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regards individual holdings, the increase of assessment has 

 been much higher and has caused occasional hardship, and it 

 is open to question whether sufficient consideration has been 

 paid by the Settlement department in settling districts to the 

 hardship in individual cases. The question came up for dis- 

 cussion in connection with the settlement of the Nellore 

 district, and the rule was then laid down that, where the 

 revised rates exceeded the old rates by 25 per cent., the 

 difference should not be levied at once but by gradual incre- 

 ments. This is undoubtedly a great boon to the ryots and 

 mitigates, so far as it goes, the hardship caused by a sudden 

 and large increase of assessment, but it is obvious that in 

 years of deficient produce, the revised assessment, even 

 though imposed in this manner, must bear hardly on the ryots 

 and possibly cause a deterioration in the standard of living, 

 if the enhancements be great and general. This danger has 

 to be guarded against even if the settlement calculations are 

 so thoroughly reliable as to justify the confidence that the 

 true " half-net" has been found. To quote Mr. Pedder again. 

 " The conclusion with which Mr. Knight's writings (Editor 

 of the Indian Economist) have made us all familiar — that the 

 rates of Government assessment should increase in proportion 

 to a general and permanent rise in the prices of agricultural 

 produce — is based on the assumption that Government tax 

 is or should be a fixed and definite proportion of the gross 

 or net produce. Granting the assumption, the argument 

 cannot be refuted. If the assessment in 1840 averaged in 

 a particular district Re. 1 per acre, and this was equivalent 

 to one-tenth the produce with the grain at Ee. 1 a maund, 

 it being assumed that one-tenth produce is a fair assessment, 

 it is perfectly clear that when, in 1870, grain has risen to Es. 3 

 a maund, the assessment should be raised to Es. 3 an acre. 

 Differences in rates of wages, &c., have nothing to do with 

 the question ; if the one-tenth produce is fair assessment, 

 it is equally fair whatever the price of grain may be. But 

 the case is entirely altered if we consider the assessment, not 

 as a tax of a certain proportion of the produce, but as a ^^ rent 

 regulated and determined by the ordinary standard of comfort 



^* In this connection, it shonlcl be mentioned that in the Bombay Presidency 

 the Government hns all along been considered as the sole landlord and the occupancy 

 right of the ryot as a recent concession and it is known by the name " Stu-vey tenure." 

 Waste lands are treated as the property of Government and sold to applicants for cultiva- 

 tion. In this Presidency, on the other hand, the ryot has all along been considered joint 

 proprietor with Government and in the case of waste lands, they are granted to strangers 

 only in cases in which the resident ryots refuse to cultivate them and pay the revenue 

 assessed therec/u. The land tax, according to the instructions laid down by the Home 

 Government, is or should be in this Presidency not a " competitive " rent, but a moiety 

 ©f the surplus prodnce " regulated and determined by the ordinary standard of comfort 

 of the peasantry at a particular time." 



