The Press.
London, England, 1854-10-07 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

made by increased cultivation, and not by
diminishing the aggregate amount of this
assessment. What they gain will be gained
only at the expense of the jungle and of the
wild beasts which inhabit it."

The people could hardly believe their ears
when they heard the proposition, but, seeing
the collector to be in earnest, they most joy-
fully assented to it. Their fortunes being thus
in their own hands, they set to work with a
will ; and men who could not afford to cultivate
ten acres at a rupee an acre found it well
worth their while to cultivate twenty or thirty,
when they had only to pay the same aggregate
amount of rent for them that they had paid
for ten. Besides, under the new plan, bribes
to officials were unnecessary, and there was
all that money saved. The village money-
lenders came forward, plunderers returned
home to their fields, the district became safe
again, the gaols were emptied, and the rent
agreed on was paid to the day, without a single
claim for remission or a single petition to
Government. In short, the worst and most ill-
conditioned collectorate in the Madras Presi-
dency became in three years a model of excel-
lence, punctuality, and good order.
At this time the extraordinary order and
prosperity of the district attracted the special
attention of the Revenue Board. A collecto-
rate with the revenue paid punctually and
without a single complaint was such a marvel
that they could not understand it. That the
full rental of this district should be realised,
and that without any periodical inquiries, con-
fiscations, and sales, was a thing unheard of.
They deputed, therefore, one of their body
to learn the secret of this wonderful system,
with a view of introducing it into every collec-
torate at Madras. The great man came accord-
ingly, but what was his horror to find that the
collector had effected this transformation by
virtually setting aside, and that without refer-
ence to Government, the whole Madras Land
Revenue Regulations ! His anger knew no
bounds ; nothing could appease him. It was
in vain that the collector pleaded the happi-
ness he had conferred on the people, and the
great advantages he had secured for Govern-
ment,—all was useless. His immediate return
to the old system was ordered, and he was
assured that nothing but his own length of
service prevented hia ignominious dismissal.
But, disgusted at the proceeding, the collector
threw up his appointment, and returned to Eng-
land, to ponder over the fate which surely befals
all public servants in India who prefer the real
interests of the State and the interests of hu-
manity to paying a literal obedience to the
often ruinous and senseless regulations of the
Company.
In three years more the collectorate had,
under the former system, reverted to its former
condition, and the sheriff, the auctioneer, the
gaoler, and the hangman had resumed their
ancient sway once again.
Our conclusion from this authentic anecdote
is, that a great alteration is required in the land-
revenue system. We do not counsel col-
lectors to violate the regulations, but we do
counsel the President of the India Board, who
has the power to alter the regulations, to
take a lesson from the estimable collector
of Madras whose proceedings we have
briefly stated. If he will do so we can
promise him that all his land-revenue diffi-
culties will speedily cease, and that, instead of
a decrease in the public income, he will have
such a large augmentation of it as will furnish
him with more than funds enough for all the
public works that are there required. Let him
get an act passed decreeing that every owner,
or body of owners, of land in India may have a
lease for ninety-nine years of the whole of his
land at the rate paid for that portion of it which
is now cultivated—the rent increasing, how-
ever, in consideration of this advantage, at the
rate of one per cent. on the total an-
nually. And let him further enact that
any such lessee may at any time convert his
leasehold into a perpetuity on paying into the
Treakury the number of years' purchase-money
that the selling rate of the Indian public funds
may indicate on the day on which the tender
for such conversion may be made. Let the
President of the India Board do this only, and
he will at once find all the social and financial
difficulties attending the Indian land-revenue

939

system vanish. It may be, as Mr. LOWE says,
that the present occupiers have in many cases
not money to buy their holdings with ; but so
it has been with tho original squatters in
nearly every country. But, wherever the
power of purchasing land exists, it is never
long in falling into the hands of men ca-
pable of making the most of it; and there
are plenty of native capitalists in India who
under such a system would speedily find the
means of investingtheir superfluous thousands,
or in some cases millions, in the purchase of
land.

