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t 



Bombay,* and the great bulk of the revenue payers 

 industrious peasant-proprietors, like those of Nor- 

 way, Switzerland, Belgium, and many parts of 

 France and Germany, the gain being to the actual 

 cultivators, a large portion of the increase would 

 find its way back to the soil, and, the injustice to 

 the community being confined within the narrowest 

 possible limits, the evil would, in great measure* 

 be counterbalanced by a corresponding amount of 

 good, in the increased prosperity and happiness of 

 the great mass of the people. But Englishmen, 

 proverbially disinclined to see good in any systems 

 other than their own, do not believe in peasant-pro- 

 prietary tenures, because they no longer exist in 

 England ; because they are Constitutional j and be- 

 cause they cannot understand them.f 



Or, were the transactions presented in the form of 

 an agreement or bargain, that is to say, were 

 Government to 'say to the landholders, " We will 

 fix your land assessments for ever, giving you not 

 only all the surplus profits and fruits of your own 

 industry and outlay of capital, but such security of 



* The assessment in Madras until lately sadly required re- 

 vision, or rather equalizing. Judging from the condition of 

 the people, as described' by Mr. Bourdillon, the assessment 

 must certainly, as a rule, have been too high. Operations 

 however, are in progress which will put the land assessment of 

 Madras on, apparently, a very sound and equitable basis. 



f Those who would wish to know something on the subject 

 of peasant-proprietors, may consult, with advantage, the Con- 

 tinental Travels and other works of Arthur Young, those of 

 the elder Laing, of the thorough Englishman Howitt, the 

 Educationist Kay, the French Economist Sismondi, the Eng- 

 lish Economist Mill, &c. 



