PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :--
EPEC.O. 882
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NOT TO
lages, to be adjusted internally amongst them- selves; the last, that of tenant-settlement by adjustment upon the fields occupied. In none of these does the assessment fluctuate with the actual produce as the Report thinks it generally does. The blemish upon which the Colonial Secretary has here fixed his eye, is altogether accidental. It is exceptional and no rule; a There are cases misfortune and not an error. in which the money rates of Madras, the per- manent settlements of Bengal, and the village compositions of Upper India, either cannot be established, or break down when they are esta- blished. Special circumstances may bring this about
such as a great fall in the price of the staple of a district, as in Bundlecund when cotton fell from 16 to 18 rupees the maund, to 8 or 10; or the removal of large military esta- blishments and consequent failure of important local markets, as in the case of the Nerbudda territories. Bad and unequal seasons, and epidemics affecting man and beast, act in a similar manner. The landowners or cultivators may be poor, improvident, and unable to pay for each year the average of several years. It may be easier for them to pay nothing in bad Reasons and a great deal in good, than to answer a rigid demand for a fixed yearly con- tribution, be it ever so moderate. In these cases, happily exceptional, the Government in India stands by or reverts to its common law right of a share of the actual produce. This same legal right to a share of produce exists at present in Ceylon. The same practical dif- ficulty also exists in Ceylon of invariably reali- zing a fixed commutation. This difficulty was in that colony for a long time found to be insu- perable. The attempts made in 1812 and sub- sequent years completely failed. In 1827 an effort was made in the Kandyan provinces with Since then commutations have become both general and successful, owing, obviously, to the improvement in the circum- stances and habits of the people. But all this, let us recollect, has taken place gradually, and
more success.
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even yet by no means universally. It is difficult to conceive how any contrivance of law can provide against the difficulty here brought to light. Least of all can we look for help to such an enactment as the report proposes, arbitrarily and blindly (for how else can we characterize such calculations as it seems content with) fixing the "permanent capabilities" and rated tax of every acre in the island.
With regard to the other alleged error of the Indian land tax which the Report claims credit for avoiding, viz., collection by middlemen, this also cannot be said to be the system pur- sued by the Indian Government; in the dyslo- gistic sense in which the phrase is used by the Report, where it implies the bringing in of strangers over the heads of those who would be naturally and properly responsible to Govern- ment for its dues. In certain cases there can
be no doubt of the advantage, nay, of the neces- sity of resorting to some new intermediate agency, whether in Ceylon or India.
The land-tax in Bengal being a known sum,
not varying from year to year, and fixed on each estate, is paid by the proprietor directly into the treasury, or into the hands of the Government officer appointed to receive it, without other intermediate agency of any kind. In Upper India the amount is equally fixed and known for each village, and the proportion of such aggregate revenue of a village, that is leviable upon each landholder within its limits, is elther fixed, or susceptible of adjustment by certain declared rules. But each individual is not under direct engagement with the Government, and the agency of some one or more of the community-elected, for the most part, by themselves—is resorted to for management of the levy, and for account with the Government. In Madras the rule is, that each occupant of land is furnished at the commencement of the year with a written and anthenticated rḥada ment of the demand to which his occupation makes him liable in the course of it. He pays either directly to the treasury, or to a Govern-