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to mortgage and to sell, in order to meet the relentless Government demand. So the years roll on, and then perhaps when half the land in the district has changed hands, the Government wakes up, and the reason is asked in surprise; a culprit is sought, but who can possibly be charged with the crime, for the head of the district has been changed every year, and each officer has governed on the old principle of "after me the deluge.”

There must be a more direct supervision maintained over the Tahsildars, and a more active interference in their system of collection. These officers are allowed to drivel on with their notices to pay, for each of which a fee of twelve annas is charged, till the rent has been spent, and then loans are necessarily required in order to pay off the arrears of revenue. Promptitude in enforcing payment is indispensable both in the interests of the State and of the landowner; any failure to pay should be at once reported to the Collector, and measures should be immediately taken for the realization of the arrears, or for their remission or temporary suspension.

It is considered that, as a general rule, a good season and a bad season should be held to counterbalance one another; the Government takes no more in a year of abundance than it does in an ordinary year, and therefore the landowners are expected to be able to pay up in full in years of bad harvest. Even supposing that this is quite fair as a general principle, in practice it is quite unsuited to the character of the people; they have yet to learn what is meant by prudence and economy; they have no place to keep any surplus receipts; they have rarely, as it is, much to spare, but what they have, is at once expended in a long deferred marriage, in payment of sums due to money-lenders, in buying new clothes, or a few trinkets for their families, with men of improvident habits it is absolutely necessary to take what we want from a man at the time when he has the money; it is hopeless to expect payment at a later

period, unless we compel him to resort to the moneylender.*

Our system is founded upon a direct and distinct refusal to consider the habits and character of native landowners. We fix a demand for thirty years, holding, that what we collect in that period will, on the whole, taking good and

* From the Oudh Revenue Report for 1872, A.D., it appears that in the year under review only Rs. 34,242 were remitted out of a revenue demand of Rs. 1,41,36,015: of the sum thus remitted Rs. 18,313 were allowed in Sultanpur in consideration of the damage done by floods, and in Hardui the current revenue demand was reduced by Rs. 10,103 on account of losses caused by a hailstorm. In all the other ten districts, therefore, only Rs. 5,826 were remitted, and Sir George Couper justly remarked that "he was not satisfied that in the past year of widespread loss the disinclination of Collectors to propose remissions was not carried too far."

There seems little doubt that this opinion might have been more decided in its tone, when the description of the past years' harvests, as given in this report, is read.

"A fortnight before the commencement of the year, there was a fall of rain-perhaps unparalleled in the history of Oudh. It was nearly continuous over two-thirds of the province for three days and nights. The floods, which resulted, were reported by the railway officers to extend to an unbroken length of 120 miles along a line of railway which traverses the province. The crops on the inundated area were in places wholly destroyed, houses fell down sapped by the floods, stores of seed grain were entered by the water, cattle were swept away, and in some cases the people rescued with difficulty in boats. Driving winds accompanied the rain, and the clay huts of the poor were undermined even on the high grounds. The damage done in the Tahsil of Musafarkhana alone was reported to be as follows:- the kharif crops were entirely destroyed on 38,821 bighas; 8,302 houses were levelled; and 1,935 cattle and 81 human beings drowned. The floods were followed by fevers in the north and west by cholera, and cattle disease in the east and north."

"The ploughings for the rabi were late and scanty, but the saturated ground sent up a luxurious crop, and there was every prospect of a bumper harvest. In December and January, however, there were recurring falls of unseasonable rain, accompanied by fog and frost. Peas in the eastern districts rotted on the ground; the mustard and linseed crops all over the province so wholly failed, that ghee became cheaper

bad years together, about represent half of the total receipts: our system fails, because it will not consider, that it is far easier for a native landowner to pay double in a year of double receipts, and half the required sum in the following year of agricultural distress, than for him to pay the same sum in each of the two years.

It has however never been denied that unexpected calamities entitled the landowners to relief; drought, floods, hailstorms, cattle disease, may, in a few months, reduce a village to ruin; the necessity for relief is undoubted, and it may not be denied if the calamity is reported and appreciated; but in many cases the circumstances of the village are not known to the Collector; the Tahsildar regards himself merely as a tax-gatherer, whose efficiency in the eyes of his superiors depends entirely on the state

than oil. Wheat and barley were attacked by blight or ran to straw. Sugarcane and gram however were at least an average crop, and redeemed the harvest from being an absolute failure. It was so far fortunate for agriculturists that prices ruled high, and such crops as they reaped sold well; but the disasters of the kharif and rabi succeeded in different harvests in the preceding year, and a distress prevailed, which in some parts approached destitution, and occasioned the keenest anxiety for the future."

