108 



except the Occupant. The Occupant in short, 

 becomes the owner, because all things are presumed 

 to be somebody's property, and because no one can 

 be pointed out as having' a better right than he to 

 the proprietorship of this particular thing.'* 



If this view of the case be the correct one, and 

 much that we find existing around us, goes a con- 

 siderable way to prove that it is, popular notions 

 would seem to be an unsafe guide ; and I think, 

 therefore, that before any attempt was made to sell, 

 outright, the waste lands in India, it would have 

 been desirable that some definitive some fixed prin- 

 ciples regarding 4 rights, real or traditionary, should 

 have been laid down by competent authority, not 

 only to entitle the possessor to sell, but to prevent 

 those blunders the commission of which has so ham- 

 pered successive administrations of India, in their 

 anxious endeavours to ameliorate the Government 

 of the country. Fiscal questions, vitally affecting 

 the future welfare of large provinces questions that 

 have occupied the most serious attention of the pro- 

 foundest thinkers on these subjects in all ages, are 

 here not unfrequently decided off-hand, on the 

 recommendation of settlement officers, or collectors, 

 by chief Civil Authorities, who if they could find the 

 time fully to consider their bearings, can hardly be 

 expected to possess the qualifications necessary to 



* Ancient Law, by II. Sumner Maine, p. 256. 



