cultivation in Bombay. There was a sign of temporary prosperity which officials mistook as permanent. And the officers employed in survey and settlement effected a high and unreasonable increase in the Land Revenue demand.

The distinguished Indian patriot, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, gave timely warning in his evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1873. He said that the signs of prosperity were hollow and ephemeral, and that the enormous increase in the land revenue was oppressive and unjustifiable. Complaints against the new assessment were also universal in the Deccan; but the warning was unheeded.

AGRARIAN DISTURBANCE.

The Nemesis came at last. After the conclusion of the Civil War, America once more began to export her cotton to England; cotton cultivation declined in India; prices and wages fell. Cultivators in the Deccan were unable to pay the new and enhanced revenue demanded; money-lenders refused to lend when the credit of cultivators was low, and the law in favour of creditors was restricted. Agrarian disturbances, such as have seldom been known under the British Rule, followed in 1875. Rioting was committed; shops and houses were burnt down; stocks were destroyed. A Commission was then appointed to inquire into the matter, and a civilian of Northern India sat with two civilians of Bombay to inquire into the causes of the disturbance. It is no discredit to the Bombay civilians to state that the ablest and the most independent report submitted was the Memorandum compiled by the Northern civilian, Auckland Colvin, afterwards Sir Auckland Colvin, Lieutenant-Governor of Northern India, and Finance Minister of India.

AUCKLAND COLVIN'S VIEWS.

Auckland Colvin pointed out in his Memorandum1 the extent to which the revenue had been enhanced in the settlements recently concluded.

"The result would seem to be that, in the villages of the above five Talukas, of which the printed reports are before me, the increase in thirty years was as follows:

"The real increase is considerably greater, because the collections of the first decade were considerably in excess of the collections of the first year of the old survey. Finally a statement furnished by Colonel Francis shows the percentage of increase between the assessment in the last year of the old Settlement and the first year of the new-a single year-to be as follows:

"The highest percentage of increase in any district in the North-West Provinces between the first year of the

1 Memorandum, dated November 8, 1875.

old and the new Settlement (a period of thirty years) has hitherto been thirty-six; and this is in the exceptional, because recently reclaimed districts of Gorakhpur and Basti; the average for the Province is 16 per cent."

I think the above considerations justify me in placing the excessive enhancement of the revised settlements as third among the special causes which have combined to disturb the relations of debtor and creditor in the Poona district."

The vast difference between the enhancements made in Northern India and those made in Bombay, as pointed out by Auckland Colvin, tells its own tale. But Colvin also described in some detail the defects of the Bombay system, and the inadequate checks imposed by the rules. Finally, as bearing on the relation of the enhanced assessments to the economic condition of the people, I venture to think that the Bombay administrative procedure, if I understand it rightly, is apt to press hardly on the Ryot. I should not have felt justified in advancing this opinion if I did not find myself supported by a recent expression of opinion by His Excellency the Governor in Council, which I will presently quote. The assessment seems to me to be based too purely on arithmetical data, and to be applied with too little regard to the conditions of the agricultural body who are expected to pay it. Now that the tenures have been defined and recorded, the Survey Department naturally looks to enhanced revenues as its raison d'être."

"The officers again to whom the assessment is confided have nothing, and never at any time can have anything, to do with the administration of the Collectorates; the officers to whom the charge of Collectorates is confided have not, and never have had anything to do with survey or assessment. Hence we find the spectacle of Collectors, and Revenue Commissioners contending against the rates imposed by the Survey Department.”

"The Bombay Government, by laying down a maxim of

enhancement, has recently tried to meet this anomaly, but has cut rather than solved the difficulty. So large an increase as 100 per cent. on an individual holding, or of 66 per cent. on a village, is still allowed without special sanction of Government."

VIEWS OF THE PEOPLE.

It is necessary to make one more extract from a remarkably able document drawn up by the Poona Sarvajanaika Sabha,-one of the best informed and most important Political Associations in India. The Poona Riots Commission quotes from Chapter 3 of the report of the Sabha, and the following passage shows how the Bombay assessments violated the very principles of land assessment laid down by the Court of Directors in 1856, and by the Secretary of State for India in 1864.

"The assessment should consist of a portion of the nett profits of land, after deducting the expenses of cultivation, including the wages of the cultivator and his family, and the charges for the purchase and renewal of agricultural stock. It has been shown before that the present assessment of the Government, and the charge of the Khote profits in Konkan Districts absorb from one-half to onethird of the gross produce, which by all accounts means that the Government assessment is a rack-rent in the worst sense of the term. In the Desh districts also it has been shown that the Ryot is enabled to continue the cultivation of land from year to year, not because he receives any fraction of the proprietor's rent, or true farmer's profits, but chiefly, if not solely, because he earns the wages of himself and family in its cultivation. In fact there is no surplus produce left, after paying the cost. of cultivation (including his wages and the charge for the renewal of agricultural stock) and the assessment of Government."

ACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT.

These clear and convincing facts and arguments were urged in vain. They led to no substantial change in the method and procedure of settlements. They led to no remedial measures affording security to cultivators against undue enhancements. They led to no rules for the strict enforcement of the principles of the Land Tax laid down by the Court of Directors and the Secretary of State. The Government declined to frame such rules for its own servants as had been framed to restrict the powers of private landlords in Bengal. The Government sought to relieve the cultivators of the Deccan only by restraining money-lenders. That was the object of the Deccan Agriculturist's Relief Act of 1879.

The Act enabled Courts to go behind the letter of the bond in the case of small debtors, to lay down what amount they should pay, and to grant them a discharge for the balance. To debtors owing larger sums it gave the full protection of an Insolvency Act. The Act further provided that agriculturists should not be arrested or imprisoned in execution of a decree for money; that their immovable property should not be attached or sold in execution of a decree unless it had been specifically mortgaged; and that even in such cases the Court might direct the lands to be cultivated by the debtor for a number of years on behalf of the creditor, after which the debt was discharged.

So far as the Survey and Settlement Officers were concerned, their powers were made even more absolute than before. In 1873 an appeal in an assessment suit was preferred in the High Court of Bombay, and the High Court decided the suit against the Settlement Officer. • Immediately after, a bill was introduced in the Bombay Council to exclude the jurisdiction of the High Court and of all Civil Courts in matters relating to land assessments. The member in charge of the bill did not disguise its