The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

STATE OF THE LAND QUESTION IN' i INDIA. NOW that faction in one quarter and down right insurrection in another have apparently subsided, it may, perhaps, be useful to say a few words respecting the Oude Proclamation, the tendency and possible effect of which have been so much misunderstood. To begin at the beginning, then, it should be recollected that as the India Company com menced their governmental operations as dewans, deputies, or agents of higher authorities then ruling the country, the theory of the State being universal landlord, and the produce of the soil the immediate and principal source of revenue, was in a measure forced upon their adoption. As, however, the fiscal proceedings of all the native Governments were arbitrary and capri cious in the extreme, the necessity for fixing a limit to the amount of assessment to which the cultivators were liable, very soon pressed itself upon the attention of the Governor-General ; and Lord ConNwAws endeavoured to do justice at once to the State and to the landholders by decreeing that "Permanent Settlement" which has been the subject of so much discussion during the last century. This beneficent arrangement was calculated at first to give universal satisfac tion—but, unfortunately, the necessities of the Company, occasioned chiefly by, their trading operations, required a larger flow of money into their treasury than the settlement in question was found to produce ; and the petty chiefs and local authorities, availing themselves of their position as collectors of the land tax, unscrupu lously met the pressure which was in consequence made upon them, by arbitrarily exacting in creased rent from all their subordinate cultiva tors. To explain this, it should be stated that the farmers of the land revenue, under the name of zumeendars, talookdars, &c., were serviceable alike to the Government and to the cultivators— to the former in collecting and remitting the revenue, and to the latter in making occasional advances for the expenses of cultivation. When, therefore, increased contributions were required, and those contributions were found to fall upon the class of cultivators, it is not surprising that the permanent settlement soon came to be con sidered by the partizans of Government as having been much too lightly assessed. The zumeendars were consequently pressed for still larger returns, and the cultivators, taking advan tage of the law courts, then recently established, appealed to them for protection. The consequence was such an investigation into the validity of title-deeds on the one hand, and into the possible produce of land on the other, as occasioned a scene of ruin and confusion, which the lapse of more than half a century has scarcely sufficed to terminate. Now, bearing in mind the incidents above alluded to, it was certainly unfortunate that the very first step taken by Government on the an nexation of Oude was a revisal of the existing land settlement. From the natural desire of the revenue officers to do what they conceived to be their duty, it may readily be believed that this, and perhaps this only, was the point on which the novelty of our reign was likely to wound the sensibilities of our new subjects. Yet there was another : vast numbers of our sepoy pen sioners being located with their families in that province, they are said to have bitterly com plained that, whereas their affairs were imme diately attended to when the country was under native rule, they were subjected to all sorts of vexatious delays when they produced their warrants to the newly-appointed Company's servants. When, however, Sir HENRY LAW RENcE was appointed Chief Commissioner, it was hoped that a more conciliatory system would have been adopted; but events crowded too duickly u p on hi m, an d h e recommen d e d th e isarmin g of the population—a measure which, although it had completely answered in a still more turbulent province, was opposed by a highl y respectable authority in the Council. The rest we know. And now comes the crisis at which the Proclamation adverted to was framed. The circumstances above imperfectly alluded to were generally known ; Sir JAMES OUTRAM'S THE PRESS, MAY 29, 1858. opinion that the landholders had been most unjustly treated under our settlement operations was openly declared; nor did Lord CANNING himself disguise his conviction that unjust de cisions had been come to by some of the local officers in investigating and judging the titles of the landholders, and that the wisdom of attempt ing to introduce into Oude a system of village settlement (!) in place of the old settlement under talookdars was questionable. Yet he declines acceding to Sir JAMES OUTRAM'S recommenda tion, apparently for no other reason than be cause he wished to avoid the risk of having his motives misrepresented. We may now well ask, then, if the objections to the Proclamation were not twofold ? First, it was sweepingly severe, irritating, and avowedly unjust in many instances ; and, secondly, it was in a high degree impolitic and dangerous in having a direct tendency to reopen the long vexed question of Indian land-tenures through out the whole of our provinces. If, therefore, there be any truth in these remarks, Lord ELLEN BOROUGH was right in having so promptly and decidedly condemned the issue of such a docu ment. How a premature publicity came to be given to it in this country, and how the ineffec tual explanation of it came to be delayed in its progress to the proper quarter, it is not onr pro vince to inquire. We conclude by giving an extract from the observations of one of the writers who took part in the discussion on the renewal of the Company's Charter in 1830. Speaking of the fiscal ad ministration of India, he says : " A State which draws the principal part of its revenue from the land affords a tempting bait for every assailant ; where there is no substantial pro prietary right in the soil, there is, there can be, no patriotism. Every invader reaps the reward of his enterprize without the necessity of imposing any new taxes. He can even pay his chiefs in advance (as Sultan BARER did) by transferring to them some of the rich zumeendaries which he is about to overrun; and the people, knowing that, whoever is master of their country, the same amount must be paid by them, are in all cases quite indifferent to the event of contest. But by reducing the tax on land so as to allow the proprietor to redeem it, and exempt himself from all future demands upon the immediate pro duce of that part of the soil of which he holds possession, the