Bengal, admitted that in the Central Provinces the assessment might have been too severe.1 In India, also, during the discussion of the annual Budget in the Viceroy's Council, all the Indian members of the Council pleaded in favour of moderate assessments, long leases, and irrigation works,2 and Lord Curzon promised to bestow his careful consideration to the subject. And during the discussion of the Provincial Budget of the North-West Provinces and Oudh, Sir Antony Macdonnell, the Lieutenant-Governor of those Provinces, was good enough to refer to my statements, and pointed out that in Northern India the policy of the Government during the present century has been to gradually moderate the land revenue demand.

The attention bestowed on the question by these high and responsible officials promises the most beneficent results, and the terrible and wide-spread famine of the present year raises the question of land assessments in India above the sphere of party controversies and invests it with a grave and national importance.

If lands have been over-assessed in some provinces of India, if the revenue demand has been raised too suddenly and too high, if the population of the country has thereby been rendered resourceless and incapable of helping themselves to any extent in years of drought,

1Mr Dutt seemed to think that in the Central Provinces the Government of India were exacting an exorbitantly high land revenue. He was very reluctant to dogmatise as to what was and what was not a reasonable land revenue, and he should be very sorry to say that in the past they might not here and there have placed the land assessment too high."-Report of Lord George Hamilton's speech in the Times of the 4th April 1900.

2 See Appendices D to H.

-no class of men will be more anxious to remedy the evils than British administrators who have devoted themselves to the great task of improving the material condition of the people of India. It is in the hope of rendering some help in the great work which they have undertaken, and of removing some of the deep-seated causes of poverty and indebtedness among the cultivators of India, that the present work is published.

The land question in India is generally considered an intricate subject by public men in England, and is therefore avoided. But the main features of the Indian systems are so simple that they are easily explained and are as easily grasped. It is only necessary to remember that the land systems are different in the different provinces of India, and if we examine the system in each province separately, the main facts will appear exceedingly simple, and we shall obtain a clear and comprehensive idea of the conditions of the agricultural life of an agricultural nation.

In BENGAL the cultivators of the soil pay rents to private landlords, and the revenue payable by landlords to the Government has, in most parts of the province, been fixed for ever by the Permanent Settlement of 1793. The rents paid by cultivators to landlords generally do not exceed one-fifth or one-sixth the gross produce, and the revenue obtained by the Government represents five to six per cent. of the gross produce.1

In NORTHERN INDIA also the cultivators of the soil

pay rents to private landlords. But the revenue paid by landlords to the Government has not been per

1 See Appendix A.

manently fixed (except in some districts), and is resettled at each recurring settlement. Generally speaking, settlements are made once in thirty years, and about one-half of the rental of landlords is claimed

by the Government as revenue. The rents paid by cultivators to landlords represent, on an average, about one-fifth the gross produce, and the revenue collected by the Government represents eight to ten per cent. of the gross produce.1

In BOMBAY the cultivators, generally speaking, pay the revenue direct to the Government, there being no intervening landlords, and the revenue is resettled usually once in thirty years. Lands are assessed according to their situation and productive powers, and also with an eye to their fiscal history, and no endeavours are made to take a fixed and definite proportion of the produce as revenue. It was once believed that the land revenue represented about one-eighth the gross produce, but at the present time it is generally between twenty and thirty-three per cent. of the gross produce.2

In MADRAS also the cultivators pay the revenue direct to the Government, except in some tracts where the revenue is paid by landlords and is permanently fixed. The revenue obtained from cultivators direct is fixed at each recurring settlement, and settlements are often made for shorter periods than thirty years. Onehalf of the nett produce of the soil, i.e. of the value of the produce after deducting the cost of cultivation, is claimed by the State as revenue; and there is a rule in force that this demand shall not in any case exceed one2 Ibid.

1 See Appendix A.

third or two-fifths of the gross produce. On an average, the State demand represents twelve to twenty per cent. of the gross produce for dry lands, and sixteen to thirtyone per cent. of the gross produce on wet lands.1

Lastly, in the CENTRAL PROVINCES, the cultivators pay rents to private landlords, and landlords pay the revenue to the Government. But unlike Northern

India, rents in the Central Provinces are not settled by the landlords and cultivators among themselves, but are fixed by Government officers at each recurring settlement; and the revenue demand is not one-half the rental but sometimes goes up to sixty per cent. of the rental. At the last settlement, effected after 1890, the revenue was very largely enhanced, approximating to, and even exceeding, a hundred per cent.2 in some districts. Complaints made at the time were disregarded, but the famines of 1897 and 1900 disclose the wretched condition to which the cultivators have been reduced. And from the statement made by the Secretary of State for India, quoted before, there are reasons to hope that the assessment will be revised, and the mistake committed will be rectified, as soon as the present famine is over.

3

Such, briefly, are the different land systems in the different provinces of India. It will be found that the incidence of the land revenue varies considerably in the different provinces. And it is significant that the provinces which have suffered most severely from 2 See Appendix C.

1 See Appendix A.

3 I have treated Northern India as one province though it really comprises two provinces under two separate Adminstrations, one for N. W. Province and Oudh, and the other for the Punjab.

famines within the last twenty-five years, i.e., in 1877, 1897 and 1900, are the provinces where the demand payable by cultivators is fixed by the Government, and the land revenue is unduly high.

Nearly forty years ago, after the severe famine of 1860, Lord Canning, then Viceroy and GovernorGeneral of India, recommended the extension of the Permanent Settlement to all parts of India; Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence supported the recommendation, and two Secretaries of State for India, Sir Charles Wood and Sir Strafford Northcote, approved of the proposal. It was known then that the proposal involved some sacrifice of the prospective rise in the land revenue of India, but Sir Strafford Northcote was prepared to make the sacrifice with the object of improving the material condition of the people, and of confirming the loyalty of the landed classes in India to the British Rule. Twenty years of uninterrupted peace within the natural frontiers of India, and of devoted loyalty on the part of the people, weakened instead of strengthening this very laudable desire on the part of their rulers, and the proposal of a Permanent Settlement was finally rejected in 1883. I have always considered this an unfortunate decision for the people of India. The extension of the Permanent Settlement would have led to some accumulation of capital which is now the crying need of India; it would have improved the condition of landlords and cultivators alike; and it would have made them more resourceful, and more able to help themselves in years of drought and failure of harvest. I had

1 See Appendix I.