SETTLEMENT NOT OOMPAUABLE 43 



cortain proportion of the land to be let freely at competition 

 rents, thereby obtaining an index of the economic rent on 

 each class of soil in every locality. We are faced in fact 

 with the difficulty which economists have for many years urged 

 against the proposals for the nationalization of land as n 

 measure of improving the lot of the cultivator in Europe 

 that when all land is in the hands of the State there would 

 be no basis for the fixation of rents, excepting the old one 

 of free competition. 



It may be argued, however, that the success with which 

 settlement operations are carried out and revenue is settled 

 throughout the whole district show that an officer with 

 experience and exercising his ordinary common sense could 

 hit upon a happy medium in the way of the fixation of 

 rents which would not be unfair to either side. To this I 

 would reply that it is not really a fair comparison, for the 

 land revenue is not itself a rent, bat an arbitrarily determined 

 portion of the economic rent which the State assesses and 

 appropriates. As a matter of practice it is found that the 

 personal proclivities of the settlement officers enter largely 

 into the rate of assessment. One man is apt to take a full 

 45 or 50 per cent of the net assets, believing it to be his 

 duty to secure to the State the full share which traditional 

 practice assigns to it : whilst another man believes in erring 

 on the side of leniency and by underestimating the assets 

 keeps down his assessment to what he believes can be paid 

 very easily. The tendency to leniency is naturally greater 

 in those districts where there has been considerable econo- 

 mic development and consequent advance in the real econo- 

 mic rent since the last settlement. Here the task of the 

 settlement officer is comparatively easy : in fact he may find 

 himself embarrassed by the necessity of showing the net 

 assets at somewhat less than he finds them actually to be, so 

 that he may not be obliged to assess revenue which would 



