because improved roads and communications, and the general advance of the country are made a ground of enhancement of his rent. If such roads and communications have increased the prices of the produce, an enhancement of the rental on this definite ground is just and fair. If the roads and communications have not increased the prices of food grains, wherein is the cultivator benefited? ant why should his rental be increased because his richer neighbour can travel by rail, or his money lender has a civil court nearer at hand? All the real advantage which the cultivator secures from the general advancement of the country is shown in the rise of prices, and that is a just and legitimate ground of enhancement of rents.1 To provide an additional ground for enhancements when the prices have not risen is to tax the cultivator for a benefit which he has not derived, and makes him poorer after each Settlement.

10. No Equitable Limitations on Enhancements.— My Lord, there are no equitable limitations to the enhancements which the Settlement Officer is empowered to make. The rule is that (1) the increase of revenue in the case of a Talooka, or group of villages, should not exceed thirty-three per cent.; (2) the increase of revenue in the case of a village shall not exceed sixty-six per cent.; (3) the increase of

1 This was practically the only ground of enhancement contemplated by the Governor of Bombay in 1862. See Appendix L.

revenue in the case of an individual holding shall not exceed one hundred per cent. I beg that these checks on the powers of the Bombay Settlement Officer may be compared with the limitations prescribed in the Tenancy Act for the Bengal Zemindar. It is undesirable that the Government should take wider powers of enhancement with respect of cultivators living under the State, than it allows to private landlords in respect of cultivators living under such landlords.

11. No Judicial Checks on Enhancements.-Lastly, My Lord, there are no judicial checks on the action of the Settlement Officer. In 1873, an appeal in an assessment suit was preferred in the High Court of Bombay, and the High Court decided the case against the Settlement Officer, and in favour of the plaintiff. Immediately after, a Bill was introduced in the Council to exclude the jurisdiction of the High Court and of all Civil Courts in matters relating to assessments, and the Hon. Mr Ellis explained the object of the Bill in these memorable words: "It was not expedient that the general policy of Government in relation to the land revenue should be questioned, or that the details of revenue assessments should be questioned by the Civil Courts." The Bombay Revenue Jurisdiction Act of 1873 was accordingly passed, excluding the jurisdiction of Civil Courts in matters of assessment; and if the assessment is severe or unfair, or the Settlement Officer commits a blunder, the aggrieved cultivator has no independent tribunal to appeal to from his decision. My Lord, I do not wish to make any reflection against Revenue Officers. I have been a Revenue Officer myself all

through my official career, and I speak from personal knowledge when I state that Revenue Officers endeavour to perform their difficult and onerous duties as justly and conscientiously as Judicial Officers, or as any other class of officers in India. But it will appear from a moment's reflection that in the matter of assessment suits the Revenue Officer and the Settlement Officer are virtually a party to the suit, and it cannot meet the ends of justice if they are made the final judges in such suits. The failure of justice which often results from this inequitable system is illustrated by the facts I have mentioned in paragraph 8 of my letter to Your Lordship of the 20th of February last; the cost of cultivation in Madras is underestimated by the revenue authorities; and the Madras raiyat obtains no redress from this injustice because he cannot ask a Civil Court to determine the actual cost of cultivating his field. In Bengal, the Tenancy Act of 1885 permits the cultivator to take his case to Civil Courts; all over India the private citizen and the private trader are permitted by the British Government and by British laws to seek redress, even against the Government itself, in the impartial Civil Courts of the land. But the cultivators of India, the poorest, the most ignorant, and the most helpless class of the Indian population, are debarred (except in Bengal) from seeking redress against the assessment of Revenue Officers; and the assessment becomes necessarily unfair and excessive because it is unchecked by an appeal to an independent tribunal.

12. Sir Charles Wood's Despatch of 1864.—It will appear to Your Lordship from what has been stated in

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the four preceding paragraphs that there is no real check against undue enhancements made by Settlement Officers; that enhancements out of all proportion to the increase of produce and the rise of prices are made in the absence of effective checks; and that this is the real reason of that distressed condition of the Deccan cultivator which Sir William Hunter deplored in 1879, and which every beneficent English administrator in India deplores at the present day. The check on enhancements which was generously provided by Sir Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India, as far back as 1864, has turned out to be ineffective in practice. In his memorable despatch of that year Sir Charles Wood laid down the principle that assessments on lands should not on any account, and under any circumstances, exceed one-half of the net produce of the land, i.e., one-half of the produce after deducting the cost of cultivation. This rule, laid down with the most benevolent intentions, has completely broken down in its application. In Madras the cost of cultivation is underestimated in many cases, and no appeal is allowed to Civil Courts against such underestimation; in Bombay the cost of cultivation is not estimated at all, lands being assessed with an eye to their intrinsic value and their fiscal history.

13. My Lord, it has been a painful task for me to place all these facts and circumstances relating to Land Assessments in India before Your Excellency; and I have done it because I feel convinced that Your Excellency's Government is animated by a sincere desire to materially improve the condition of the