62 



Indian Statesmen, who must know, or who certainly 

 ought to know these facts ; but because I desire, to 

 exclude from the whole, the discussion of a question 

 which ought to be confined to a comparatively 

 limited part. 



When people talk, generally, of the Secretary of 

 State of the Government of India, throwing 

 obstacles in the way of European settlers obtaining 

 land in India, they evidently talk at random, and 

 without a knowledge of the true facts of the case. 

 The Secretary of State and the Government of India, 

 as far as regards powers of absolute disposal, have 

 little more concern with the great area of the plains 

 of Hindostan, than Her Majesty's Ministers have 

 with the broad lands of England. But that the 

 subject may be more clearly understood, and follow- 

 ing out the principle of looking at these questions 

 from a business point of view, I will add, that were 

 it otherwise were, for instance, the rights of the 

 people in the soil to be confiscated to-morrow, and 

 all the cultivated and culturable land in India to be 

 put up to public auction the next day, except in 

 unpopulated and wild tracts, and a few districts 

 favoured by a soil and climate suitable for growing 

 an extraordinarily remunerative crop requiring 

 European skill in its management, not an acre of it 

 would come into the possession of Englishmen, for 

 the sound and very simple reason, that it would be 

 worth the Natives 9 while to pay more for it I And 

 this, moreover, is a view, that, for the right under- 



