revenue always follows the population and the person wherever they go. This is the usage, and it cannot be relinquished without endangering the future resources of the country; because, as the Government waste lands, together with the jágír and inám lands, are equal to from one-fourth to one-half of the whole of the lands in cultivation, if they were permanently exempted from the payment of revenue, they would gradually, instead of lying half waste and poorly cultivated as at present, become completely cultivated, by drawing off the cultivators and stock from the lands now paying revenue, which would be proportionably diminished. If an effect of this kind has not already been experienced in provinces containing a large proportion of jágír and inám, it is because it is prevented by the usage of transferring the assessment from the deserted to the newly cultivated lands. Whenever it is found that the revenue of a district has been considerably diminished by the abandonment of assessed land and the occupation of waste land belonging to jágírdárs or inámdárs, an assessment, proportionate in some degree to the loss, is imposed on the jagír and inám. It is this which relieves the public revenue from loss by former profuse grants, and if this power were relinquished, we should have no means of saving it from very considerable defalcation. The smaller ináms, though they separately contain only a few acres each, are very extensive collectively. They have for the most part been granted without authority by heads of villages and revenue servants; and when they have escaped notice for a few years, and have afterwards been discovered, they have been allowed to continue from charitable and interested motives, and they have from various causes a constant tendency to increase. The investigation of ináms was therefore, among the native governments, like an inquiry into the state of the nation, and it is advisable that we should occasionally investigate and resume, in order to prevent the abuses and increase to which ináms are liable from neglect. The decision of the Supreme Court referred to in the foregoing Minute, having been brought before the Privy Council in appeal, that tribunal held that the resumption of the jágír, and its re-grant to Kalam-ullah Khen, were acts of sovereignty, exercised by the Government on behalf of the East India Company, which the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to annul or to question, and accordingly reversed the decree of the Supreme Court, so far as it affected the interests of the Company, and declared that the grant to Assim Khán did not prevail against the Company, and that their rights to the jágír in question were limited only by the grant which they themselves had made to Kalam-ullah Khán. ON THE PROGRESS OF THE REVENUE SURVEY. 10th May, 1822. Replies of the Collectors THE answers by the Collectors to the queries of the Board regarding the of Revenue, which accompanied the letter of that Board to Government, dated the 18th April, gave a summary view of the survey in the several districts under this Presidency. progress of the revenue survey. Main objects of a revenue survey. Such a survey requires Special qualifications. It appears from this summary that only a few of the districts have been regularly surveyed; that in some nothing has been done; that in others, surveys of detached parts have been made; and that different standards of measurement have been adopted in different districts, and sometimes even in the same district. The main objects of a survey are to record the exact quantity and description of all the land in every village; to ascertain the tenures and rights of the occupants or owners, as well as the rights of Government; to fix limits, and, by removing doubts, to obviate disputes respecting them; to establish mutual confidence between the ryots and the Government, by showing each what belongs to it; to ascertain the grounds of the assessment, not for the purpose of increasing the amount, but rather for that of enabling Government to avoid overtaxation; and, in short, to make what is now vague and fluctuating, definite and permanent. But such a survey as will answer these ends cannot be made by every Collector. It requires a practical knowledge of details, which is never acquired in districts permanently settled, and not often in those under long leases. It will therefore be advisable to proceed cautiously, to undertake the survey at present only in the few districts in which Collectors may be found capable of conducting it, and to extend it to others hereafter, whenever it may appear practicable. To attempt to introduce it everywhere immediately, would only be a useless waste of money and labour. in progress. A survey has been begun in Chingleput, and one is now Surveys now making of the lands not included in former surveys of the northern and southern divisions of Arcot. A revision of the assessment is being made in North Arcot, and is likewise required in Salem. The completion of the operations in these districts will probably be nearly as much as can be undertaken at present, but if the Board of Revenue can conveniently extend the survey to any other districts, it may be done. of using the general of land ment. The observations of that Board on the expediency of using Expediency the acre as the general standard in all accounts of measurement acre as the transmitted to the Presidency, are perfectly just. Without standard some general standard, no correct idea can be formed of the measureassessment of any district, nor can any comparison be made between that of different districts. The advantages of such a standard are so many, and the objections to it so few and trifling, that I am satisfied that we ought to adopt the acre as the scale of measure, not only in the