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India is clearly an error. As long, therefore, as 

 present ideas on the subject remain undisturbed, the 

 land, revenue in India, can never be considered a tax ; 

 and if retained at an equitable rate, being simply 

 the rendering unto Caesar of the things that are 

 Caesar's, will always be willingly paid. Dissatisfac- 

 tion can only be the result of oppression another 

 term for bad government. Dissatisfaction, moreover, 

 never has arisen on this score. Complaints, loud 

 and bitter, may have been raised against many of the 

 evils of the English system of Government, 

 the interference with religion, caste-prejudices, 

 established rights, social customs, dress, food. and 

 above all against the evils of systems of police, 

 civil and criminal courts of justice, and the imposi- 

 tion of direct and novel taxes; but even in 1857, 

 -when the storm of rebellion was at its height, when 

 the discontent, pent up for years, was set free to 

 vent its force in one terrible outburst of rage, no 

 murmur, no sign, indicated the slightest impatience 

 on the part of the people on the score of the land 

 revenue. Instead then, of there being any necessity 

 for drying up, for ever, this fertile, simple, and ever 

 increasing source of revenue, by exhausting its waters 

 at a drain, I cannot but think, that any action 

 likely to disturb existing ideas on the subject, or 

 tending to the substitution of a taxation peculiarly 

 abhorrent to the people of India, for payments 

 most willingly made, would not only be erroneous in 



