197 



tracts settled is not enhanced by more than a very moderate *^ 

 percentage. With the exception of Nellore and Vizagapatam 

 in which the increase of revenue was 11 per cent, and 15 per 

 cent., respectively, and the Nilgiris and the Wynaad taluk of 

 the Malabar district in which a peppercorn rent has been 

 imposed on a large area of waste land included in private 

 holdings, which, under the previously existing revenue sys- 

 tem, was charged for only when cultivated, the increase of 

 revenue has in no case exceeded 10 per cent. ; and in most 

 cases it has fallen far short of the percentage of increase in the 

 area of holdings brought to light by the new survey as com- 

 pared with the area entered in the old accounts. *^^ The Goda- 

 vari district and the Masulipatam portion of the Kistna district 

 are really no exceptions to the above statement, because the 

 large apparent increase in the revenue of those districts, 

 shown as due to the rev^ised rates of settlement in the accounts, 

 is really due to extension of irrigation under the anient works 

 recently constructed and to the fact that the water-rate 

 levied on lands irrigated with anient water, which had been 

 tentatively fixed at Rs. 3 an acre, was raised to Rs. 4 per 

 acre at the time the settlement rates were introduced and 

 to some extent also to the land assessment itself having 

 been raised in view to the increased value conferred on them 

 by the construction of the anicut works. The statistics 

 collected as regards leases registered in the Ooimbatore 

 district in 1889 and referred to in para. 48 of this memo- 

 randum show that the rental for which wet lands are 

 leased out are between 4 and 5 times the Government assess- 

 ment ; in the case of dry lands the rental is between 3 and 4 

 times the assessment and as regards garden lands, or lands 

 irrigated by means of wells, between 5 and 6 times. Of 

 course the lands leased out under registered leases are mostly 



^'^ Vide statement printed as appendix (2) to section VI.- A. Sir George Campbell, 

 in Ms minute on certain proposals, submitted by Lord Hobart's Government in 1874, 

 in connection with the Madras Settlements (vide Notes on Indian Land Revenue, pages 

 134, &c., in Appendix I. to the Famine Commission Report, 1881), has remarked 

 " According to the Governor they (the Settlement department) are supposed 

 to be elaborately carrying out, under explicit instructions from Home, a system of 

 valuation and assessment, on the basis of half net profits, but practically the rate of 

 assessment is decided by very different and simpler considerations, the most important 

 of which is that no cultivator is to pay more than he paid before, plus a very small 

 percentage." This circumstance is referred to in a spirit of depreciation by Sir 

 G. Campbell and other persons not acquainted with the objects and methods of Madras 

 settlements and the previous history of the question, but there can be no doubt that it 

 is precisely this moderation so frequently and emphatically enjoined by the Home 

 Government that has ensured the success of the settlements and the improvement of 

 the agricultural classes. 



^^ The exceijs in the area of holdings brought to light by the survey is not in all cases 

 due to waste land encroached upon by ryots and held without payment of tax. In many 

 cases they were due to the fact that areas expressed in native land measures were con- 

 verted into acres in'the old revenue acconnts at rates which were below the truth. 



