Ixxvi 



subsists on the grain raised and wages are paid in the same commodity, 

 his surplus produce has remained nearly the same in quantity during 

 the twenty years, whereas the market value of that surplus has 

 increased threefold, if no allowance be made for the depreciation of the 

 value of the precious metals which has taken place during this period. 



In order to the better understanding of the extraordinary improve- 

 ment that has taken place in the position of the agricultural interest, 

 it will be advisable to consider the nature of the tenures on which 

 land is held in the Madras Presidency. As already stated, a very 

 large proportion of the cultivated area is held direct from Government 

 by peasant proprietors termed Government ryots. According to the 

 statistical returns, there were no less than a million and three- 

 quarters of these persons entered in the registers as land-holders, and 

 their holdings are usually infinitesimally small. Only 420 paid £100 

 and upwards as Government land-tax, which is supposed to represent 

 half the net produce of the land. Upwards of a million and a half 

 paid less than Rs. 31 or £3-2-0, and of these latter, upwards of a 

 million paid less than E,s. 10 or £1. As has been already shown, the 

 cultivated land held by the registered ryots is about 18 million acres, 

 the average extent of the holdings is therefore 9 acres, but if the 

 million sub-tenants who are entered in the returns as holding under 

 these registered ryots be taken into account, the average size of the 

 holdings will be reduced to 6 acres, supposing, of course, that every 

 registered ryot who sub-lets land retains an equal quantity for his 

 own use. This minute sub-division of the land into small holdings 

 has often been advanced as the great objection to ryotwari system of 

 tenure, but after all it should be remembered that this objection 

 applies equally to the zemindari system, and that, notwithstanding 

 the difference in the value of money, only a few years back there 

 were nearly two millions of small landed proprietors in France whose 

 holdings in no case exceeded 5 acres ; that in the present Kingdom 

 of Prussia, out of a population of nine millions dependent on agri- 

 culture, there are upwards of two million proprietors of land, and that 

 upwards of a million of these do not possess more than 3 acres ; 

 and that in Ireland, in 1861, jthere were 39,210 persons holding 

 land less than an acre in extent as proprietors or tenants, 75,141 

 holding between I and 2 acres, and 164,000 from 5 to 15 acres. 



Unfortunately the share of Government was generally fixed too 

 high, and the result of this over-assessment, increased as its pressure 

 has been by the fall in the value of produce since the settlement was 

 made, has never allowed the system a fair trial. Various restrictive 

 rules also led to much interference with the ryots, though they were 

 far from being a necessary consequence of the system. These 

 restrictions are now being removed and the reductions recently made, 

 or in progress, and the correct survey, classification and re-assess- 

 raent of the land now in contemplation, will do away with these 

 disadvantages, and it may be expected that the superiority of a 

 system which encourages industry and enterprise, by being based 

 pn individual proprietorship, will be more clearly evinced. 



