[ 4 ] 



It would be foreign to my present purpose to enter 

 further into details here. Suffice it to say that the 

 State, even if strictly adhering to traditional usage, 

 retained the right to share in any increased pro- 

 ductiveness in its property, and similarly to in- 

 crease the tale of its demand if prices of produce rose, 

 or the value of the currency fell. 



In Bengal, with the most laudable intentions, we 

 relinquished this right. We began by fixing a demand 

 higher than the existing condition of affairs justified 

 according to traditional theory, but not higher than 

 what our immediate predecessors had 'taken, and this 

 demand we stereotyped for ever. 



Time has rolled on ; a roadless wilderness has been 

 traversed in all directions by railways and roads; 

 under our protecting rule a vast internal and foreign 

 commerce has been developed, prices of agricultural 

 produce have risen, new and extremely remunerative 

 staples have been introduced, and vast tracts of waste 

 have come under the plough, but our demand remains 

 the same as it was seventy years ago, and is pro- 

 bably between four and five* millions less than it 



* It will be doubtless urged that, according to the road cess 

 returns, the gross rental is barely 13 millions, and that therefore 

 at the outside the Government demand could not have exceeded 

 6| millions, or say 3j millions in excess of its present amount. 

 The writer, on the other hand, is confident, looking to area, soils, 

 rates, and population that the "assets" of Bengal, as calculated 

 for a North- West Province settlement, are not under 16 millions, 

 and probably exceed this considerably. 



Years ago, when the Bengal population was assumed at from 40 

 to 44 millions, the writer, from similar considerations, asserted 

 in a printed memorandum to Government that it could not be 



