If, tlierefore, the proviuce is to pay its way, Government will be under 

 a constant necessity of raising additional revenue by means of the 

 miscellaneous imposts which ai'e so distasteful to an Indian people. 



This difficulty was partly inevitable. No materials have come 

 down showing the precise proportion of the produce of the soil which 

 the ancient Orissa Dynasties took. Many conflicting traditions exist 

 on the subject, and doubtless the proportion varied in different parts 

 of the country. The rich delta of Orissa could afford to pay a larger 

 share to the Prince than less productive arid tracts ; and, as a matter 

 . of fact, the Rdjdh of Parikud, who still maintains his fiscal indepen- 

 dence, takes exactly three-fifths of the crop. He, however, like other 

 Hindu Princes, dealt with the cultivators direct. We, on the other 

 hand, have allowed a whole series of intermediate holders, each with 

 his own set of rights, to grow up between the State and the actual 

 husbandmen ; and practically not one-tenth of the harvest reaches 

 the public treasury. The following figures will, I think, establish 

 this fact. The three Orissa districts contain 7,723 square miles, or 

 4,942,720 acres. At least one-half of this, or say two million and a 

 half of acres, are under cultivation. The value of the ordinary crops 

 varies from lO.s. to £1 16s. Taking the low average of 15s., the total 

 value of two million and a half of acres would amount to £l,875i,000 ; 

 and a land-tax of ten percent, would yield £187,500. Now the actual 

 land-tax from all sources amounts to £168,286. While, therefore, 

 a Hindu Prince like the Rdjdh of Parikud takes three-fifths as his 

 share of the annual produce of tbe soil, the British Government obtains 

 not one-tenth of it. 



This difference is partly due to the liberality of our land settle- 

 ment, partly to the growth of intermediate holders ; but it is also in a 

 large degree due to the fact that we take our rent in money and not 

 in kind. The rent-roll of an Orissa estate, when offered for sale in 

 the market, is now found, as a rule, to be double its Government land- 

 tax. Of course, extreme instances occur on both sides, but native 

 gentlemen and native officers have alike assured me that this is below 

 rather than above the average. In settling with the landholders in 

 1837, the Company allowed gross reductions to about one-third of the 

 rent for the charges and risks of collection ^^^ The extension of culti- 

 vation, with the natural rise in rents, has doubled the landholder's 

 profits during the past thirty-three years ; so that, as above stated, the 

 proprietor now generally realizes at least as much again as he pays to 

 Government. The landholder, in his turn, collects from the cultivator 

 as rent from one-half to one-quarter of the actual yield of the land, 

 or say one- third. Government, therefore, as it only receives at most 

 one-half of the landholder's collections, cannot get more than one-sixth 

 of the net yield of the soil. In reality it receives much less. For it 

 takes its share, not in grain, but in silver, which is constantly depreci- 

 ating in value. Tliis circumstance further decreases by nearly one-half 

 tlie share which the State actually obtains, and reduces its one-sixth to 

 one-tenth or one-twelfth of the produce of the land. I have shown, on 

 what I believe to be irrefragable evidence, that the purchasing power 



3*' The theoretical allowance was ten per cent., but the various extra allowances raise 

 )t to httwccn thirty and forty per cent, in Orisga— nV/c Vol. I, p. 53. 