strongest possible inducement is given him both to improve and to defend it. Knowing that the first act of the conqueror would be to raise a revenue by taxing his land afresh, he and his tenants would exert themselves to the utmost to avert so great an evil ; and the in vader, knowing the opposition that awaited him, would no longer dare to assault a country which, in addition to its standing army, would thus be able to supply a militia of sturdy yeomanry for the defence of every district. These considera tions furnish the true cause of the ease and rapidity with which India has so frequently been overrun. ROBERTSON somewhere says that culti vators were known to be peaceably following their occupation within the sound of armies in hot contention for the possession of the province. Could this have been the case if the people had not been, like the fellahs of Egypt, compelled to cultivate the soil for a bare subsistence, no matter who was master of the country ?" May not this account in a great measure for the singular want of sympathy (to say the least of their conduct) with which the natives in general regarded the sufferings of our countrymen throughout the upper provinces of India during the late melancholy revolt of the sepoys ? TIIE PEW SYSTEM. WE allow, without reluctance, Mr. LINDSAY to take a rather large share of our columns to-day ; and we do this the more fully to assure him of our sympathy with his general design. But we read his letter with sonic astonishment to find how a man so sincere and earnest can yet blink the main difficulty of the case. We had remarked, that one London parish of 12,000 people adjoined another London parish of 20,000 ; and the people of the two parishes went' to that church of the two which they preferred, while the churchwardens could not possibly know the persons of one-half of the 32,000. Now this ; the n3tice he - takes of it is to say, " Strangers " are those who intrude into churches which do "not belong to the parish wherein they live : " these, of course, the churchwardens have power " to exclude." Yes, they may have power, legally and theo retically ; but what power have they practically ? None at all. What churchwarden of St. Mar tin's-in-the-Fields, or St. James's, Piccadilly, could pretend to know even one-tenth of the parishioners? Mr. LINDSAY next points to five special cases, in all of which, he says, the open-seat system has had " rapid success." But surely Mr. L. must know full well that these churches named by him are not crowded by the parishioners, but chiefly by non-parishioners. We speak of one of them with which we are well acquainted, and we assert, without hesitation, that four-fifths of the regular attendants are not parishioners, but come from other districts. how, then, can the success of such cases as these prove anything in favour of opening every church to all the parishioners P Clear St. Andrew's in Wells-street next Sunday morning of all who are not parishioners, and the church would be left with less than half a con gregation. Corresponblutt. THE PEW SYSTEM. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—l have read with much interest your article on the pew system, which appeared in your impres sion of the 15th inst. In the name of the " General Committee on the Pew System," I would thank you for your cordial declaration that the object we have in view has your " warmest sympathy," and that it " shall have the utmost support" you can give it. But, however, you add, that while thus speaking, " unreservedly and without hesitation, of the object itself, we must rest rve ourselves as to some of the details." The point which you object to is, that "all appropriation of seats, whether formal or tacit, shall be abandoned, and every corner feel himself free to take any place in a church which he may find vacant." Now, this is the very fundamental principle of our association, and I confess I do not perceive how you can sympathize with the object we have in view, or how you can lend us your powerful support, unless you are prepared to accept it with all its con sequences. I will, with your permission, lay down four propositions, as containing four great principles on which our association is based, and which are, believe, founded on reason, and even assented to, though not carried out in practice, by society at large ; and then, after making a few remarks on them, I will proceed to reply to your objections I. 'lhat all parish churches are the common pro .petty of the people dwelling within the boundaries of their respective parishes. 2. That, inasmuch as all parish churches are the common property of all the parishioners, every person, from the squire to the peasant, has a right to the free use of his parish chur..:b during the times of Divine service. 3. That all parishioners have a right to occupy any seats in their parish church that may happen to be vacant; and that no person has a right to occupy more than one seat at a time, during Divine service, to the exclusion of others. 4. That all persons, while within the walls of their respective parish churches, are equal in the sight of God and of the congregation ; and that all, high and low, rich and poor, have an equal right to the free and undisturbed use of their parish church, and of any portion of the same that may be at the time of Divine service unoccupied. I do not think that you can possibly object to the above propositions, for they are perfectly sound in principle, and in accordance with the law of the Gospel, and with both the letter and the spirit of the great common law of England ; and yet there are some who will refuse to admit the principles con tained in these propositions : permit me, for their benefit, to make the following remarks. We say, " that all parish churches are the common property of all the people dwelling within the boundaries of their respective parishes." This may be proved, first, from the mere fact that the church is called the parish church—i.e., the church of the parishioners ; secondly, from the circumstance that the incumbent is called the rector or vicar or per petual curate of the parish, having spiritual juris diction over ell the inhabitants living in the parish ; thirdly, from the fact that the spirituality of the parish is entirely supported by the parishioners in the shape of church rates for the preservation of the fabric—of tithes, for the maintenance of the parson —and of offerings, dm., for the support 3f Divine service. Surely no person, after due refiectiou, can for one moment doubt the truth that the parish 509 fact damages his whole argument; yet all .. - .