" The Late Courts-Martial " is still a heading in
the daily journals. A correspondence between
Colonel GARRETT and the Duke of CLEVELAND shows,
we are sorry to say, that a person may be styled his
" grace" and yet want the delicacy of a gentleman.
His attack on Colonel GARRETT was gratuitously
cruel, and, in asking whether " such an officer
" should continue in command of a regiment which
" he has publicly disgraced ?" he went far beyond
the censure which the evidence, fairly considered,
would warrant. The long services and untarnished
reputation of Colonel GARRETT, with the fact that he
is on the point of setting out for the theatre of war,
should have shielded him from such ungenerous re-
flection. Sir DUNCAN M'DouoAL has taken up the
cudgels, in behalf of his cloth, in a more chivalrous
spirit. The Times, in the pothouse tone it some-
times chooses to indulge in, asserted, in reference
to PERRY'S case, that " the military profession has
" fallen to that degree in the publio opinion that
_ _

any man with the Queen's uniform on his back is
• hencefore held to prove himself a gentleman be-
-3 fore he can be accepted as one by his countrymen."
As Sir DUNCAN WDOUOAL wore the Queen's uniform,
he demands from the Times the name of the writer
of the " above slanderous paragraph," and is of
course referred, as the Duke of CLEVELAND refers
Colonel GARRETT, to a solicitor. Sir DUNCAN replies
in a tone of great severity. His letter will do some
good. Every one must admire his " pluck," and
most persons will heartily approve his remarks.

THE public will be delighted to hear that the
Right Honourable Sidney Herbert, Secretary at War,
is staying with his illustrious Russian relative, Prince
Woronzow, at the Hague.

THE Cumberland, 70, Captain G. H. Seymour, left
Aland on the 15th ult. for the purpose of being paid
off. This ship, our readers may remember, was one
of those despatched to the Baltic with its crew in
a half-mutinous condition, from not being allowed
even a day's holiday after a three years' service on a
foreign station. And what after all has been the
result of this very questionable despatch! The
heavily armed portion of the fleet has been absolutely
doing nothing, and their officers write home "hoping
that a short time will prove with whom the fault lies
—our commanders, or their orders from home."
EDUCATION AT ELBOURNE is being fairly encou-
raged. The new governor has laid the foundation-
stone of the new university as well as that of the
public library. Four professors, one in the ancient
classics, one in natural science, one in mathematics,
and one in logic, modern literature, and political
economy, are to be sent out by the council corre-
spondent in England. Their passage out will be paid;
the salary is I,t 00/. per annum, and residence is
added. The edifice of the university will cost 30,()001.,
and is endowed to the amount of 9,0001., whilst
10,0001. has been voted for the library, besides three
grants, in all 5,0001., which have been set aside for
the purchase of books.
THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH is desirous that
assistance should be given directly to Omer l'acha
in his strategic operations in Bessarabia. Marshal •
de St. Arnaud has received advices that some portion
of the new reinforcements en route for the stations at
Varna or Therapia should be despatched to take part
in the advance of the Turkish army, which has lately
reconnoitred the left bank of the Danube as far as
Tutchkoff without the diversion of meeting a single
Russian soldier.

6TM MELODIES OF IRELAND..--The preservation
and publication of the immense quantity of national
music still existing in Ireland, and of which much
is yet unwritten, have long been a desideratumiamong
those who are acquainted with the great extent and
value of some private collections. Among these lie,
almost unknown, hundreds of airs hitherto unpub-
lished in any form, and which range through every
class of pure Dish music, from the most elevated
style of ancient vocal melody down to the smooth,
flowing, graceful songs of the last two centuries; and
among which are preserved very many, too, of those
vigorous, dance-compelling, quick tunes which can-
not be equalled by any similar music of other coun-
tries. Besides these collections, a considerable
quantity of airs, not yet noted down, is to be found
current among the peasantry in all parts of the coun-
try.—Dublin Journal of Induitrial Progreu.