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entire present debt of India, the interest of which 

 the whole Community have now to pay. This is 

 certainly a very startling- fact, and though it need 

 not follow, and it is not proposed, that permanent 

 settlement should he made with the proprietors of 

 estates including* any large area of uncultivated land, 

 taken in connection with the admittedly depressed 

 condition of the cultivators, and the deplorable state 

 of the public works, and the internal commerce of 

 the Province, it is sufficient to upset any direct 

 conclusions, drawn from g-eneral premises, regarding- 

 the effects of Lord Cornwallis' settlement, in its 

 relation to the wealth of the Country. True, it may 

 be said that the free gift of large tracts of waste 

 land, has accelerated their cultivation ; but the re- 

 clamation of wastes, is not a portion of this side 

 of the question. It has no concern whatever 

 with it. 



It is undoubtedly to this cause mainly, if not 

 entirely, that the accumulation of wealth spoken of 

 has taken place in Bengal, and that this wealth has 

 centered in a favoured class, which forms but a very 

 limited portion of the Community, will not be dis- 

 puted. Were it otherwise, the measure would never 

 have been open to those objections, which, in my 

 humble judgment, are fatal to the successful adop- 

 tion of a similar policy in the present circumstances 

 of India. Were, for instance, the land tenure 

 throughout India raiyit-wari, as in Madras and 



