harassing and depopulating effects of more than two centuries of wars and plunder. The authorities at length resolved on retrieving a position for agriculture. It would have been better, in my opinion, to have recognised some dormant tenures, and to have resuscitated others. But habit and the example set by predecessors, whose wars, recklessness, and oppressions had, generally speaking, exterminated the more respectable classes of landholders, served to keep out of view this best element of the success which depends on the possession of capital or of good credit. So they did the next best thing with a people who are not generally Mahomedan spendthrifts, but industrious Hindus. After a survey, they imposed a very moderate assessment. This is now in operation, and is to endure for a period of thirty years. It is obvious that this being the first attempt on this side of India, within the limits of British dominions, to apply to cultivation a method of extending and improving it, and to population an encouragement to immigrate and increase, it would be an utter disregard of the rights of the Government in Land Tax if the present settlement were to be viewed as the limit of our demand. All that is here wanted, short of the reconstruction of such classes as Zemindars and Meerasdars, with their worth and influence, is to allow such a duration of settlement (and thirty years is not amiss for the purpose) as will combine the objects of increasing at future periods the moderate and just demands of the Government, while reconciling the Ryot, for his own sake, to devote his industry and the utmost of his small means to the improvement of his long holding.

"8. It is, in my opinion, another good reason for not settling our Land Tax permanently, that there can be no doubt in any unprejudiced mind that the lands are not yet held, generally speaking, as they might without difficulty be declared to be held, on a title still more highly esteemed and cherished. However well satisfied the Ryot may be with the security of his right of his occupancy

under the Revenue Survey Settlement, the term Meeras conveys to his mind a sense of ownership, which no assurance, that so long as he pays the Government revenue he will not be disturbed in the possession of his fields, can give him. This was recently illustrated to me in a forcible manner by an intelligent Patell, who, in answer to a question put to him, with a view of eliciting the estimation in which he relatively held his 'Meeras' and 'Ghatkoolee land,' replied: The Meeras is mine; the Ghatkoolee is yours.' And, again, as was emphatically said in my hearing, on another occasion, by a Native District Deputy Collector, and at the same time by an experienced Mamlutdar, they hold affectionately to meeras'-(meeras ko bohut dil lugta).

"9. With reference also to the possibility of having hereafter permanently to impose new taxes, I object to the proposal for abandoning the right of Government to the improved value which increased prices should give to the right of the State to a share of the produce of the fertile soil worked at small cost in money and labour-a right which has been reserved to it from ancient times, and which has, until recently, enabled it practically to exempt the people of this country from the burdens of taxation which press so heavily on the communities of Europe.

"10. I shall lament to see a departure from this wise system, nor do I see the necessity of the proposed measure, for the agricultural classes are, on all hands, admitted to be improving, and to be becoming gradually possessed of some capital; and those works of irrigation, which must mainly be the mainstay to protect them in seasons of drought, can only be undertaken on an organised system, which no present Permanent Settlement would ensure being ever executed, but which it is the duty of the Government to undertake whenever it has available resources.

"II. No legislative enactments have been found necessary in this Presidency to give effect to the thirty years'

settlement now in operation, and none appears to be necessary."

THE REVISED SETTLEMENT.

It will be seen from paragraph 5 of this Minute that the Government of Bombay was opposed to "the fixity of settlement in respect to the money demand," but did not advocate "any variation in the just and moderate proportion of the gross produce on which the present assessments are based." In principle, therefore, the Bombay Government was opposed to a Permanent Settlement of the land revenue reckoned in money, but was inclined in favour of a Permanent Settlement of the revenue reckoned in produce. As the prices of produce were then increasing, the Government looked forward to a proportionate increase in the land revenue at the next settlement.

It would have been a gain to the cultivators of Bombay if this principle, of an increase in the land revenue in proportion to the increase of prices, had been acted upon, when the time for the next settlement arrived four years later. But in vast operations, carried on by single officers, such principles are apt to be forgotten unless they are laid down by legislation and guarded by independent tribunals. The idea spreads among the under-paid and uneducated subordinates that the Government desires as high a revenue as can be screwed out of the cultivators; a temporary season of prosperity induces the superior officers to demand a large increase in revenue; and an undue enhancement is inevitable when the new rates are fixed without consulting the cultivators, and without appeals to Land Courts.

And this is what happened in course of the Revision Settlement commenced in 1866. The Civil War in America had interfered with the import of American cotton into Lancashire, and had largely stimulated cotton

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.