The annual fluctuation in the amount of revenue under the ryotwar

system not such as to

inconveni

ence.

must always be made directly from the cultivator in his quality of landlord, and hence there can be no person between the cultivator and the revenue officer, without a creation of zemindárs, who must themselves in time become either petty princes or cultivators. If the whole system of English and of Indian collection is examined, it will perhaps appear that the interference of revenue officers is greater and more vexatious in England than in this country. The land-tax of England is so light, and is so small a portion of the public revenue, that the landlord cannot be supposed to suffer any vexation from its collection; but then there is the excise, for which every house is entered, and the property of every person subjected to as much inspection and interference as the land of the Indian ryot. Were there no excise in England, it would be necessary to draw a greater revenue from the land, and to investigate its produce more narrowly. Land-rent is to Indian what the excise and customs are to English revenue, and hence it becomes necessary to give particular attention to it, and to employ a large establishment of servants to secure every part of it that is justly due to Government.

The annual fluctuation in the amount of revenue has likewise been brought as an argument against the ryotwár system. But this fluctuation will never be so great as to cause any serious inconvenience. It would never in any one year cause serious exceed ten per cent. in an aggregate of six or eight collectorates, though it might be more in a single one. It would gradually diminish as the ryots became proprietors, and would in ten or twelve years scarcely ever be above five per cent. As the inequality too would arise as often from an increase as a decrease of revenue, Government would lose nothing by it, and the deficiency when it occurred might always be provided for, either by reserving the surplus of former years or by a loan.

Expansive character of the revenue under the ryotwar system an important advantage.

Though the revenue at first should be the same, or should be even greater under the múttadári, it has this disadvantage, that the revenue is limited at once, and cannot grow with the resources of the country, whereas in the ryotwár it keeps exact pace with them, rising or falling as there is more or less cultivation. It is no loss on the whole to Government, and must be much easier to the ryots, while they have so little

revenue of

The public the country regulated in by the pri

ought to be

some degree

vate revenue.

property, that this fluctuation should continue, for they cultivate most when the season is favourable, and Government thus draws from the country the greatest revenue in those years when the gross produce is the greatest; and the land-rent of India may be said in this respect to resemble the principal sources of British revenue-the excise and customs-which increase or diminish yearly with the commerce of the nation, the fund from which they are derived. The public ought certainly to be regulated in some degree by the private revenue of the country, but nothing can be more contrary to this principle than the múttadári system, for it fixes the public demand now, which must remain the same thirty or forty years hence, whatever addition may have been made to private property in that time. It does not accommodate itself to the circumstances of the country; and because it cannot raise the revenue hereafter, it makes it too high at first, as in the Baramahal and other districts, whose whole resources have been brought to light by survey; and in order to realize this revenue it is obliged to authorize the muttadars, or middlemen, to exact the former high rents from the ryots. On the The ryotwar other hand, the ryotwár system enables the public to advance adapts itself with the private revenue, as long as there is any waste land means in the country; and in doing this it adapts itself perfectly to inhabitants. the means of the inhabitants, for there can be no juster measure of their means than the increase or decrease of cultivation. It also, by making the remission upon the assessment of the land, gives the whole of it at once to the ryots, and, by enabling them to raise more food for the maintenance of their families, facilitates the increase of population, the occupancy of waste for its subsistence, and the augmentation of revenue. The assessment of lands formerly cultivated and waste never cultivated amounts to star pagodas 10,10,842. It would be idle to imagine that the whole can ever be brought into cultivation; but I am persuaded that nearly all the land formerly Probable cultivated, amounting to star pagodas 5,55,962, together with a cultivation. considerable portion of the waste, will be occupied in the course of twenty-five years.

system

to the

of the

increase of

cultivation

The increase of cultivation will, however, have no sensible Increase of effect in augmenting the size of farms, and thereby lessening will not the detail of collection. The farms will probably always remain as at present, comprehending all sizes, from five acres

necessarily attended

by

be intere in the size of

farms.

