the country who understood the business at the commencement of the survey.

'Each set of surveyors are followed by two assessors, to value the lands thus measured. On reaching a village, the assessors, with the aid of the potail and curnum,* divided the measured lands into classes, according to quality. Formerly, it appears the lands were divided into first, second, and third sorts, corresponding, therefore, with the classification adopted in the Tumar Jumma; but in this survey there seems to have been a much greater variety. If the potail and curnum, on the one hand, and the assessors on the other, disagreed as to the classification, the ryots of neighbouring villages were called in to decide to which of the classes the disputed lands should be placed.

'Notwithstanding this notable expedient for settling differences, the proceedings of the assessors were found to be, in some instances, grossly negligent-in others corrupt. They trusted, it is true, for information to the potails, curnums, and ryots of villages, but, in the result, were, it seems, grossly deceived. To check abuses, therefore, five other honest men, called head-assessors, with four deputies to each, were nominated to review the work of the under-assessors. The only sources of information to which these head-assessors had access, were still the potails and curnums of villages, and the ryots of adjoining villages, when they could be persuaded to come forward to impeach their neighbours. With this aid, the head-assessors made, as a matter of course, various alterations in the classification and assessments of the under-assessors, by raising some lands to higher classes, and lowering others.

Still entire dependence, it seems, could not be placed on the judgment and impartiality of the head-assessors. A spice of corruption had crept in to vitiate even their supervision; so that another review became necessary in the collector's own cutchery. On this occasion, all the potails, curnums, and principal ryots of all the villages of the collectorship, were assembled to discuss and decide, or, at all events, to aid in the discussion and decision on disputed points.

'In Europe, it may be found rather difficult to arrange the details of complicated transactions, in large assemblies of the people; but in an Eastern collector's cutchery, and in presence of a large concourse of persons, all the minutia of the classification and assessment of a country as large as Scotland, and more numerously peopled, would, it was supposed, be easily adjusted!

'First, a gross sum, as the total revenue of the district, was decided upon.

Next, it was divided in certain portions over each village.

Potail, head man of a village. Curnum, village accountant, the same as Putwary in Bengal.'

And finally, the rent of every field, occupied by every individual ryot, was fixed and registered.

'If disputes arose, or remissions were demanded, in any one village, the usual recourse was had to the ryots of a neighbouring village, who were called in to settle this, as well as all other differences.

Pending_this_examination in the collector's cutchery, it was discovered that the potails and curnums had still contrived to deceive the assessors, by getting their own lands underrated, and the lands of poorer ryots overrated; and after a most laborious investigation of classifications and assessments, and consulting with neighbouring ryots, all errors were supposed to be effectually corrected, that "no fraudulent assessment of any consequence could possibly be concealed."

'No sooner, however, are we consoled with this assurance, than in the very next paragraph we find, that, on further examination of the survey at the end of the year, fresh errors had been detected, and remissions granted, to the extent of from one half to one and a half per cent. on the whole assessment. "The equivalent (it is added) might easily have been made up from lands which have been underrated, for the assessment was as often below as above the proper point, but it was thought better in this case to make no alteration," &c.

It is further to be remarked of this last adjustment in the cutchery, that in spite of all the preceding machinery for classifying, measuring, and re-measuring, assessing, and re-assessing the lands; in spite, too, of a three-fold investigation of the assessor's accounts, it was found, even at the last, that dependance was not to be placed on their accuracy. For the final adjustment of the revenue, therefore, recourse was had to a comparison of the assessors' accounts with the amount of former collections under Native princes, as well as under the Company's government, and to the opinions of intelligent Natives; on due consideration of all which, such a sum was at length adopted, as it was thought would be the fair assessment of the district in its present state.

'The amount at length fixed, was from five to fifteen per cent. below the estimates of the assessors; because, (it is added)," it is the nature of assessment, proceeding from single fields to whole districts, to make the aggregate sum greater than what can be easily realized." Why an assessment on a single field, if accurately made, should necessarily be inaccurate, or excessive, when extended to 10, 100, or 1000, fields, is not very clear to ordinary comprehensions. Such, however, is the record.

The survey was last of all confirmed by another pretended inspection of the lands at the time of harvest, to see that the value of the crops corresponded with the valuation of the

lands, on which occasion pottahs, signed by the collector, were given to each individual ryot; in which the quality, extent, and rent of his land, were specifically stated. The principal collector closes his report with an enumeration of the inhabitants, and of the cattle, buffaloes, sheep, and goats in the province, all taken from the same accurate accounts of surveyors, &c., as before noticed; to which are added the number of acres of every description of land, down to the very worst, or purrampoke, which the collector explains to mean lands utterly unproductive, that is, "tracts of rocky and stony ground where no plough can ever go," and therefore highly proper, no doubt, to be inserted in a survey, the main object of which is the ascertainment of productive resources! We are, however, left to conjecture what may have been the precise utility, compared with the labour and expense of foisting purrampoke into such a survey, as well as to find out the peculiar excellence of that doctrine which would number the cattle, sheep, and goats, of the poorest of the poor, among suitable objects of taxation.

'The survey took five years to be accomplished, and cost the Company about 90,000 pagodas, or, at the then value of the pagoda, 36,000l. When finally settled, the assessment fixed on the property of each ryot, was considered permanent, that is, until something should occur to change it, or until the time should arrive, in the collector's own judgment, for a "moderate" increase.

'Remissions of revenue were inadmissible, except in cases of great and notorious calamity. Ordinary deficiencies of crop were not attended to, although these must have occurred, in every year, in some part of the province; and have fallen heavy on those whose portion of an average crop was only a bare subsistence.

