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considered a tax; and if retained at an equitable 

 rate, being 1 simply the rendering- unto Caesar of the 

 thing's that are Caesar's, will always be willingly 

 paid. Dissatisfaction can only be the result of 

 oppression another term for bad g-overnment. 

 Dissatisfaction, moreover, never has arisen on this 

 score. Complaints, loud and bitter, may have been 

 raised ag-ainst many of the evils of the English 

 system of Government, the interference with reli- 

 gion, caste-prejudices, established rights, social 

 customs, dress, food ; and above all ag-ainst the evils 

 of systems of police, civil and criminal courts of 

 justice, and the imposition of direct and novel taxes ; (j 

 but even in 1857, when the storm of rebellion was 

 at its height, when the discontent, pent up for years, 

 was set free to vent its force in one terrible outburst 

 of rag-e, no murmur, no sign, indicated the slightest 

 impatience on the part of the people on the score of 

 the land revenue. Instead then, of there being- any 

 necessity for drying- up, for ever, this fertile, simple, 

 and ever-increasing- source of revenue, by exhausting- 

 its waters at a drain, I cannot but think, that any 

 action likely to disturb existing- ideas on the subject, 

 or tending- to the substitution of a taxation peculiarly 

 abhorrent to the people of India, for payments most 

 willingly made, would not only be erroneous in 

 principle, but fiscally mischievous, if not politically 

 dangerous in its sesults. 



As to the advantages which it is said would be 

 g-ained by the redemption of the land revenue, they 



