gained by the introduction of canal irrigation, this district must be considered settled in perpetuity."

Allahabad District.-Had escaped the calamity of overassessment in the past. With the exception of the increase due for canal irrigation, "this settlement should also be considered fixed in perpetuity."

The average price of wheat was 54 lbs. for 2s.

BENARES DIVISION.

Azimgarh District.—A fertile, well-irrigated, and wellcultivated district. Some portions were fully assessed and should not be considered liable to future enhancement. The remaining portions "may fairly yield an enhancement proportioned to the increase of cultivation at the close of the present term. The rates ought not to

be enhanced."

The average price of wheat was 59 lbs. for 28.

Goruckpur District.—A fertile and favourably circumstanced district and expected to yield an increase in the Government demand in the future, both from increased cultivation and from increased rate of assessment.

The average price of wheat was 62 lbs. for 2s.

The nett results of Bird's Settlement are shown in the following figures compiled from tables appended to his report. Ten rupees are taken as equivalent to a pound sterling.

When the work, thus nearly completed by Merttins Bird after nine years' labour, came before the LieutenantGovernor of the Province, that distinguished officer wrote a thoughtful minute, dated April 15, 1842. He recognised that the Settlement had been performed with consideration and judgment, and that increase of revenues had not been the object aimed at. He approved of the introduction of four instalments in the year for the payment of revenue. And he also approved of the demarcation of boundaries and the corrections of accounts. But he doubted if the appointment of a paid watchman in every village would be welcome to villagers, and he commented

in severe terms on the harsh measure which had been adopted, by over-zealous subordinate officers, to resume rent-free tenures.

"The Settlement Officer swept up without inquiring every patch of unregistered rent-free land, even those under ten Bighas [three acres] exempted by a subsequent order, which did not come out before five-sixths of the tenures had been resumed. In one district, that of Farakkabad, the obligations of a treaty and the direct orders of Government were but lightly dealt with; and in all, a total disregard was evinced for the acts even of such men as Warren Hastings and Lord Lake.” 1

Still more emphatic was the Lieutenant-Governor's condemnation of the manner in which the rights of hereditary landlords had been interfered with. The following is one of the instances cited.

"The Raja of Mynpuri, whose predecessor had received the highest acknowledgments from the British Government for his unshaken loyalty, when the district was overrun by Holkar's army in the year 1804, was, without a reference to Government, under the construction put on the right of a Talukdar, deprived entirely, he and his successors in perpetuity, of all power of interference in 116 of the 158 villages included in his Taluka, which had descended to him in regular succession before the introduction of the British rule.” 2

The Lieutenant-Governor also regarded with disfavour a constant interference in the affairs of each village. "To keep up a record of the circumstances of every field there must be a constant interference of the Executive in the affairs in every village, or, it may be said, of every villager, which would be irksome to any people, and will, I suspect, prove intolerable to the Natives of India." And generally the operations appeared to the LieutenantGovernor to be "of a decidedly levelling character, and calculated so to flatten the whole surface of society as 1 Paragraph 16. 2 Paragraph 18.

eventually to leave little of distinguishable eminence between the ruling power and the cultivators of the soil. It is a fearful experiment, that of trying to govern without the aid of any intermediate agency of indigenous growth; yet it is, what it appears to me, that our measures, now in progress, have a direct tendency to bring about." 1

These remarks are of value for all time. The Settlement effected by Bird has been praised, and deservedly praised, for the great benefit it conferred on the agricultural population of Northern India. It moderated the assessment which had been excessive and oppressive during the first thirty years of British rule. And it gave the people some rest from continuous harassment by giving them a long term of settlement. At the same time it should be remembered that Bird's declared intention to make the assessment perpetual, where the lands were fully cultivated and assessed, has been disregarded by later administrators; and his desire to eventually follow the same practice in other districts, as they came more fully under cultivation, has not been fulfilled. On the contrary, the levelling character of the measures, deplored by T. C. Robertson in 1842, are more noticeable after the lapse of sixty years. The village Patwari, paid by the Government, is the master of the situation in North India to-day; and to him is entrusted the power which should legitimately belong to the representatives of the people—the Village Landlord or the Village Community. "To flatten the whole surface of society as eventually to leave little of distinguishable eminence between the ruling power and the cultivators of the soil," is not a policy of wisdom in India.

The generous and kind-hearted James Thomason succeeded Robertson as Lieutenant-Governor in Northern India in 1843, and ruled that province for ten years. Under him were trained up a number of able administrators, like John Lawrence and Robert Montgomery and 1 Paragraphs 26, 29, 30.

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