The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-12 00:00:00

THE LAND SETTLEMENT OF OUDE.

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of the Times :
Snt,—Lord Canning's Proclamation twice over
names—and concerns only—" the talookdars,
chiefs, and landowners of Oude, with their fol-
lowers." Its object is to proclaim that, subject to
indulgence for past or future good behaviour, their
"proprietary right in the soil of the province is
coufiscated." It is addressed, of course, to the
people of Oude, but in that sense only are the peo-
ple at large affected by it. The whole question of
whether this proclamation is wise or blameable
turns upon the nature of the right thus destroyed,
and the number and class of individuals in conse-
quence damaged. I assume that as conquerors we
are entitled to confiscate a right known to be in-
c tnsistent with good government and the welfare
of the people at large, held as it is by the particu-
lar classes who have specially opposed and fought
against us.
Lord Ellenborough has been entirely misled by
the expression of " proprietary right." He evi-
dently supposes the talookdars, chiefs, and land-
owners, or, as they call themselves there generally,
"the zemindara" of Oude, to form the great mass
of the people, and to resemble the industrious
zemindars of Bengal ; whereas they are a totally
different class of men, and constitute a very small
section of the population. In fact, Lord Ellen-
borou,sh, like many people, has confounded "the_.
proprietary," or "zetnindarree," or "talookdarree"
right in the soil with the right of occupancy and
cultivation ; whereas the two things are quite dis-
tinct. It would take a volume to explain the in-
tricacies of Indian land tenure, but I assert gene-
rally that the zemindars of Oude are its oppressors,
not its cultivators, for proof of which assertion f
appeal to Sir W. Sleeman's official report on Oude,
passim. The reader will there find how in that
region of anarchy and crime the zemmdar with his
armed followers lives upon the plundered industry
of the poor cultivator—how seldom he demeans
himself by labour of any kind--how easily and
summarily the small landowner is dispossessed by
the large one—and, as a consequence, how small a
proportion " the taluokdats, sirdars, and zeinin;
dare" form of that "great body of the peeP.l°
whom Lord Ellenborough accuses Lord Canning
of " having deprived of all hope."
Seventy years ago, when these questions wqo
very imperfectly understood, Lord Cornwallis,
making the same mistake into which Lord Ellen-
boroughz e nnda rhr
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e me e fallen,t concluded owl thu. eehd
Bt he en gpa el r mi a s
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at
still hampered. By it he produced a state of things
there not in accordance with the usual land tenures
of India, which, among other evils, has occasioned
a confusion of terms, frequently leading, as in the
present instance, to the error of supposing the
zemindars to possess the role right of cultivating
and occupying the roil.
When the re-settlement of our North-Western
Provinces—in which I had the honour to be eln"
ployed—wasmore recently undertaken, every effort
consistent with law and justice was made to get rid
of the zemindarree or talookdarree claims over the
ancient and hereditary occupants, as an evil which
was gent rally admitted to interfere with the pros-
perity and encouragement of the real cultivators of
the soil.

These rights, however, were constantly too strong
to be set aside. Tuough inconvenient, arbitrary,
and oppressive to the people, they were, like many
of our old feudal institutions, legal.
Mr. Edmonstone, an officer having unusual ac-
quiintance with the land tenures of Upper India,
has, under Lord Canning's orders, wisely and
acutely seized the opFortunity of a state of war,

specially waged against us by these very zemindarey
to take the power—to be used hereafter with the

moderation he points out—of setting aside these
zemindarree or " proprietary" rights. In doing this
he is carrying out a system predetermined on before
the war broke out, as necessary for the civilisation,
improvement, and good government of the coun-
try ; and though Lord Ellenborough, in the sixth
paragraph of his letter, alluding to that intended
system, infers that it was one of the causes of the
war, still, without discussing that point, we ineYl
at least, now c!aim to reap the fruits of the struggle,
after having suffered its convulsions and brought it
to a successful issue.—l am, sir, your obedient
servant

F. S. HEAD, late of the Bengal Civil Service,
and formerly employed in the re-settlement
of the North-Western Provinces.
Chapel-street, Grosvenor-sqaare, May 11.