CCXXXVll 



SECTION VI.— CEETAIN ALLEGED EVILS 



IN THE PEESENT ECONOMIC POSITION AND REMEDIAL 



MEASURES CONSIDERED. 



(A). — Land Settlements. 



(1) Remarhs on the method adopted hy the Settlement Department for 

 calculatimj the outturn of lands and its money value for fixing 

 the Government assessment on the lands. 



In his " Memorandum on the Revision of Land Settlements in the 

 N.-W. Provinces^' by Mr. (now Sir) Auckland Colvin^ written in 1872 

 when he was Secretary to the Board of Revenue in those Provinces, 

 he has forcibly pointed out the impracticability of valuing lands for the 

 purpose of assessing the land tax by endeavouring to ascertain the net 

 produce of different qualities of soil. He remarks : — 



" It is impossible to form an accurate conception of the process of 

 assessment in these Provinces until one very general, but very import- 

 ant, error is explained. Because, in theory, the Government which 

 we succeeded asserted a right to a share in the gross produce of the 

 land, it is very frequently assumed that a settlement should still rest 

 on a calculation of the gross produce, the cost of cultivation and the 

 net yield of every field. The land is represented to be a kind of tabula 

 rasa on which the settlement officer may frame any estimates he likes 

 of capabilities and outturn. Hence, we hear of the necessity of settle- 

 ment officers being experts in agricultural matters ; of the rise in reve- 

 nue bearing no ratio to the alleged rise in prices ; of the ruinous waste 

 of revenue involved in our settlements, and so on. It must be stated 

 here once for all, that with the gross produce of the land, as the basis 

 of assessment, the settlement officer in the North- West, except in 

 tracts where rents are paid in kind, has little or nothing to do.^' 



The plan of finding out the net produce of each field was tried in 

 the N.-W. Provinces and was given up as impracticable. The follow- 

 ing extracts from the report of the Saharanpore Settlement officer 

 quoted in Sir Auckland Colvin's memorandum very clearly illustrate the 

 difficulty in ascertaining the gross and net produce of soils. 



Saharanpore Settlement officer. — '' I have not made any use of the 

 facts brought out by the actual cutting and weighing of the crop in 

 1864-65, because, as will be seen by the average rates, the jumma 

 which would thus be gained would be the enormous sum of Rs. 

 16,96,824, the present jumma being Rs. 8,29,155 and my proposed 

 jumma (the utmost assessable in my opinion) Rs. 8,88,699. This fact 

 appears to me sufficient to show the fallaciousness of such data ; and I 

 proceed to show the reasons for their being so fallacious and do so 

 at some length, as my action in the matter has been questioned : — 



" {a) Too small an area could be appraised by a European officer. 

 When so small a plot as one-tenth of an acre is taken as the measure 

 of the whole, an enormous number of fields must be appraised in order 

 that, by the rule of averages, the little errors in excess in one part may 



