219 



Now the question in regard to the thousands of 

 square miles of waste lands in India, is. Are any 

 one of these conditions found ? And I think I may 

 safely answer they are not. That there is no 

 market, will not be disputed ;"* that there is no 

 competition cannot be denied ;f aud that the de- 

 mand is confined to the tea and coffee districts, 

 if not patent to all before, the cotton famine has 

 satisfactorily proved. If, then, these things be true, 

 and the condition of affairs is really as I have 

 sketched it, no further arguments, I should think, 

 are wanting to prove that circumstances are not 

 such as to render the present a favorable time for 

 a general sale out-right of all the waste land in 



I India. 

 Again, it is an implied condition of mercantile 

 transactions that both parties, buyer and seller, know> 

 or are supposed to know, both the intrinsic value of 

 the commodity to be sold, and their own in- 

 terests. Now, independent of situation in regard to 

 a market &c., a necessary condition to determining 

 the value of any land, is a knowledge of its natural 



* By a market I mean a city, town, or place, where information 

 can be obtained by purchasers, from a Government Office, agencies, 

 or other sources, and where brokers &e., and other appliances for 

 determining- the market value of the thing- for sale exist. 



t A special clause of the Governor Generals Resolution provided 

 for a lot for which there v^s more than one applicant being- pufc 

 up to auction; and I have only heard of one sale having 1 takea 

 place under it. This was in the Kang-ra Valley, where the lot 

 (100 acres) was the only one in the whole Valley for sale. 