This tells its own tale, and it is not surprising to learn that there was a balance of land revenue amounting to Rs. 5,86,349 due at the end of the year; still many must have sold and mortgaged their properties to pay up even so much of the demand as was realized by the Collectors.

It cannot be deemed however in any way the fault of those officers that so little final relief was immediately proposed; changed again and again from one district to another, with a small and overworked staff of subordinates constantly shifted like themselves, they would be more than mortal, if they could have found time to enquire into every case of arrears, and to propose a suitable remedy; it was as much as they could do to suspend part of the demand in the more pressing cases until they should have had leisure to make some enquiry.

In Oudh the districts are very large, and the population is exceedingly dense, averaging 465 per square mile; while in the Punjab the average is only 172, and in the North-West Provinces, 378.

of his balance sheet; he does not take the initiative, and no measures of relief are allowed; in a few cases some relief may be proposed, but the proceedings are dilatory, and it arrives too late to save the landowners from resort to money-lenders, while resort to the money-lenders at the usual usurious interest is simply inevitable ruin.*

Many instances could be given by every officer in which, owing to the absence of any local knowledge or to an absolute want of leisure on the part of the Collector, harshness was involuntarily exercised towards revenue defaulters.

The writer recollects that a Tahsildar once sent up a general report in explanation of the revenue arrears in his sub-district, and although the great majority of the defaulting landowners had been ruined, or seriously crippled in their resources by the disastrous floods of 1871, which had simply converted many villages into swamps, this officer described them one and all as "nâdihand," that is, contumacious defaulters; in one or two instances he varied his phraseology by terming them "sharir," or law-defying

* The Tahsildar or sub-collector is the chief revenue authority for the Tahsil or primary subdivision of a district; a Tahsil is again divided into parganas.

The Tahsildar is in Oudh, Punjab, and Central Provinces a very overworked officer; not only has he to realize the land-tax, but he is also the chief assistant to the Collector in all the miscellaneous business, described in a subsequent note; and in addition he is overburdened with judicial work in minor civil, rent, and criminal cases; while this officer has in many cases small leisure to make himself acquainted with the condition of villages in his charge, he has lost the assistance of the subordinate who should be his right-hand man, namely, the pargana kanungo; under our system this officer has become a mere office drudge at the Tahsil.

As Sir George Couper remarks-"It is to be feared that that intimate knowledge of the circumstances of the various proprietors and village communities within his Tahsil, which the Directions assume, that a Tahsildar possesses, can rarely be acquired by an Oudh Tahsildar, who has much judicial work to perform in addition to his onerous executive functions." Page 30, Revenue Report, 1873.

scoundrels, because they had refused to allow his underling to seize and carry off the wretched crops of the seer fields, from the produce of which these poverty-stricken families eked out a bare and miserable subsistence.

In many instances the necessity for relief has been admitted, and generosity has been shewn in the remission of all arrears of revenue, but still ruin is not delayed, or even temporarily averted, simply because the relief was not given with sufficient promptness, not in fact till it was practically useless, as the landowners had fallen too deeply into debt to extricate themselves from the gripe of the money-lender.

It is to be feared, that the ruin of many proprietary communities, for whom a tardy relief has been sanctioned, can be clearly attributed to our harsh and relentless method of collection, and to the defects of our administrative system, which overworks the Collector and the Tahsildar, and leaves them no leisure to acquaint themselves with the condition of the villages committed to their charge.

An example may be given from the Oudh Report of 1872; the Commissioner of Fyzabad tells the sad story of an estate named Seharia in Pargana Mahadewa of Gonda; "Seharia is held by numerous proprietors, all more or less in debt and difficulties. Their lands suffered from floods, and the Government revenue had been greatly increased. The consequence was that after paying up one-third of the Government demand, and collecting what they could from the cultivators, they abandoned their villages, sending word to the Deputy Commissioner to do what he liked with their estate. The Deputy Commissioner promises a report of proposed arrangements for the future, so that it is not necessary to do more than record the fact."

As to the Jhansi landowners, the Board of Revenue record as follows in their report for 1873-74:-" It is manifestly impossible for the zemindar to meet a jama calculated on the rental assets of the year of settlement,

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