on what classes, and to what extent on each respectively, the revenue burden is to fall. Considering what a large portion of the total population gets its living wholly or in part from the land, it is obvious that the determination of landed rights and the record of everything which concerns the agricultural and social habits of the people is an immense business; consequently a knowledge of the land administration and of the records it requires and the procedure it employs, is, in fact, a knowledge of the largest class of the population and of the conditions under which it lives.

And as the collection of the land-revenue, and the management of all the affairs that are connected with the maintenance of the land-holders in prosperity, demand a subdivision of the entire country into districts and minor official charges, this subdivision and the hierarchy of officers which it entails, naturally becomes the basis of the entire administrative system. Considerations connected with it find their way into every department, the Post-office, the Irrigation department, the Public Works and many others. Nor is the territory organized and officers appointed to the charge of each local area, merely with a view to collecting fixed sums of revenue at fixed dates. The administration has to take a sort of paternal or 'lord of the manor' interest in the whole range of agricultural conditions. It is on this account that the Government is sometimes represented as the 'universal landlord.' The term, it is true, is used with some reference to the fact that the Government has the right over all waste and unoccupied land (as will be explained in the sequel), and that to secure its revenue it holds in a sort of hypothecation the ultimate right over every acre. But there is more than that. In order that the revenue may not be reduced below what a prosperous country should yield, the State officers-among whom the District officer or Collector vested with magisterial powers, is the most prominent-have continually to watch the state of the country. They have to take note of the approach of famine,

and by suspending or even remitting the revenue in due time, prevent any undue strain being laid on the people; they have to watch the state of the crops, the failure of rain, the occurrence of floods, locusts and blight, the spread of cattle-disease, all of which may affect the revenue-paying capacity of the land. They have to repress crime and other sources of social disturbance, which demoralize and tend to pauperize the people; to consider how estates may be improved and protected against famine, by studying the requirements of the district in respect of communications which improve the market, of canals which render the waste cultivable, of drainage and embankment works and other improvements. Local Acts empower the Collector to distribute advances from the Treasury to enable the agriculturist to buy stock and to sink wells and undertake individual and local improvements; and this duty requires intimate knowledge of the land.

Even education is not unconnected with the land system. Village schools and the dissemination of agricultural knowledge are matters which indirectly-or perhaps I should say directly-affect the welfare of the villages, and thus affect their power to bear up against calamity and pay with ease instead of with pressure the demands of the State.

Every officer of every department will in some way or at some time be brought into communication with the Collector, his records and his subordinate officials.

The Police-officer has to deal with the village headmen and rural notables, who, as land-holders, have by law certain duties laid on them in connection with the repression and discovery of crime. The details of offences, and especially cattle thefts, demand a knowledge of local land customs and agricultural habits to make them intelligible. The Canal Officer can neither assess water-rates nor distribute the water without some acquaintance with the land system. Even the Commandant of a regiment is thrown into contact with the local Revenue officer, the rural deputy of the Collector, for the supplies and the carts and camels he needs on the march. In fact, I cannot think

of any public servant who will not be the better for a general idea of the Land System, while for many such knowledge is absolutely indispensable.

And it also follows, almost without saying, that any one who aims at understanding India, its people and its requirements, and who would gauge at their real value the outcry of half-educated newspaper writers and students of our colleges at the great capitals, and who would understand where there is really a reform to be wisely introduced, and where there is mere clamour and the expression of a natural discontent and aspiration that does not know really what it wants, or what is best for it,-it follows that for hiin, at least a general idea of the land-system and of the land-tenures cannot fail to be of primary value and importance.

I think I have now discussed all the purely preliminary questions that arise; so, after devoting a chapter to a brief history of the Provinces into which British India is divided -describing how they came to be, and on what legal basis. they are constituted-we may proceed to a general account of the land-tenures and landholding customs of the several provinces, especially noting the fuctors which went to their making and shaping: after this will follow an equally general account of the different systems under which the Land-Revenue is assessed and collected, and the administration carried on.

These chapters are especially designed for the home reader and the non-official student, while I hope they will serve as a useful and introductory study to all classes.

I only add that, as in the course of our study we repeatedly mention 'Acts' of the Legislature of India and of the Local Government's 'Regulations,' and Acts of Parliament relating to India, I have thought that it would tend to completeness to interpolate a short chapter on the Indian Legislatures and their powers. Thus the first or 'General' volume, looks at the subject as a whole, and is intended to prepare the way for the volumes which follow and which deal in more detail with the separate provinces seriatim. It will be observed that

each provincial account is divided into chapters, the first being introductory and calling attention to any special historical or local features that affect the administration; the next describes the process of 'Settlement,' i.e. assessing the Land Revenue; the next deals with land-tenures and customs; and the last with the classes of revenue-officers and the powers they exercise, and with the principal heads of business which they daily transact in camp or in the Collector's office connected with the collection of the revenue, the realization of arrears, the hearing of petitions and cases relating to revenue business, and to the affairs of the estates generally as far as those are of public

CHAPTER II.

OF THE PROVINCES UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, AND HOW THEY WERE CREATED.

§1. Introductory.

BRITISH INDIA is divided into Provinces, each under a separate local government, and each having its own special laws relating to Land-Revenue. It will be well, therefore, to understand how these provinces came into separate existence for the purposes of administrative government. The limits of my work, however, preclude me from entering on anything like a historical sketch of the progress of those great and unforeseen events which led to so vast a territory being brought under British rule: for such information the standard Histories of India must be consulted. I must plunge at once in medias res, only pausing briefly to remind the reader that the history of the British rule in India is the history of a trading Company, which in the course of events was entrusted with the government of the country until 1858, when its delegated powers being resumed, the Crown undertook the direct administration by its own officers.

2. The Presidencies.

So long as the East India Company1 was, as a body, chiefly concerned with trade, the charters granted to it

1 The title East India Company' originated with tho Act of Parlia ment 3 and 4 Wm. IV, cap. 85

(A. D. 1833). Section 111 says that the Company may be described as the East India Company.' At first