endorse the proposition that in the interests of the cultivator that system of agrarian tenure should be held up as a public model which is not supported by the experience of any civilised country." 1

"The school of thought" referred to represents the views of such men as Lord Cornwallis and Sir Thomas Munro, Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings, Lord Canning and Lord Lawrence, Lord Halifax and Lord Iddesleigh; and the fame of these eminent administrators, who have built up the Indian Empire by their sympathetic regard for the people no less than by their vigour and wisdom, will survive the sneers of modern Imperialism. And when Lord Curzon adds that a Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue "is not supported by the experience of any civilised country," he forgets the history of his own country where the great Pitt made the Land Tax perpetual and redeemable in 1798, five years after Cornwallis had fixed the Land Revenue in Bengal.

But the Permanent Settlement of Bengal has a stronger justification than the Perpetual Settlement of England. In England the Settlement benefits the landed classes only, for they are the sole proprietors; in Bengal it benefits the nation-the cultivators more than the landed classes-for the cultivators are primarily the owners of the soil. In England the Settlement is an invidious limit to a tax on one out of many sources of the nation's income; in Bengal it is a protection to agriculture, which is virtually the only source of national income. In England it has had the effect of making the rich richer, and the poor poorer; in Bengal it has had the effect of helping the poor the millions of cultivators-more than the rich. In England it has added to the wealth of a limited class; in Bengal it has made the nation more prosperous, and less liable to the effects of those famines which have cost millions of lives in other Provinces of India.

1 Resolution, paragraphs 5 and 6.

But, as stated before, the question of extending the Permanent Settlement was never raised in the Memorial, and it is necessary to confine ourselves in the present chapter to Lord Curzon's decision on the five suggestions which were made in the Memorial. We shall take them in the order in which they have been already quoted.

Thirty Years' Rule.-Settlements are made for thirty years in Northern India, Madras, and Bombay; but the period of Settlements has been cut down to twenty years in the Punjab and the Central Provinces, as we have seen in previous chapters. The memorialists urged that the liberal and considerate rule of Settlements for thirty years should be maintained in all Provinces. Lord Curzon justifies the present difference in practice, but leaves us in hope that it will disappear in time. He

says:

'The reasons for this differentiation are familiar and obvious. Where the land is fully cultivated, rents fair, and agricultural production not liable to violent oscillations, it is sufficient if the demands of Government are readjusted once in thirty years, i.c. once in the lifetime of each generation. Where the opposite conditions prevail, where there are much waste land, low rents, and a fluctuating cultivation; or again where there is a rapid development of resources, owing to the construction of roads, railways, or canals, to an increase of population or to a rise in prices, the postponement of re-settlement for so long a period is both injurious to the people, who are unequal to the strain of a sharp enhancement, and unjust to the general tax-payer who is temporarily deprived of the additional revenue to which he has a legitimate claim. Whether these considerations, justifying a shorter term of settlement than thirty years, apply with sufficient force to the Punjab and the Central Provinces at the present time, and if they do apply at the present time, whether the force of their application will diminish with the passage of time, are weighty questions to which careful

attention will be given by the Government of India upon a suitable occasion." 1

The reasons alleged for the differentiation are historically wrong. The Central Provinces were less advanced in cultivation, had lower rents, and were more in need of development by railways and roads in 1863-67, when a settlement for thirty years was made, than in 1895, when a settlement for twenty years was made. Northern India and Bombay were less developed and less advanced in cultivation in 1833 and 1837, when they were settled for thirty years, than the Punjab is at the present time. The idea in those days was to permit the people to obtain the benefits of long settlements; to let them enjoy the fruits of all progress during the generation of a lifetime; and to inspire them with a motive for making improvements by leaving them alone for thirty years. A narrower desire to demand more frequent enhancements dictated the policy of 1895; and the policy stands condemned by its result. The people of the Punjab and the Central Provinces desire to see an early fulfilment of the hope held out in the last sentence of the above extract, a return to the more generous policy of Lord William Bentinck, Lord Canning, and Lord Lawrence.

