42 CONTROL OF RENTS 



efforts a substantial increase of their incomes would he 

 secured. The rents fix^d could, of course, he made fubj*ct 

 to enhancement to the extent of a given percentage per 

 annual on the capital outlay by. the landlord, but here he 

 enters as a financier only and not as a teacher and director 

 of his tenants' work. 



Let us consider for a moment the administrative ma- 

 chinery required for the fixation of rents at less than 

 the economic level. In the province of Agra there are 29 

 millions of acres of cultivated land, and in the province 

 of Oudh 10 millions of acres. Rents would necessarily 

 have to be fixed throughout practically the whole of this 

 area. It takes a settlement officer about two years to settle 

 the revenue in an average district assisted by a considerable 

 staff, and the cost of a settlement is approximately Rs. 3 lacs. 

 If rents were to be revised throughout the province even 

 once in every ten years a staff would be required equivalent 

 to six settlement officers and assistants in Agra and three 

 settlement officers and assistants in Oudh. The annual cost 

 could not be less than Rs. 5 lacs for Oudh alone. 



It may be urged against this calculation that settlement 

 work consists largely in the ascertainment of rent rates and 

 in soil classification, that the former are e,v-hypothesi known 

 and that the soil classification was made at the last settlement 

 and may be accepted as the basis of rental determinations. 

 As an indirect reply to these criticisms 1 would say that 

 the fact that we may know at any time in the future 

 the rents that have been legally fixed by previous operations 

 of the rent-fixing staff, does not mean that we know the 

 economic rent. It gives us no basis for revising the legally 

 fixed rents. These couldo nly be revised either (1) by a 

 minute enquiry as to the prices of agricultural produce and 

 costs of cultivation such as has been actually carried out in 

 England in limited areas since 1917, or by admitting a 



