36 THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND 



general movement of property. . . .' The fact that 

 from 1810-11 to 1813-14, a space of four years, 

 228 villages were put up to sale and sold for an 

 average of one year's revenue looks bad in itself; . . . 

 but land had no marketable value, and no purchasers 

 could be found ; Government had to buy up at nominal 

 prices. ... In fact, the zamindars seem to have con- 

 sidered the sale regulations as a kind of Insolvency 

 Act, which released them from their embarrassments 

 and gave them a fresh lease of their villages on more 

 favourable terms. 



* From all the authorities and facts which I have 

 considered my deductions are as follows : That at the 

 time of the conquest the entire district was in a terrible 

 state of disorganization, that population was defective 

 and much land out of cultivation, that the zamindars 

 generally were in a depressed and unsettled state, 

 and that they were called upon to pay a very heavy 

 revenue* before they had recovered from the injurious 

 result of former misrule, but that the good effect of 

 our rule very soon became manifest. With the aid 

 of remissions and reductions which were largely re- 

 sorted to — in other words, by lenient treatment — they 

 tided over times of difficulty. Meanwhile, population 

 and cultivation alike increased, and within thirty years 

 there was double as much land under the plough as 

 before, while the assessment having been, with few 

 exceptions, left untouched after 1819, the incidence of 

 the revenue rate on the cultivated area fell lower and 

 lower, and at the end the people were paying half the 

 rate for double the amount of land. No doubt the 

 revenue was even then heavy, and from time to time 

 may have caused much individual and partial distress ; 

 but on the whole the landowners of the district main- 

 tained their original position, and the general result of 



* The rate of Rs. 3/6/5 per acre on cultivated land is proof of 

 this. It could only have been paid while there was a large amount 

 of land to bring under cultivation. 