Instricts the

property in land.

to fifteen hundred, and paying from one to a thousand pagodas. Their enlargement is prevented at present by the want of property, and will be prevented hereafter by its division. In In the Ceded the Ceded Districts, and throughout the Deccan, the ryot has ry has no little or no property in land-he has no possessory right; he does not even claim it. He is so far from asserting either a proprietary or a possessory right, that he is always ready to relinquish his land and take some other, which he supposes is lighter assessed. All land is supposed to revert to Government at the end of every year, to be distributed as it may think proper; and land is, accordingly, sometimes taken from one ryot and given to another, who is willing to pay a higher rent. If this power is exercised with caution, it is not from the fear of violating any possessory right, but of losing revenue; for the assessment is generally so high that, if the ryot is dispossessed, the same rent can seldom be got from a new one. The only assessed land that is not annually at the disposal of Government is that which pays a quit-rent, and is either inams that were formerly free, or ground belonging to tanks and wells, constructed at the expense of individuals, who are on that account allowed a remission from one-fifth to one-half of the rent. Even in this case, however, private property in land has always been viewed with so much jealousy, that instead of a permanent quit-rent, it has been much more usual to allow the person who digs the tank or well to hold the land rent free, until he is reimbursed for all his expenses and labour, and then to regard it as Government land, and assess it at the full rate.

The rrot

combines the

labourer,

farmer, and

landlord.

The ryot of characters of India unites in his own person the characters of labourer, farmer, and landlord; he receives the wages of the labourer, the profit of the farmer on his stock, and a small surplus from one to twenty per cent. of the gross produce as rent, but on an average not more than five or six per cent. The smallness of this surplus prevents him from letting his land to an undertenant, because the rent would not be equal to his subsistence, and also because no tenant would give him even this rent; for as there is everywhere plenty of good land lying uncultivated, which any person may occupy on paying the sirkár rent, it is evident that no ryot will hold land of another, and pay an addition of five or six per cent. upon the sirkár rent, when he may get land of the same kind without paying any increase. As long, therefore, as Government have uncultivated land of a

there is un

land avail

able, ryots

can have no

sys

Indian y tem of caste

and inheritance to minute subdivision

of property.

of the

tolerably good quality to dispose of, ryots can have no tenants; So long as and hence there never has been in India, with the exception of cultivated a very few districts, any class of landowners receiving their rents from tenants. The tendency of the Indian system of tenants. castes and laws of inheritance always has been, and must be, to keep land divided into small portions among the ryots, and to make the same person labourer, farmer, and landlord. Why, then, attempt to subvert an ancient system which places the great body of ryots above want, renders them industrious, Advantages frugal, and comfortable, and preserves the simplicity of their ancient manners and their respect for public authority? It has been said that there can be no proper subordination without just gradations of rank in society, and that zemindárs are required in Indian society to accomplish this desirable end; but this opinion is completely contradicted by experience, for there is no people on earth among whom there is greater subordination than among the Hindus, who never saw proprietary zemindárs until they were created by the Company's Government.

system.

THE IMPOSITION OF A TAX ON INCOMES IN THE
FORM OF A HOUSE-TAX.*

15th August, 1807.

THE plan which I have proposed for forming a permanent ryotwár settlement is so plain that it can require no further elucidation, except with regard to house-rent, which ought undoubtedly to remain under the immediate direction of the Collector as a sort of increasing revenue. The tax which is generally denominated house-rent, is more properly a tax upon income. In the case of labourers and other poorer orders of the inhabitants, where it does not exceed one or two rupees, it may be called house-rent; but even here it is rather a tax upon income, equal to the produce of a certain number of days labour, for the house or hut itself is probably not worth more than five or ten rupees. In the case of weavers and other tradesmen, it is usually termed a professional tax; but as the weaver is rated according to the estimated produce of his loom, and the number that he employs, the tax is evidently upon his income; and in the case of merchants, who often pay a tax of fifty pagodas for a house which would not sell for so much, the tax is clearly an income one, and is so considered by themselves. There is no difficulty in fixing the amount of the tax with regard to labourers and tradesmen; but it is not so easy to ascertain it with respect to merchants, who, though they are supposed to be assessed in some places at fifteen or twenty per cent. of their income, in others pay little or nothing. Under the native Government there

*This paper is inserted as indicating Munro's opinion regarding the expediency and justice of requiring

were many reasons for this

the non-agricultural, as well as the agricultural classes, to contribute to the revenue.