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treatment of this momentous question, an anxious 

 desire to benefit the country and the people God's 

 providence has entrusted to our care. I doubt, 

 therefore, if many, and especially those brought 

 up in a country where the land has long been the 

 property of individuals, have fully apprehended 

 this view of the question a view, which in my 

 humble opinion, is not only fully applicable to the 

 circumstances of India, but in strict accord with 

 the ideas of the people. The people of India, 

 from times anterior to History, have been led to 

 consider the Earth the source of all wealth, and the 

 main and legitimate source also from which the 

 revenues of the State should be derived /* their 

 Sovereigns, whether Hindoo, Mosalman, Mahratta, or 

 English, have ever recognized the correctness of this 

 principle; and whether it be wise or unwise, sound in 

 principle or the reverse, that the land of a country 

 should be the property of individuals, surely it is 

 too much to expect that in the short space of a 

 decade for it is hardly more since the Indian 

 Government has attempted the introduction of 

 European principles of Government, and consider- 

 ably less since any effort at the spread of education 

 has been made an ancient people forgetting those 

 ideas which governed the actions of their rulers for 

 centuries perhaps for thousands of years, should 



* The Earth in Hindoo Shatter is called Kamde?iuthe Cow 

 that grants every wish. 