In the survey of the ceded districts, it was computed that the assessment, or net jumma, was equal to forty-five per cent. of the gross produce of the lands; leaving, therefore, an equal share, as may be supposed, for the ryots, and the remainder for the village

expenses.

'The land-tax being thus the highest possible leviable amount, increase of revenue could only under this system be anticipated, (for increase, commonly called improvement of revenue, is never for a moment lost sight of in India,) from additional lands brought into cultivation; which would then of course be subject to the same assessment. This, indeed, is carefully provided for, in the instructions to the assessors; who are directed not to class farrow, or waste lands, at so low a rate, lest it should encourage graceless ryots to throw up their highly taxed cultivated lands, and take to the low taxed wastes to the injury of the revenue.

'In this concise review of a Ryotwar survey, and of the duties required to be performed by surveyors and assessors, if there be not Oriental Herald, Vol. 22.

T

enough to convince the reader of the impracticability of so complicated a scheme, let him consult the instructions themselves, with all the further minutiæ they contain; he will there find enough, as well as from what immediately follows, to satisfy him that this celebrated survey, like its predecessor, the Tumar Jumma, is only fitted, after all the labour and cost of its accomplishment, to rest in peaceful neglect in the books and registers of those who framed it.'

Of the Ryotwar settlement, a summary description is stated to have been given by a member of the Government of Madras, in 1823; and has been copied into a late work by Mr. Tucker, now a Director of the East India Company, who formerly filled situations in Bengal, that gave him an opportunity of practically forming opinions, which the subjoined extract is merely brought forward to corroborate. The extract as given by Mr. Tucker, is as follows.

'To convey to the mind of an English reader, even a slight impression of the nature, operation, and results of the Ryotwar system of revenue, connected with the judicial arrangements of 1816, must be a matter of some difficulty. Let him, in the first place, imagine the whole landed interest of Great Britain, and even the capital farmers, at once swept away from the face of the earth; let him imagine a cess or rent, fixed on every field in the kingdom, seldom under, generally above, its means of payment; let him imagine the land so assessed, lotted out to the villagers, according to the number of their cattle and ploughs, to the extent of forty or fifty acres each. Let him imagine the revenue rated as above, leviable through the agency of 100,000 revenue officers, collected or remitted at their discretion, according to their idea of the occupant's means of paying, whether from the produce of his land, or his separate property. And in order to encourage every man to act as a spy on his neighbour, and report his means of paying, that he may eventually save himself from extra demand; let him imagine all the cultivators of a village, liable at all times to a separate demand, in order to make up for the failure of one or more individuals of their parish. Let him imagine collectors to every county, acting under the orders of a Board, on the avowed principle of destroying all competition for labour, by a general equalization of assessment; seizing and sending back runaways to each other. And lastly, let him imagine at the same time, every subordinate officer employed in the collection of the land revenue, to be a police officer, vested with the power to fine, confine, put in the stocks, and flog any inhabitant within his range, without oath of the accuser, or sworn recorded evidence in the case. If the reader can bring his mind to contemplate such a course, he may then form some judgment of the civil administration, in progress of re-introduction into the territories under the Presidency of Madras, containing 125,000 square miles, and a population of twelve millions.'

Although this picture may be thought highly coloured, it is not

exaggerated. It describes the system, with its powers, such as it really is, and, however well administered it may be in the hands of some extraordinary collector, still, it being so peculiarly open to boundless abuse, is a sufficient warrant of the evils it will always engender, under ordinary management. In a very able minute by the Revenue Board at Madras, the Ryotwar system is condemned in no less forcible terms; whilst the reports even of its advocates, cannot divest it of the character of inquisitorial interference, of great intricacy, of forcing ryots to cultivate particular lands, and the arbitrary seizure of the persons of those who abscond, whether from misfortune or oppression; of a land-tax which avowedly absorbs the whole net produce, without any remissions for ordinary failures and calamities; and of the responsibility of the good, for defaulting ryots; than all of which nothing can be more fatal to the progress of human prosperity.'

It is worthy of remark, that Sir Thomas Munro derived his knowledge of Ryotwar surveying and assessment from Colonel Reed, under whom he served as an assistant, when Colonel Reed was appointed, in 1792, to be collector of the Baramahl district. Colonel Reed, having adopted it in Baramahl, may be considered the father of the system. After several years' experience of its practical operation, he writes of it as follows, in a letter to his assistants, dated April, 1797: After having laid the whole (a voluminous detail of accounts) before the Revenue Board, I shall confess, that the affairs of such an extensive country cannot be managed in such detail for any length of time. I shall expose the impolicy and folly of Government condescending to supplant, by a parsimonious system, the farmer and the merchant.' In a subsequent letter, upon the same subject, 12th of April, 1798, Colonel Reed observes, The process is no doubt curious, and a proof of what may be done by the extraordinary means in the power of India collectors; but the difficulty of performing it, likewise proves the machine employed in conducting the business of revenue, to be too complicated and unwieldy for the purpose. It always has been so, and is, of consequence, always getting out of order, unless when directed by uncommon vigilance and attention. We have thought we could mend it, and, in some respects, succeeded, but in having refined upon the old system, we have added more wheels, rendered it more complicated, and, of course, more unfit for carrying on the various branches of revenue economy. The radical defect in it appears to be our over-rated assessment, which augments the public, and reduces the private, property in the soil to such a degree, as to involve the necessity of ousting all between the Government and the cultivators, and to make their concerns the object of its attention—that is the principal source of objection, as it impedes agriculture, and obstructs the ordinary course of justice. The nature of our assessment requires the adapting it to different descriptions of inhabitants,