193 



sixth, 4Jd. in the seventh, and so on \\d. an acre 

 being added in each year, till, in the last year, the 

 maximum rate of 2s. an acre was reached.* 



Nothing short of giving the land away, certainly, 

 could be more liberal than the spirit of these rules. 

 Land for twenty years for nothing at all, and for 

 seventy-nine more, at an average rate of two-pence 

 an acre per annum, surely leaves little, as regards 

 assessment, to be desired. But light nominal indeed 

 as these assessments were, except in the tea districts, 

 and to a very limited extent in the Soonderbuns, 

 they did not serve to attract settlers to the places 

 left vacant for them. The square miles in Pegu, 

 the millions of acres in Arracau and the Tenasserim 

 Provinces, are as barren of European settlers to-day, 

 as if the Governmenfhad really placed those obstacles 

 in the way, they are so often, with more rashness 

 than reason, accused of having ever ready to bar the 

 colonist's ingress. These lands have no market value 

 at present, and are not taken up, for the plain and 

 simple reason that e it will not pay' or, what is 

 the same thing, the prospect of profit is not suffi- 

 ciently bright, to induce people to undertake the 

 risk and cost involved in making the experiment, 

 in climates uncongenial to their constitutions, their 

 tastes, their habits, and their associations, Govern- 



* By N. W. Porders 29th September i860, the lease was ex- 

 tended to 50 years (the maximum rate 2s. per acre, not being- reached 

 till the 25th year,) and the resumption clause abrogated ia regard 

 to all cultivated land. 