English accounts, but in all the native village accounts. The measures employed in different districts, and even in different villages in the same district, often differ as much from each other as from the acre. As no one scale will answer for all districts, and still less for all villages, it makes no difference to the people, whether the one adopted be the acre or any other; they soon discover in what proportion it is greater or less than their own. In a very few weeks the inhabitants of the Ceded Districts became acquainted with the acre, and introduced it into their language. The bíghá, in the same manner, is still in use over extensive provinces where it was originally unknown. ment should ence to the degree of in ordinary The sentiments expressed by the Board of Revenue, regard- The assessing the impossibility of regulating the assessment by the have refervarying fertility of the land, are what ought to be particularly ordinary attended to by the local officers. The rent which the assess- cultivation ment is intended to fix, is that of Government, not that of the ryot and his tenant. The Government rent should be that which is produced by the ordinary degree of cultivation in ordinary seasons-what the ryot may easily pay, without any *Bíghá, a measure of land, somewhat less than an acre. seasons. The actual produce in a long series of years is the safest guide in fixing the assessment. The want of a regular not delay tion of a ryotwar settlement. labour or expense beyond what is usually employed. Whatever increase of produce may be derived from extra labour or expense should be his own-the assessment ought not to rise with it. In fixing the assessment of the lands of any village, the safest guide is the actual produce and collections during a long course of former years. Even when these have been ascertained, it is sometimes necessary to make some allowance for the kind of ryot by whom particular lands may have been held, because in villages where each ryot holds for himself, unconnected with the rest, the principal ryots often contrive to hold their lands at a lower rate than the inferior ryots. The want of a regular survey does not in any way hinder the introduction of a ryotwár settlement, when there are no the introduc- other circumstances to prevent it, because the village accounts always exhibit the detail of the lands, their distribution among the ryots, their rent, and the extent of the several fields or shares, either founded on estimate, or on some ancient measurement; and from such accounts it has long been the custom in most parts of India to make the ryotwár settlement. The circular letter proposed by the Board of Revenue seems to me to be calculated to answer the purposes for which it is intended. ON CERTAIN POINTS IN THE REVENUE SYSTEM 16th July, 1822. MR. Græme's report on Malabar contains ample details on Completeeverything connected with the condition of the people and the * Malabar is an extensive district on the western coast of India, extending from 10 12′ to 12° 15′ north latitude, and between the parallels of 75° 10' and 76 50 east longitude. It is bounded on the north by Canara, on the east by Coorg and Mysore, on the south-east by the Nilgiris and Coimbatore, on the south by the native State of Cochin, and on the west by the sea. It covers an area of 6002 square miles, and, according to the last census, contains a population of 2,261,250 persons, of whom 72-2 per cent. are Hindus and 257 Mahomedans; only 19 per cent. are Christians; 31 persons were returned as Jains, and 54 as others. Malabar in former days was under the feudal system. It was held by a number of petty Hindu chiefs, who were quite independent of each other, and who, though generally yielding fealty to some paramount power, held their lands in absolute proprietary right. Some of these chiefs, gradually obtaining an ascendency over the others, became the ruling Rájás of the country, exacting feudal servitude from the other landholders. Their revenues consisted, besides the produce of their own private domains, of custom duties on trade, mint duties, escheats of intestate property, poll taxes and taxes on professions, a variety of royalties on cardamom and other indigenous products, the wrecks of all vessels stranded on the coast, presents on festival days, and occasional contributions on extraordinary exigencies. There was no land-tax. In 1766 Malabar was conquered by Hyder Ali, and remained under Mysore rule until 1792, when by the treaty of Seringapatam it was ceded by Tippoo to the East India Company. The Mysore rulers imposed a land-tax, but, owing to the long-established rights possessed by the landholders of private property in their land, were unable to exact more than a share of the landlord's rent. After Malabar became British territory, the revenue management was entrusted for a time to the native chiefs; but it was soon found necessary to take it into the hands of the Government, and the chiefs were granted permanent allowances equal to a fifth of the revenues. The principles of the land revenue system introduced by the Mahomedan Government, which was in essentials ryotw.r, the settlement being made with each individual landholder, were retained. At the time when the foregoing Minute was written, the principal taxes imposed upon the land in Malabar were a tax on the land cultivated with rice, calculated not with reference to the extent of the land, but with reference to the quantity of seed required to sow it, which varies according to the quality of the soil; a tax on fruit-trees, such as cocoanut, areca, and jack; a tobacco monopoly, and an export duty on pepper. The tobacco monopoly and the export duty on pepper have since been abolished. The land-tax in Malabar is light, and ness of Mr. Greme's report on Malabar. |