256 



"The Indian Ryot/' I take the liberty of offering some 

 remarks on what is at the present time a deeply interesting 

 subject. 



The time is favourable for considering the state of the 

 agricultural classes of India, it is the era of conciliation, 

 planter arid coolie, Zemindar and ryot, are feeling that 

 they must work in harmony, that it is the case of the belly 

 and members. Whether w e look to the defence of India 

 against foreign or internal war, to the development of its 

 resources, or the moral and intellectual improvement of 

 the country all must mainly depend on one arrangement, 

 a people contented because their rights in the soil are 

 secured even by the ancient law of India the ownership 

 of the soil was vested in the cultivator. 



In Europe also a new era is dawning on the agricultural 

 and working classes, the " boors" are waking from the 

 degradation of ages to feel that they have rights as men, 

 and corresponding emotions of sympathy are being excited 

 among the higher classes. " Earls examine ragged schools, 

 aldermen form associations of shoe blacks, and titled ladies 

 may be seen trudging down narrow lanes with tracts and 

 doctor's stuff for the dirty inmates/' Unless our Indian 

 Empire is to be based on bayonets, we must " condescend 

 to men of low estate." 



Even Russia, which is so far behind England in almost 

 everything, in the case of securing the rights of the 

 peasantry sets a bright example to India. The heroic con- 

 duct of the Czar, who, in spite of the determined opposition 

 of the nobility, emancipated 23,000,000 of serfs, who 

 enjoy peasant proprietorship, village municipal institutions 

 and representative provincial assemblies, thus laying broad 

 and deep the foundations of the true greatness and pros- 

 perity of Russia. The Czar risked his throne to secure 

 the rights of the peasantry, and he rested the whole super- 

 structure of the Empire on the ten pillars the land is the 

 peasant's own and self-government is administered by 



