cclxiv 



them, they nevertheless sometimes claimed (though in a vague and 

 occasional way) some exceptional authority over the wastes ; and 

 acting on this precedent, the British Government, at the various 

 settlements of land revenue, has not seldom interfered to reduce 

 excessive wastes and to re-apportion uncultivated land among the 

 various communities of a district.'^ 



This extract makes it clear that the waste lands are not unre- 

 servedly at the disposal of Government. They in the first instance 

 belong to the ryots in common, but the State occasionally interferes 

 for the pi'otection of its rights. In the present case, it has done so by 

 ruling that the land will be given away to a stranger if the resident 

 villages are not willing to cultivate it. 



The passages quoted from Sir H. Maine's work are almost identi- 

 cal with G.O., dated 27th May 1856, No. 667, in which it is stated :— 

 '^ The waste land in this country in the villages of the plains at least^ 

 is certainly not the property of Government or the State in the 

 absolute sense in which the unoccupied land in the United States and 

 some of the British Colonies is so. The village communities claim an 

 interest in it and that interest has been universally admitted though not 

 accurately defined. To put up the waste to sale, entirely ignoring that 

 prior right of the village communities, would be to introduce a totally 

 new practice; and it would certainly be regarded hij the common feeling 

 of the countr// as an invasion of existing rights." 



In former times, if the Government thought that waste lands 

 remained uncultivated through the fault or negligence of those entitled 

 to cultivate them, the offending parties would have been coerced to do 

 their duty. Menu says " If land be injured by the fault of the farmer 

 himself, as if he fails to sow it in due time, he shall be fined ten times 

 the king's share of the crop, that .might otherwise have been raised ; 

 but only five times as much if it was the fault of his servants without 

 his knowledge." Under the present regime of personal freedom, the 

 coercive power which can no longer be applied is transmuted into a 

 power to declare the right to cultivate the lands forfeited, when an 

 oflfer is made by a stranger to cultivate such lands, and the Mirasidars 

 after due notice are unwilling to cultivate them and pay the revenue 

 assessed thereon. 



(10) Extract from the speech of the Honorable Mr. Ilbert in the Legisla- 

 tive Gouncil of India on the Bengal Tenancy Bill in 1885. 



" The Bengal ryot is not the same thing as the English farmer ; he 

 is something widely different from him. But he presents many curious 

 and instructive points of resemblance to the English customary tenant 

 of some six or seven centuries ago. The .rights and powers claimed 

 by the Zemindar are not unlike those once claimed by the feudal lord 

 of the manor ; the privileges, duties, liabilities of the ryot resemble in 

 some important particulars those which once belonged to the English 

 customary tenant and which were gradually developed into the status 

 either of the free-holder or copy-holder. In the phrase which is still 

 technically applied to the English copy- holder, viz., that he holds 'at 

 the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor,' we discern 

 echoes of the controversies which once raged round the customary 

 tenant of the English manor and which still rage round the position of 

 the Bengal ryot — controversies in which the assertion of high pro- 



