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retains the right of raising his assessment without his concur- 

 rence. It may, and doubtless will be, that the Government 

 will exercise this right with prudence and forbearance, but 

 the uncertainty necessarily lessens the value of the land and 

 affects the ryot's relations with his sub-tenants. The ryot 

 will naturally be debarred from freely investing his capital in 

 the improvement of his estate, because its value is liable to 

 deterioration whenever Government may order, or the public 

 may apprehend, an enhancement of the assessment, and, while 

 deprived himself of a secure title, the ryot can give his sub- 

 tenants no more than leases which must terminate or vary with 

 his own, and must reserve the power of raising his rents, if 

 and when Government raise their assessment. The growth of 

 large estates and the creation of a class like the tenant farmers 

 of England cannot but be impeded by such a policy." The 

 Board accordingly recommended that the land assessments 

 should be declared permanent, while reserving to Government 

 the right to alter, according to circumstances, the water rate 

 levied on lands supplied with water for purposes of irrigation 

 from Government works. The enormous rise in the prices 

 of agricultural produce which took place in the succeeding 

 years, and the influence of the agitation, which was started 

 in England about this time for the appropriation for national 

 purposes of the " unearned increment " in the rent value of 

 lands, had worked a great change in the views of Government, 

 and in 1869 the Secretary of State negatived a proposal made 

 by the Madras Government to declare the grain valuations 

 imposed by the Settlement department to be permanent, re- 

 marking that Her Majesty's Government felt themselves pre- 

 cluded from " sanctioning the surrender of such a legitimate 

 source of revenue as the Government share of the increased 

 value which has been conferred on the land by improved 

 administration, the construction of public works, especially 

 works of irrigation and railways, together with the improved 

 prices of produce." In 1871 again, the Government of India 

 directed that the permanent settlement of estates in the North- 

 West Provinces should not be proceeded with, the previous 

 orders on the subject being held in abeyance. They remarked 

 " when the question of the permanent settlement was formerly 

 under discussion, the magnitude of the economic revolution 

 through which India is passing was less obvious than it is now. 

 It may be doubted whether any parallel could be found in any 

 country of the world to the changes which have taken place 

 during the last 10 or 15 years in India; to the diiriinution in 

 the value of the precious metals and the enormous increase in 

 the prices of agricultural produce." Sir Auckland Colvin sums 



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