William Muir, who have left their mark on the history of India, as much by their sympathy with the people as by their able administration. Thomason himself was one of the most distinguished revenue administrators of India; and while he corrected some of the evils pointed out by his predecessor, he completed the work of Merttins Bird, and closed the great Settlement in 1849. Four years later, on the very day on which an order was signed by the Queen's command to promote Thomason to the higher post of Governor of Madras, that great and good man died on September 27, 1853. Madras lost an officer whose humane policy was nowhere more needed than in that province.

Thomason's first important work, after he became Lieutenant-Governor, was his "Directions for Settlement Officers," drawn up in 1844, being the first complete Land Settlement Code compiled in India. It consisted of 195 paragraphs, and laid down the principles and procedure on which the Settlement of Northern India was conducted. A few of the provisions are quoted

below.

"52. It is desirable that the Government should not demand more than two-thirds of what may be expected to be the nett produce to the proprietor during the period of settlement, leaving to the proprietor onethird as his profits, and to cover expenses of collection. By nett produce is meant the surplus which the estate may yield, after deducting the expenses of cultivation, including the profits of stock and wages of labour; and this, in an estate held entirely by cultivating proprietors, will be the profit on their Sir cultivation, but in an estate held by a non-cultivating proprietor, and leased out to cultivators or Asamees paying at a known rate, would be the gross rental"

"128. Cultivators at fixed rates have a right to hold certain fields, and cannot be ejected from them so Long as they pay those rates. If they fail to pay the

rent legally demandable, the proprietor must sue them summarily for the arrear, and on obtaining a decree in his favour and failing after it to collect his dues, he may apply to the Collector to eject them, and to give him possession of the land."

"129. Tenants-at-will have no right beyond the year of their cultivation."

154. When there are many co-parceners (as in Village Communities), it is usual to select one or more from their number, and to arrange that the others should pay their revenue through them to the Government. All the co-parceners are. Malguzars [revenuepayers) or Putteedars [holders of land in severalty], but the persons admitted to the engagement are the Sadar Malguzars [revenue-payers to the State direct], and are commonly called Lumber-dars."1

"159. It remains to point out the way in which the Record of Rights is to be formed. . . . The Record is to be permanent; it is to be, as it were, the Charter of Rights, to which all persons having an interest in the land, or seeking to acquire such interest, are to appeal. It is to be the common book of reference to all officers of Government in their transactions with the people, to the Collector, to the Magistrate, and, above all, to the Judge."

Indian administrators will recognise in these rules some of the principles which have since been embodied in the Tenancy Acts of the different Provinces of India.

The Settlement of Northern India, finally completed by 1849, at last came before the Court of Directors. And in their important. Despatch, dated August 13, 1851, the Directors reviewed that great work. Merttin Bird's assessments had been revised and reduced by the exemption of many rent-free tenures, after that officer had left India; and the figures given in the Directors'

from the English word number, these men having specific numbers in the Collector's register.

Despatch differ considerably from those quoted above from Bird's Report.

We quote the following figures from the Despatch of the Court of Directors, taking ten rupees as equivalent to a pound sterling.

The figures for some districts like Agra, Muradabad, Allahabad, and Gurgaon, show a very considerable increase compared to Bird's figures, possibly because the Settlement was yet incomplete when Bird submitted his Report. Other districts like Saharanpur, Farakkabad, Bijnaur, Pilibeet, Bareli, and Futtehpur show a considerable reduction.

The total land revenue deinands and collections in Northern India during the last ten years of the Settlement operations are shown in the following figures:

The healthy results of the Settlement are seen at a glance. The period began with a large demand, and nearly a million sterling remained unrealised. The period ended with a reduced demand, and nearly the whole of it was realised.

Reviewing these facts and figures, the Directors complimented the Civil Service of India on the great task performed, and singled out Robert Merttins Bird "as being eminently entitled to our marked and special approbation."

Merttins Bird and the Civil Service deserved all the praise that was bestowed on them; but nevertheless the work was only half done. The very foundation stone of the entire structure was unstable; the fixing of the Land Tax for an entire Pergana or fiscal division was mere guess-work.

But the Land Tax was not only uncertain: it was excessive. Rule 52 of Thomason's Directions, quoted before, indicated that the Government demand might reach two-thirds of the nett produce. Relatively, it was a humane rule; for the British Government had demanded 83 per cent. in 1822, and 75 per cent. in 1833. But in reality it was a crushing demand which left the landlords and cultivators of Northern India resourceless. This painful truth was perceived within a few years after the Directors had complacently signed their Dispatch of 1851.

The time was approaching for commencing operations for a new Settlement. The question of the relative shares of the State and the landlords in the nett produce of the soil came again for anxious consideration. Experience had shown that a tax of 66 per cent., claimed by the State, was excessive and impracticable. Thomason's Rule 52 had proved oppressive, and had prevented land from becoming valuable property to its owners and tillers. It was necessary to revise Thomason's Directions, and new Rules were accordingly issued in 1855, "designed to

assist the Collector in points which have been omitted from or not sufficiently detailed in the Directions to Settlement Officers, or on which different rules from those laid down in that treatise have been subsequently issued by Government." The new rules were issued in connection with the re-settlement of the Saharanpur district, and are therefore generally known as the "Saharanpur Rules."

The most important of the Saharanpur Rules is Rule XXXVI., which reduced the Land Tax from 66 per cent. to 50 per cent. of the nett produce or the nett rental of an estate. The rule is as follows.

case.

"The assets of an estate can seldom be minutely ascertained, but more certain information as to the average nett assets can be obtained now than was formerly the This may lead to over-assessment, for there is little doubt that two-thirds, or 66 per cent., is a larger proportion of the real average assets than can ordinarily be paid by proprietors, or communities, in a long course of years. For this reason the Government had determined so far to modify the Rule laid down in paragraph 52 of the Directions to Settlement Officers as to limit the demand of the estate to 50 per cent. of the average nett assets. By this it is not meant that the Jumma [assessment] of each estate is to be fixed at one-half of the nett average assets, but that in taking these assets with other data into consideration, the Collector will bear in mind that about one-half, and not two-thirds as heretofore, of the well-ascertained nett assets should be the Government demand. The Collector should observe the cautions given in paragraph 47 to 51 of the treatise quoted, and not waste time in minute and probably fruitless attempts to ascertain exactly the average nett assets of the estates under settlement."

This rule may be said to be the basis of land assessments in India in the present day. After half a century of blunders and over-assessments, the British Govern