Land Revenue in Madras, excluding Malabar and South Canara.

It will appear from these figures that a million of acres went out of cultivation after the famine year of 1877; and the loss continued for no less than seven years. It was not till 1885 that the cultivated area again came up to the figure for 1877.

But the most striking fact revealed by the foregoing table is increase in the gross demand within the eighteen years. The area under cultivation went up from 19 millions to 21 million acres, or less than 14 per cent.; but the gross demand increased from £3,150,000 to £5,400,000, or over 70 per cent. Or if we take the increase in the assessment on the occupied area, the

1 Irrigation charges in Godavari and Krishna transferred to land assessments.

2 Village service was suspended for the year.

£100,000 transferred to Land Revenue "Miscellaneous."

increase is from £3,240,000 to £4,050,000, or nearly 25 per cent. This large and disproportionate increase is mainly due to the irrigation of some of the Ryotwari land; and the Irrigation Cess has been consolidated with the Land Revenue, so that the cultivator cannot tell how much is demanded for the land and how much for the water supplied.

The question whether the water-rate should be a compulsory rate on all lands within reach of canals, or whether it should be an optional rate payable by those cultivators who choose to use the water, has been under consideration for many years. Lord Lawrence had declared before the House of Commons Committee in 1873: "I would almost rather not make a canal at all, however much I desired to do so, rather than make it obligatory on them [the cultivators] to take water." 1 And the Duke of Argyll, as Secretary of State for India, had strongly and emphatically maintained this view three years before, i.e. in 1870. His reasons against levying a compulsory water-rate on cultivators were recorded clearly in his letter to Lord Mayo,2 from which we make the following extracts:-

"The object of the provision in question is to enable Government to secure itself against pecuniary loss in the event of a canal proving a financial failure. Such failure inight ensue from three causes. A canal might not be able to supply for irrigational purposes the expected quantity of water, or, the expected quantity being available, cultivators might decline to avail themselves to the expected extent, or excessive costliness of construction might, in order to render a canal remunerative, necessitate the imposition of higher rates than cultivators could afford or would voluntarily pay. In the first case, under the proposed enactment, the loss consequent on Government having engaged in an unsuccessful speculation, would fall, not upon itself, but upon 1 Report of 1873; question 4458. 2 Letter dated January 11, 1870.

the cultivators, whom it had disappointed. In the second, cultivators would be forced to pay for water for which they had no use, or, at any rate, were not disposed to use, possibly, no doubt, from imperfect appreciation of the value of irrigation, but quite possibly also from a perfectly intelligible desire to have part of their land under dry crops, instead of all under wet. With regard

to the third, none can require less than your Government to be reminded how prone to become excessive guaranteed expenditure always is; and under the provisions of the Bill all expenditure on Government canals would be guaranteed."

"To force irrigation on the people would be not unlikely to make that unpopular which could otherwise scarcely fail to be regarded as a blessing, and which, as all experience shows, Indian agriculturists, if left to themselves, are sure duly to appreciate, sooner or later, and seldom later than the first season of drought that occurs after irrigation has been placed within their reach."

"1

In Bengal, accordingly, the irrigation rate is optional to this day; and cultivators use it largely and pay for it cheerfully. But the Government in Madras has always been less liberal, and more autocratic than in Bengal; partly because it is less under the control of the GovernorGeneral in Council, and partly also because there is less of influential and educated public opinion in the Ryotwari tracts, to leaven the administration and bring it in touch with the wishes of the people. Accordingly, the

What was foreseen in the last sentence was precisely what happened in Orissa in 1896, when I was acting as Commissioner of that Division. The cultivators had neglected to take the canal water until the drought of 1896 came. Thousands of applications then poured in for the use of the canal water at the rates which had been fixed by the engineers. And cultivators bound themselves for five or six years to use the water and pay for it. Ignorant the Indian cultivators are, but nowhere in the world are the tillers more keenly alive to their own interests and their own profits than in India. The Ryots have come to consider canal water as a blessing, and are paying the water-rate voluntarily and cheerfully, where it is not unwisely forced on them as a compulsory tax.

scheme which was rejected by the Duke of Argyll in 1870, and which was condemned by Lord Lawrence in 1873, was passed into law in Madras in 1900. Instead of leaving the cultivators the option of using and paying for canal water, a law was passed making the irrigation rate compulsory on all lands supposed to be benefited by canals, even by percolation! And no option was left to cultivators to appeal to Courts of Law to show that their lands were not benefited.

The Water Tax is consolidated with the Land Tax. The cultivator does not know what portion of the assessment is for his holding and what portion is for the water which is supposed to benefit him. But he does know that the total assessment is so excessive as not to leave him one-half the nett produce of his holding. In many places, the assessment leaves him nothing beyond the wages of his labour and the cost of cultivation. Irrigation protects him from famine; but it has not enabled him to save, or to improve his condition.

It also appears from the table given above that the cesses went up with a bound in 1887, when the irrigation charges were transferred to Land Assessments. So long as the water-rate was separate from the land-rate, cesses could be charged on the land-rate only. When irrigation charges were consolidated with land assessments, the cesses went up in one year from £460,000 to £590,000. Is it possible in Madras to separate the land-rate from the water-rate, so as to impose the cesses on the former and not on the latter?

But the greatest complaint of Madras cultivators is about the uncertainty of the assessments. In 1882, as

1 I visited some villages in the irrigated Deltas of the Godavari and Krishna in January 1903. The crops were assured against the effects of drought; but the lands were highly assessed, and the cultivators were poor and generally in debt. Their holdings had a very poor market value, because they brought little to the peasants after paying the consolidated tax. I had the advantage of discussing the matter with a high official in Godavari District. He could not understand why lands so rich sold at such a miserable price. The reason was that the rich lands left little to the tillers after payment of Government dues.

we shall see in the succeeding chapter, the Marquis of Ripon, then Viceroy of India, sought to remove this uncertainty. He laid down the rule that in districts which had been surveyed and settled, there should be no enhancement of the Land Revenue except on the clear ground of an increase in prices. The Madras Government accepted this rule. The principle was explained in Government publications. The Madras Revenue Settlement Manual, compiled in 1887, laid down:

"That the grain values, thus determined, should be declared unalterable."

"That the Ryots' payments should vary with the rateable money value of the standard crop, fixed every thirty years."

"The revised settlements are to be permanent as regards grain values; but to be reconsidered as regards commutation rates after thirty years.'

"1

The Madras Agricultural Committee reported in 1889: "A revaluation of soils at each recurring revision would, it is said, and we think rightly said, be fatal to improvement. We believe that the present opinion of the Government is opposed to such a revaluation, and is inclined to make the settlements permanent, so far as the grain values of soils are concerned." 2

The Government of Madras remarked on the above report: "Nor has the Government any intention of revising the classification of soils. This principle has been repeatedly laid down, and is very clearly stated in the Settlement Manual." 3

These assurances were as clear and emphatic as words could make them. People had actually invested money in land," writes the Hon. Vencataratnam, member of the Madras Legislative Council, "relying on these

1 Chapter II., sections 5 and 6; and Chapter III., section 8.
2 Paragraph 31.

Government Order, dated July 4, 1889; paragraph 20.