The Press.
London, England, 1856-04-26 00:00:00

Ann 26, 1856

limited to security for life and property, im-
partial and competent courts of justice to de-
cide their disputes, an absence of all vexa-
tious interference at the hands of Government
officials, and that courteous bearing on the
part of their rulers wherein the Queen herself
sets so excellent an example—an example it
would be well if her delegates in India more
generally imitated. A native of India does
not want, to be sure, to be allowed self-govern-
ment, for that is a privilege he is neither
accustomed to nor understands. But, on the
other hand, he conceives it his right to have
the freest access to the Sovereign or her
deputy, to whose sway he is subjected—the
fundamental check upon abuse of power in all
Asiatic despotisms having ever been such un-
limited power of personal representation to
the head of the State. It is the almost total
departure of our Government in India from
this principle that has caused so ill a feeling
to be created towards it of late years in the
native mind. Excepting at the Presidency
capitals the Governors are seldom seen, and
the petitions sent to them are for the most
part unheeded. To adopt the principles of a
native despotism in ruling India while closing
down the safety-valve, which alone could
make it tolerable, is like what attempting to
rule England would be on the principles of
the Constitution, while extinguishing the
power most necessary to its safe working—a
free and independent House of Commons.
In the same way there is not a single ques-
tion connected with agriculture or commerce
in India in which the elements of prosperity
or ruin are not precisely the same as those
which would be productive equally of pro-
sperity or ruin, if applied to agriculture or
commerce in England. To judge, therefore,
correctly of an Indian agricultural question,
one has only to reflect what would be the
proper course if the question was one relating
to lauds at home ; and the conclusion to which
common sense would lead one in the latter
case will be found on trial to be equally true
of the former as well. In England, for in
stance, what would be an impossible rent for
a pauper tenant to pay is given willingly by a
substantial farmer ; and the same would be
found true at Madras. In England bank-
ruptcy would be the fate of a landlord who let
his land to men who had not capital to stock
or crop it ; and the same we find to be the case
with the Company at Madras. In England
what capitalists chiefly look to in land are the
rights and honours of proprietorship, with a
prospect of profits from improvements ; and
therefore there is nothing wonderful in their
refusing a year-to-year tenancy at Madras. In
England one of the most gratifying of these
proprietary rights is the entire absence of all
extraneous interference, the being, in fact,
one's own master. In Madras the man that
accepts the occupation of land under the
existing state of things becomes to all intents
and purposes a serf: he is compelled on all
occasions to provide supplies for the collec-
tor , he has his carts and his labourers ever
litble to impreosment ; and he is himself sub-
jected to every pultawalla's insolence, and is
eternally at every petty official's beck and
call. If the lands of England were all the
lands of the Crown, and subject to such ser-
vices and such annoyances as these, there is
no doubt that they too would he avoided as a
pest by all now engaged in their cultivation
and left to be tenanted by the same miserable
set of paupers that, owing to these causes, are
the only tenants the Company can find for its
lands iu Madras.

The proper plan, therefore, of proceeding, if
we would save the Indian revenue from de-
struction, is to reverse our whole system. and
revert to that (corrected and enlarged by Euro-
pean intelligence) which was prevalent in
India in happier times. Abolish the whole
system of services of this kind, and all rights
of purveyance and impressment on the Go-
vernment's part. Abolish in favour of those
applying for the change all acreage assess-
ment throughout Madras. Let each zemin-
dar or ryot contract for the rent of his whole
holding at its present rate, allowing him to
increase his income by the cultivation of his
waste lands at pleasure ; and let every
village community do the same that wishes.
Where the uncultivated lands within the

THE PRESS.

limits of such contract bear an overwhelming
proportion to the cultivated, let the rent be a
rent increasing annually by a small per
centage, and give leases for such lands in
perpetuity, or for long periods, if the tenants
of them so desire. Add a clause to every such
lease, allowing the tenant to redeem his rent
and become the purchaser of the freehold at
any time, and give security to such freeholds
by making it lawful for the possessors to have
any question arising out of them tried in the
Supreme Courts of Judicature, if they prefer it,
instead of in the Company's Courts. Do this—
do in fact what in substance has brought Eng-
land to such a pitch of prosperity, and is now
working such miracles in Ireland—and the
public may take our words for it that the whole
face of India will be changed within the lifetime
of this generation ; and that a wealthier, or hap-
pier, or a better fed tenantry, will exist
nowhere than on the rich and fertile plains of
Madras. The Government officials will say
that it is useless to make provision for the
purchase of freeholds when the occupiers are
paupers ; but the paupers would soon be super-
seded by, or fall into partnership with, a
wealthier class, under circumstances which
favored the application of capital to land.