Half-Rental Rule.-The declaration of the Government on this rule is contained in the following extract:

"While the standard of 50 per cent. has nowhere been laid down as a fixed and immutable prescription, there has been, and there is, a growing tendency through temporarily settled Zemindari Districts to approximate to it, and in special circumstances a very much lower share is taken. It does not appear to the Government of India to be necessary to issue fresh regulations upon a matter in which their general policy is so clear, and where, save in exceptional cases to be justified by local conditions, uniformity of practice is now so common.' Resolution, paragraph 13.

1 Resolution, paragraph 18.

"2

The Saharanpur Rule of 1855, and Sir Charles Wood's despatch of 1864 laid down 50 per cent. of the rental or the economic rent as the limit of the Land Revenue assessments, and these limits were exceeded in the Central Provinces and elsewhere, as we have seen in preceding chapters. The above extract is probably meant as an assurance that there is a growing tendency now to return to these limits. The people of India hope that the Half-rental Rule will not again be set aside in any Province, in any future settlements.

Half-Produce Rule.-The Government resolution has misstated the object of the memorialists in respect of this rule. The memorialists suggested a double limit: (1) that the Land Revenue should not exceed half the nett produce; (2) that it should not exceed one-fifth the gross produce in certain parts of India where it does exceed that proportion. The Government resolution replies:

"The gross produce standard recommended by the memorialists would, if systematically applied, lead to an increase of assessments all round."1

The memorialists laid down no such standard for systematic application. They only laid down a maximum limit. The Gujrat, what is generally taken as half the nett produce, is in many villages and fields far in excess of one-fifth the gross produce. In Madras it was assumed that one-third of the gross produce would be. half the nett produce, and one-third of the gross produce was therefore sometimes demanded as Land Revenue. It is to correct such misleading calculations, 1 Resolution, paragraph 17.

2

2 In the Standing Information for the Madras Presidency, published in 1879, there is a rule fixing the maximum limit of the Land Revenue at one-third the gross produce where the soil has not been improved by the Government irrigation works. This being pointed out, the Madras Government explained in their Resolution dated March 13, 1901, that the rule was inserted through an error, and "this error appears to have been due to the misapprehension of the compiler." It is curious that this error was never corrected for over twenty years, till the memorial was submitted. And it is certain that assessments of the Land Revenue were often made at one-third the gross produce.

and to prevent over-assessment, that the memorialists, while accepting the Half-nett Produce Rule, proposed an additional limit that the Half-nett Produce should in no case exceed one-fifth the gross produce. And many over-assessed fields and villages in Bombay and n Madras would have obtained relief if the Government had accepted this second limit in addition to the Halfnett Produce Rule prescribed in 1864.

Enhancement Rule. The object of the memorialists was the same that Lord Ripon had in view, viz. to specify and define the grounds on which the State was entitled to enhance its Land Revenue demand. They accepted Lord Ripon's rule of increase in prices as a ground of enhancement; and they added to it the improvement made by Government irrigation works as another reasonable ground of enhancement. The memorialists desired that every peasant proprietor in India should know and feel that the State did not enhance the Land Revenue except on specific and equitable grounds; and should have the same security that is now offered to the tenants of private landlords in Bengal. The Government of Lord Curzon has declined to grant him this security on the following grounds :

:

"To deny the right of the State to a share in any increase of values except those which could be inferred from the general table of price statistics-in itself a most fallacious and partial test-would be to surrender to a number of individuals an increment which they had not themselves earned, but which had resulted partly from the outlay of Government money on great public works, such as canals and railways, partly from the general enhancement of values produced by expanding resources and a higher standard of civilisation."1

The whole of this argument is a misstatement of the point at issue. The memorialists asked for no surrender of the just rights of the State. They expressly reserved Resolution, paragraph 22.

1