232 



all my efforts have proved unavailing. They steadily 

 refuse to sell a single rood. Tliey say. ' "Why have 

 you come here? We dou't want you. We know 

 you only wish to deprive us of our laud, and then 

 make coolies of us to work on your esrates, but we 

 are determined you shall not have the land* 

 There is, therefore, a combination amongst them, 

 not to sell any land to Europeans, and no man 

 dares to break it." 



These ideas will doubtless give way before the 

 advantages the solid benefits which invariably flow 

 from the introduction of capital :* but, that they 

 exist and that such claims are now put forth in 

 many parts of India, is indisputable; indeed there 

 can be no better measure of the importance 

 attached to hucks in land by the natives, than the 

 distaste with which they view the encroachment of 

 Europeans. 



It is true that the waste lands for sale are sup- 

 posed to be unincumbered with hucks, and at the 

 absolute disposal of Government ; but though there 

 is little definite knowledge on the subject, it would 

 seem that such is not the case, or why the pro- 

 vision for selling these lands subject to any ( rights 

 of property ' that may be established in them here- 



* In parts of Assam the price of grain has risen four hundred 

 per cent, in four years, since the introduction of tea planting-, thus 

 placing 1 the Government in a position to double the land tax, and 



till leave the cultivator more than twice as ricli as he was before. See 



p.p. 17 G -77 supra. 



