38 THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND 



allow for some valuable waste which is not assessable 

 acre by acre at full rates, but still should not be 

 allowed to be wholly disregarded. Of the total assets, 

 from 45 to 55 per cent, is declared to be the proportion 

 payable to Government as land revenue ; 50 per cent, 

 is supposed to be the rule, but it has been officially 

 stated by the Government of India that 'it is not 

 often, indeed it is rarely, taken.'* 



Whether the tax even so reduced is excessive is 

 a political and not an economic question. There is 

 only one point of view from which we can consider it 

 here, and that is whether any further reduction in the 

 land tax would stimulate agriculture. In the United 

 Provinces the land is mostly held by landowners who 

 are not themselves cultivators, but whose income is 

 derived from the rents which they draw from culti- 

 vating tenants ; the land tax which they pay is, there- 

 fore, a tax upon rents. It is hardly necessary to 

 demonstrate that a tax upon rents does not affect 

 the agricultural industry itself. To the man actually 

 engaged in agriculture — that is, to the cultivator — it 

 must be a matter of absolute indifference whether the 

 landlord keeps for his own use, or divides with the 

 Government, the rent which he levies from his 

 tenants. The amount of rent is determined by com- 

 petition among the tenants, having in view the advan- 

 tages which the land offers them, and as long as 

 private property in land is recognised, it is difficult 

 to see how the landlord can be prevented from making 

 a profit out of the ownership of natural advantages 

 which are restricted in quantity. Rents would be 

 levied even if there was no Government land revenue, 

 and would be of the same amount as at present, 

 because the remission of the land tax would not either 

 diminish the demand for land or increase the supply 

 of it. The effect of the land tax is only to reduce the 



* Resolution issued by the Governor - General in Council on 

 January 16, 1902. 



