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93. The process of measuring and classifying the lands is not, His Lordship observes, by any means necessarily connected with that of recording the rights and interests of the village communities. Indeed, those who are most competent to the one task may be lamentably deficient in the other.

94. The maps which have been occasionally constructed by the ameens employed with the measuring parties are so rude as to be utterly useless.

95. After having given to the subject in all its bearings the best consideration in his power, His Lordship is decidedly of opinion that in those districts into which the professional survey may not have been introduced it will be advisable to continue the musahut* and bundobust† establishments in their former footing, subject to such modifications as the Sudder Board may prescribe.

96. That in those districts into which the professional surveys may have been introduced, it will be advisable to discharge the mirdhas and ameens heretofore entertained for measuring lands and recording the materials for the formation of a settlement.

97. That in the districts last mentioned, the revenue surveyor be authorized to discontinue the preparation of the area and statistical tables, and the calculations of latitudes and longitudes, which it appears from the 7th para. of Captain Herbert's letter, dated the 17th August last, may safely be dispensed with. From the same letter it appears that the table of co-ordinates cannot be dispensed with, but there can be no necessity for furnishing these to the revenue authorities.

98. That in lieu of the information heretofore furnished by the revenue surveyors, they should merely be required in future to supply the information specified in the new form proposed by Captain Brown as a heading to the village maps, the columns for latitude and longitude, and the statement of the village beegahs, being excluded.

99. That in lieu of the present establishments entertained for collecting the information necessary for settlement purposes, the several collectors in the districts in question require from their

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tehseeldars, or from ameens specially appointed for the purpose, a record of the members of each village community in the form of a khusrah (the map would supersede the necessity of a khuteeonee), exhibiting their several rights, tenures, and obligations, to be verified as frequently as practicable by the personal inquiries of the collector or his European assistant. The khusrah prescribed for the use of the settlement establishments in Goruckpore would appear to be sufficient for this purpose, with a little amplification of detail for the record of relative interests to serve as a groundwork for the roobukaree of settlement, and with such variations in the terms issued to designate the different peculiarities of soil as might be adapted to local circumstances. Where a khuteeonee might be deemed necessary, it could be prepared in the office of the collector.

100. That in any cases where the actual tenures of land may appear from this statement to be complicated, or the holdings to be of a nature requiring separate specification, it shall be the duty of the collector to call on the professional surveyor for a detailed map showing the holdings of each occupant whether as a claimant in virtue of proprietary right or of a right of occupancy at a fixed rent.

101. These detailed maps would seem especially necessary in all byachara villages.

102. Under the present system, the musahut* establishments proceed into the interior of a village, and measure every cultivated field though in the occupation of a pykhoost cultivator claiming no right of occupancy, or other permanent interest, a process which can be regarded in no other light than that of a waste of time and labour.

103. In villages which are owned by one or more non-cultivating zemindars, and where the actual cultivators neither have nor claim any title to property or possession (the less detailed map furnished by the professional surveyor exhibiting the cultivated lands in contra-distinction to the waste), it would appear to be sufficient for the purposes of assessment that such check, accompanied by a statement of the nature of the soil, be applied to information obtained from other sources, without the minute statistical details which it has hitherto been the practice to furnish.

* Survey.

104. All other circumstances affecting the assessment, as proximity of markets, facility for irrigation, &c., should be known to every collector who takes pains to ascertain the interior economy of his district.

105. Where, on the other hand, the property in the villages is vested in the body of the agricultural community, where there is no dispute regarding their several interests, and where they consent to pay the assessment which may be demanded, all that seems necessary beyond the general information requisite to form that assessment is, that a record of their interests should be made for eventual reference.

106. The detailed field-maps might be made according to the plan submitted by Captain Bedford of the village of Islamnuggur.

107. With this in his hand, no collector would be at a loss to determine the disputes which frequently arise between co-proprietors and between proprietors and their ryots as to the extent of land in the possession of the latter, or the amount of rent fairly demandable from him. In the case of pykhoost or contract cultivators, they may safely be left to the terms of their own bargains which are periodically contracted.

108. A copy of the above paragraphs, and of the map and documents therein referred to, relating to the proposed change of operations, will be furnished to the revenue surveyers, and through the Sudder Board at Allahabad to the collectors in the several districts into which the professional operations have extended, and should they concur generally as to its expediency, authority will be given for its immediate introduction.

109. A report has recently been received from the Superintendent of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, but its contents are not of a nature to justify any delay in determining the course to be pursued with regard to the revenue settlement of the country generally. The nature of the land tenures in that quarter, and the rules which consequently relate to it, seem wholly different from the state of things to which the queries circulated by His Lordship are applicable.

No. VIII.

MINUTE BY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL, DATED 26TH SEP-
TEMBER, 1832.

I HAVE long and anxiously deliberated on the state of our revenue affairs in the temporary-settled provinces; and since my departure from the presidency I have witnessed and taken a part in several interesting discussions connected with this important subject.

2. Some of the opinions which I have recorded are contained in the documents enumerated in the margin.' * Enumeration not printed. In treating on a subject of this nature, some repetition is unavoidable, and in some instances the result of longer experience will have led to a difference between the opinions now held and those formerly recorded.

+Enumeration not printed.

3. Since I last had occasion to record my sentiments with reference to this department of our administration, the correspondence enumerated in the margin has been received and considered by me.† I shall have occasion to notice incidentally in the course of the following remarks, some of the topics discussed in those documents.

4. It cannot be objected to any arrangement we may now undertake for improving the fiscal management of these territories, that it has been adopted in haste and without due consideration. The system has been examined in all its bearings, much valuable information has been elicited by the discussions which have taken place relative to the rights and obligations of the agricultural community; and though I am far from thinking we have yet attained so perfect a knowledge as shall enable us to adjust, with precision, the several rights of the Government, the proprietary, and the labouring classes, I am still of opinion that the time has arrived for acting upon the knowledge we possess, and that no real benefit can reasonably be anticipated from further delay. Up to this

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