80 



nently good results from such measures, it is indis- 

 pensable not only that no violence be done to the 

 long- existing- rights which, sometimes in a rude, 

 sometimes in a complicated form, are possessed by 

 many of the humblest occupants of the soil in India, 

 but that these rights be nowhere slighted or even 

 overlooked. Scrupulous respect for them is one of 

 the most solemn duties of the Government of India, 

 as well as its soundest polic} r , whatever may be the 

 mode in which that Government may think fit to 

 deal with rights of its own/ 



In these two paragraphs (which, with two paras, 

 regarding the redemption of the land revenue, are 

 probably the only portion of the Eesolution drafted 

 by his Lordship's hand) we learn the objects and 

 reasons of this great statesman and upright and good 

 man, for a measure which will mark a memorable 

 epoch in the fiscal laws of the British Government 

 of India, and which, as effectually overthrowing 

 all those barriers, said to have been hitherto set up 

 between British enterprise and the development of 

 India's wealth, rendered the solution of this ques- 

 tion, which has so long occupied the attention of 

 English and Indian statesmen, a matter of time 

 alone. 



But the terms of the Eesolution, were not accepted 

 in their integrity in England. Her Majesty's 

 Government, while it cordially participated in 

 the sentiments contained in the second of the para- 

 graphs above quoted, considered the proposition 



