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are comparatively more favoured by nature than most other 

 parts of the Presidency with the exception of the Godavari 

 and Ki3tna districts. The unfailing south-west monsoon rains, 

 the ancient anicut works and facilities of sea communication 

 had given these districts an early start in the career of pros- 

 perity. Ryots in these districts have had a valuable pro- 

 per cent. This will be simply tantamount to giving up all enlightened principles of ad- 

 ministration and reverting to the old native system of rack-renting tbe land by taking 

 a moiety of the gross produce. Such a proposal, it is unnecessary to say, Government 

 will not for a moment entertain. The second course is to exact in full half the net 

 produce which, as shown by me, is the maximum assessment leviable under the princi- 

 ples laid down for regulating the revision of assessment by the Settlement department. 

 If this be done, the rate per acre would come out as Rs. 7-8-0 and the present revenue 

 increased by 50 per cent. The third course is to treat the lands in the Tanjore district 

 in the manner in which lands of the same qualitv and irrigational advantages in 

 other districts dealt with by the Settlement department have been treated. L have 

 already shown that irrigated lands in other districts pay a net-rent to the landlord 

 equal to about half as much again as the assessment, or, in other words, that the land- 

 tax is not much lighter, if at all, in Tanjore than elsewhere. One test of this is the 

 value of the lands. For the Coimbatore district Mr. Nicholson, whose estimate is as 

 accurate as any that can be framed, gives the average selling price of wet land at 

 Rs. 250 per acre. Laud-owners on an average get a return from investments in lands 

 of not more than 5 per cent. At this rate the landlord's profit amounts to Rs. 12-8-0 

 per acre, which is two-thirds as much again as the average assessment per acre, viz., 

 Rs. 7-8-0. In reasoning from averages, of course, large allowance must be made for 

 possible error, and the calculations above given merely serve to illustrate the consider- 

 ations to be taken into account in arriving at a decision on the question. The 

 calculations themselves will have to be verified with reference to statistics as regards 

 rental and prices of land taken from the records of the Registration department which 

 are far more trustworthy for these purposes than conjectural estimates. To prevent 

 possible misapprehension, I wish once more explicitly to state that the fiigures assumed 

 here are hypothetical and are put forward for the purpose of illustrating the consider- 

 ations applicable to the question and not as in themselves even approximately correct. 

 The average outturn per acre especially might be anything, for ought we know, between 

 20 and 25 kalams per acre, and I have taken the higher limit for purposes of argu- 

 ment. It is in view of this uncertainty that the settlement calculations make a 

 reduction for " vicissitudes of season " and this I have not taken into account in my 

 calculations, though the Settlement department will have to do so, to avoid the danger 

 of cutting the ryot's profit too close. On the whole I think it may be stated that the 

 wealth and prosperity of the Tanjore district are due, not so much to the undue leniency, 

 as compared with other districts, of the assessment of lands of the several varieties of 

 soil enjoying similar irrigational advantages, as to the fact that the bulk of the lands in 

 the former district is irrigated, or, in other words, consists of lands which yield a large 

 net return. In the case of Malabar and South Canara, data for forming an opinion as 

 to the weight of assessment are not available, and the conditions of agriculture are in 

 these districts so different from those of the districts on the East Coast that it would 

 be erroneous to argae from the one to the other. While, on the one hand, these dis- 

 tricts enjoy the advantage of never failing south-west monsoon rains, on the other 

 hand, cultivation is very expensive, in that cattle are scarce and the soil is very porous 

 and the expense of levelling lands which become constantly cut up by torrents ia 

 specially heavy. Owing to the hilly nature of the country, to prevent the soil in the 

 uplands from being washed off by the rains and impoverished, banks of great breadth 

 and thickness have to be constructed round fields and the soil collected at the lower 

 end of the sloping fields has now and again to be redistributed over the whole surface. 

 The holding of landed properties by joint families consisting of members belonging to 

 several generations under the Marumakkatayam and Alayasantana systems, the imparti- 

 biUty of these properties except with the consent of all the members of the families, the 

 existence of complicated tenures and customs regarding payment of rent and of compen- 

 sation for improvements and the fact of the country being covered with plantations 

 which have been formed by the expenditure of much capital and labour both by land- 

 owners and tenants in the course of generations render the revision of the assessment 

 of these districts an undertaking of very great difficulty ; and the hardships likely to 

 result by a revision of settlement can be minimized only by making the enhancement 

 of reveuue eztremdly moderate at the outset at all eventSi 



