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they are, contributed to it, but these courts themselves 

 are the fans et origo of the evil, and had they been 

 the simple summary courts of equity and not of law, 

 which was all the state of the country demanded, all 

 these other causes would have smouldered on almost 

 innocuously. 



It is necessary to realise the radical changes tliat 

 our courts and revenue systems combined have wrought 

 in the position of our agriculturists. 



Previous to our rule no private person had, broadly 

 speaking, any property in the soil.* All proprietary 

 right, in the sense in which we at home understand 

 the word, vested directly in the State or vicariously in 

 some powerful chief or official. All that the people 

 as a body enjoyed were a high class of occupancy 

 rights, heritable but not transferable. 



A man might be ever so much in debt, but you could 

 not interfere with the land he held, for that was not 

 his, but his ruler's; and such rights as he possessed 

 therein were personal to himself and family, or, in 

 some cases, clan ; and if any outsider had obtained 

 possession, the State would have stepped in and resumed 

 the property. No doubt, if sufficiently bribed, the 

 local officials would, and often did, wink at transfers, 

 but these were opposed alike to custom and tradition 

 which then constituted the law, such as it was, on this 

 subject. 



There was, therefore, in those days no great in- 



* We must perhaps except lands given to Brahmins, saints, 

 &c. for temple, mosque, or other religious or charitable purposes ; 

 but even these were, properly speaking, inalienable. 



