"That the principles to guide the authorities in their disposal of questions like the present have been unmistakeably laid down upon an equitable and intelligible basis by your Honourable Court, and the late Governor-General, the most noble the Marquis of Dalhousie.

"In the political letter of your Honorable Court to the Government of Bombay, under date 26th September (No. 11) of 1834, the following paragraph occurs:-On the subject of adoption, our opinions have been communicated to you in our letter of the 11th June, (No. 8) 1834. We then stated it to be our wish, that whenever the tenure of the estate and the custom of previous Governments are such, that the refusal of your permission to adopt would be considered an act of harshness, still more when it would be considered an injury, the permission should be given; but otherwise not, unless as a reward, marked either by special services or general fidelity and good conduct, and especially by a good administration of the Jaghire.

"In his minute of the 3rd of August, 1848, in the Rajah of Sattarah's case, the Governor-General, with reference to the sanction of the adoption, (paragraph 26,) writes as follows:- The Government is bound in duty, as well as policy, to act on every such occasion with the purest integrity; and in the most scrupulous observance of good faith, where even a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should at once be abandoned.

"On both these principles, that of doubt and merit, your petitioner respectfully submits that her case is one in every way worthy of your benevolent consideration.

"As to any shadow of doubt being shown, the only question is, whether there can, from all the circumstances of this case hereinbefore enumerated, exist any doubt whatever that the adoption is, in every respect, legal and valid; but to put the case on lower grounds, your petitioner would respectfully ask, whether the first terms, in which the Collector of Tinnevelly has condemned your petitioner's case, do not show the existence of doubts, even in his mind, and whether, taking a broad plain sense view of the whole matter, it is not one of those doubtful cases which the late Governor-General had in his eye when giving utterance to the sentiments above quoted.

"Your petitioner admits that the questions hereinbefore,

referred primarily to the subject matter then under discussion, namely, the adoption of children by sovereign princes, but that she submits that the principle involved is precisely the same, whatever is the extent or nature of the estate to which the adopted son is to succeed, and that the same rule should be applicable to the poorest yeomiahoor as to the richest sovereign prince.

"As to merit, your petitioner would crave once more to refer to the Collector of Tinnevelly's letter, under date the 14th March, 1851, (paragraph 8,) wherefrom it will be seen that your petitioner's husband's ancestors have for generations done the State good service, holding highly respectable and responsible situations; that the father of your petitioner's husband served the Company, and received a pension of 50 rupees a month, 20 of which were continued to your petitioner's husband to the date of his death, after which it was discontinued, expressly on the ground that your petitioner held these villages upon a favourable tenure; a fact, of which the Collector put forward to the Board, as your petitioner now does to your Honourable Court, as a reason for taking a favorable view of her application.

"On the whole, therefore, your petitioner, strong in the truth and justice of her case, throws herself with every confidence on the known liberality and benevolence of your Honourable Court, and prays for the poor boon she has so long in vain solicited at the hands of the various authorities in this country. The advantage to be gained to the Company by the resumption of her little patrimony is as nothing to the maintenance of the Honourable Company's name among its subjects for justice and charity, and she prays, in conclusion, that the necessary orders may be issued for the transference of the registry of the villages in question from her name into that of Ragoonadha Row.

"And your petitioner shall ever pray, &c."

No answer has been received to this petition. The widow's mite is perhaps too small to occupy the time of the Directors, though it was not too small to excite the cupidity of their servants.

Let me add another instance which will show what paltry pleas and pettifogging special pleading can be had recourse to for the purpose of turning people out of lands held on favourable tenures. Certain villagers or laman had an Agraharam which they and their ancestors had enjoyed for a period reaching beyond the

Company's occupation of the country.

At that period a light assessment had been fixed. The occupants, some five years ago, fell into arrears. The Collector issued a notice on the 14th of January, 1853, that if the arrears were not paid within five days the estate would escheat at the end of the year of grace. This notice was not served till the 18th of January. The occupants claimed to calculate the time from the date of service. The Collector, however, reckoned from the date of his signing the notice, and the estate was seized at the expiration of the year of grace according to his calculation. The proprietors paid the arrear up within the year from the date of service of notice. They have petitioned the Collector, the Revenue Board, the Government, and now the Court of Directors, for relief against this quibbling and most unfair construction, by which they have been deprived of their estate!

This is all I have to say on the topic of annexation. Is it not enough? In the formula which concludes a Hindoostanee letter, Kear-ze-ardar, what more needs be said?

N

CHAPTER VIII.

TOPICS 13TH-14TH.

XIII. What is required to improve the tenure of land?— XIV. Shall we redeem the land-tax?

"WHAT'S in a name?" asks Shakspeare, in one of those paradoxical half-truths which pass current plausibly enough in the regions of poetry, but which cut a very sorry figure when questioned at the bar of sober reason. It might not be difficult to show that names have, perhaps, exercised as strong an influence as things over the fortunes of mankind; and it has always appeared to me that the name "ryotwarry" is one of those unlucky appellatives which stand for a vast amount of imaginary evils, the bare idea of which has prevented candid inquiry into the thing itself. Mr. Ludlow's excellent work is disfigured by abuse of the ryotwar system; so is Mr. Mead's; and a friend of mine was so prejudiced against it, that he actually declined for some years to be introduced to a gentleman because he was known to be a strong supporter of this tenure!

The ryotwarry tenure of Madras, as it has been worked by the revenue officers, has impoverished the people; though already they are beginning to rise under it to comparative prosperity, now that its fundamental principles are better understood and partially acted on. Some years ago I described

it thus:

"Picture to yourself the position of a man perfectly isolated and protected from all interference on the part of his neighbours and superiors; holding his farm for a certain term at a very easy rent, fixed with reference to the capabilities of the soil and the situation of markets; certain that so long as he continues to pay that rent to the Government, no power can evict him or his children from their holding; with the knowledge that whatever

he can by his capital and labour make out of the land, beyond the Government dues, will go exclusively into his own pocket; and with a power of temporarily diminishing the area of his cultivation with a proportionate diminution of liability, according to the fortuitous variations of seasons and markets. If these be not sufficient conditions to stimulate industry, we may, in vain, seek for others."

If this be a true description of the theory of ryotwar, I apprehend there are few people who will not admit its excellence; and that it does truly describe it, all that I have learnt and seen since 1854 most firmly convinces me.

The condition of the people of Madras having been shown to be very wretched; and, further, this condition having been arrived at under the ryotwar tenure; nay, in consequence of the fashion in which that ryotwar system has been worked by the revenue authorities, the system itself has been, without more ado, condemned, especially as it is supposed to be something very complicated and difficult of comprehension, instead of being, as it is, the most simple and natural order of things. We have raised the cry, away with it,' 'away with it,' instead of endeavouring to ascertain whether the system was itself radically bad, or whether it was in itself good, but had been worked on principles never contemplated by those who framed it, and which were mere excrescences capable of being lopped off. The rush has been to supersede the ryotwarry altogether by some new system; and as the village system of the North-West has been puffed up. by the East India Company, the presidency of Agra paraded by them as the "garden of India," and the people there declared to be enjoying a golden age and arcadian happiness, many have jumped to the conclusion that the North-West village system should be transferred bodily to Madras-the ryotwarry having been swept away. These politicians, aiming rashly at a radical universal change, forget that the statesman must deal with things and men as he finds them; and that modification and adaptation are safer tools to work with than novelty and total re-formation.

I beg it may be understood that what I am about to write has

*Letter to the Right Hon. Robert Lowe on the condition of Madras.