V 



coxlviii 



will be applied to Zemindari ryots. In Venkatagopal versils Ran- 

 gappa (Indian Law Reports, VII Madras, page 365) decided by a Full 

 Bencli, the Madras Higb Court review the legislation in regard to 

 landlords and tenants, but do not afford any indication of what their 

 decision would be on the above point. The High Court in their 

 judgment state that the permanent settlement regulations of 1802 had 

 placed the rights of Zemindari ryots on an assured basis, and Regula- 

 tions IV and V of 1822 jeopardized these rights. The statement 

 seems to reverse the facts. The intention of the Regulations of 1822 

 undoubtedly was to prevent any doubt being cast upon the rights of 

 the ryots by the provision in the permanent settlement regulations 

 which declared Zemindars to be " proprietors of the soil.^^ Further 

 in this case, the High Coui^t presumed an '^ implied contract " for the 

 payment of a money-rent for the simple reason that the ryot had paid 

 a money-rent at a certain rate for 14 years, though he objected to the 

 payment of the money-rent as being excessive, and stated that he was 

 prepared to divide the crop with the mittadar at the usual rates of 

 varam. This he was entitled to do under clause 3 of section 11 of 

 Act VIII of 1865. If the money-rent I'epresented the money value of 

 the mittadar^s share of the crop at certain assumed rates, the clause 

 gives the option to the ryot of rendering the rent at the rates 

 demanded or of falling back upon a division of the crop when the 

 parties could not agree to its future money valuation. The fact that 

 for 14 years it suited the ryot to pay the money rates demanded, 

 owing to the prices of produce then prevailing, would not show that 

 he impliedly contracted to pay at the same rates when prices had 

 fallen and were expected to fall further. In Polu versus Ragavammal 

 (Indian Law Reports, XIV Madras, page 52) the High Court followed 

 the ruling in Venkatagopal versus Rangappa, but in this instance it 

 was the landlord and not the tenant that claimed payment of rent in 

 kind. 



(3) Extract froon the Re'fjort of Mr. Forbes on the condition of the 

 Zemindari Ryots in the Ganjam district. 



Mr. Forbes writing in 1866 as Collector of Ganjam says, ''I will 

 now add a few words on the comparative merits of the ryotwari and 

 Zemindari tenures as regards the condition of the tenants. In Ganjam, 

 the assessment on ryotwari lands held under Government is light, 

 and a series of years of very remunerative prices had enabled the 

 ryots to accumulate substance ; they had begun, prior to the famine, 

 to achieve an independence before unknown to the class and to 

 hold their own with the sowcar, in bargains for produce ; had it 

 not been for this circumstance, we should have had to choose between 

 agricultural depopulation and the alternative of maintaining the 

 whole class, as we have already maintained more than 20,000 souls. 



''The Government ryot in Ganjam pays a light rent, and his 

 interests are cared for by the preservation of the existing sources of 

 irrigation. 



'' The 13 Oorya Zemindars of Ganjam are, with few exceptions, the 

 most grasping landholders and the least enlightened proprietors in 

 the world ; they take 50 per (;ent. of the crops and lay out little or 

 nothing in improving or even in maintaining irrigation works. They 



