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

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 ?