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the correspondence, even the modified scheme finally sanctioned 

 is not as liberal as the circumstances of the case require. It 

 is true that the taluks to which the scheme sanctioned relates 

 are the best taluks in these districts, and it may be that in 

 the remaining taluks considerable relief from taxation will be 

 afforded ; but there is obviously great necessity for caution 

 in enhancing the revenue even in the favorably circum- 

 stanced taluks of these backward districts. As these two 

 districts are the poorest in the Presidency, so Tanjore, Mala- 

 bar and South Canara are reputed to be the wealthiest and 

 the most prosperous. The maimer in which these latter 

 districts are dealt with by the Settlement department will 

 form a precedent for adoption in revising settlements in the 

 case of other progressive districts, and the question, there- 

 fore, demands, and will doubtless receive, the most careful 

 consideration. In view of the importance of the subject and 

 of the extent to which any decision that is arrived at is likely 

 to influence the prosperity of the agricultural classes, I beg 

 to be permitted to make the following remarks. The Settle- 

 ment department was, as will have been seen from the account 

 already given, organized to reduce assessments in backward 

 districts, to correct inequalities in the assessments, to pro- 

 mote the growth of the value of landed property and to 

 secure the prosperity of the agricultural classes. To attain 

 these objects, in 'the early settlements taxation had to be 

 largely reduced. The methods of the Settlement depart- 

 ment were acknowledged to be necessarily rough, but any 

 nice adjustment of the rates of land tax on lands of different 

 qualities was not then a matter of great consequence as the 

 question before Government was one of relief from taxation 

 and not the imposition of fresh burdens. No ryot could, 

 under the new settlement, be placed in a worse position than 

 he was in previously, though in the adjustment of glaring 

 inequalities found in the old assessments and the merging 

 of the innumerable rates then existing in a few broad classes, 

 one ryot might receive more or less relief than another. The 

 enormous rise in prices which subsequently took place in the 

 decade ending 1870 rendered a large reduction in revenue 

 unnecessary and made it possible to enhance taxation to a 

 reasonable extent, to meet the growing cost of administra- 

 tive improvements, which the progress of the country and 

 the ever widening duties and responsibilities of Government 

 necessarily entail. The additional taxation imposed has, on 

 the whole, been moderate, and though in individual cases here 

 and there, 'hardship was caused by heavy enhancements, in the 

 general result; the reduction in incomes was probably not much 



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