207 



>ean settlers and the half-civilized tribes, by whom 

 most of these waste Districts, or the country adjoin- 

 ing them, are thinly peopled, will conduce to the 

 material and moral improvement of large classes of 

 the Queen's Indian subjects, which for any such 

 purposes, have long been felt by the Govern- 

 ment to be almost out of the reach of its ordinary 

 agencies. 



But it is the firm conviction of the Governor 

 General in Council that, in order to obtain perma- 

 nently good results from such measures, it is indis- 

 pensable not only that no violence be done to the 

 long existing rights which, sometimes in a rude, 

 sometimes in a complicated form, are possessed by 

 many of the humblest occupants of the soil in India, 

 but that these rights be nowhere slighted or even 

 overlooked. Scrupulous respect for them is one of 

 the most solemn duties of the Government of India, 

 as well as its soundest policy, whatever may be the 

 mode in which that Government may think fit to 

 deal with rights of its own.' 



In these two paragraphs (which, with two paraa. 

 regarding the redemption of the land revenue, are pro- 

 bably the only portion of the Resolution drafted by 

 his Lordship's hand) we learn the objects and 

 reasons of this great statesman and upright and good 

 man, for a measure which will mark a memorable 

 epoch in the fiscal laws of the British Government 

 of India, and which, as effectually overthrowing 



