336 MANUAL OF THE NJLAGIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. XIII, area fifty times greater than wliat they paid for) without payment 

 PART I. of land tax, he proceeds : — 



Eevexue " ^^^ ^^^^ ^^® Todas have a right to exjaect by a fair construction 



TlisTORY. of the resolutions of Government, is that these 190 bullahs, for which 

 they do pay a tax, should be guaranteed to them so long as the amount, 

 small as it is, is duly paid ; and with regard to the remaining portion, 

 I think the rule which prevails in Malabar ****** might 

 be fairly applied, although the cases are not in their nature exactly 

 analogous. The Todas might be allowed the proprietary right to 

 the whole of the soil, but it might be insisted that they should pay a 

 tax for it, or, failing that, allow it to be occupied by those ivho ivould 

 pay the assessed or assessable rates, receiving however, as in Malabar, 

 15 per cent, of the profits as the landlord's share. All land not 

 tendered for might be left, as at present, in the Todas' possession 

 with liberty to use it as their own till it was, piece by piece, taken 

 up by those who would make a more profitable use of it. It would 

 be very long ere, under this system, any such quantity would fall out 

 of their hands (as far as the use of it goes) as to affect their interests 

 as herdsmen ; and by that time (if not before) it may be hoped they 

 will have advanced in the scale of civilization and have seen the 

 advantage of uniting husbandry to the mere tending of buffaloes. 

 They may be compelled in time (and it is to be wished they should 

 be) to change their mode of life by the operation of this system, 

 but they can never be really injured by it ; for, to say nothing of 

 the moral consequences, every bullah of land that is lost to them in 

 one way (saving the empty title to the proprietary right, on which 

 they set much value) will be amply made vip by the 15 per cent, 

 which it is proposed should be given them from its produce." 



In the following month Mr. Conolly submitted to Government 

 an agreement concluded with the Todas, by which they consented 

 to make over to Government the lands in the Ootacamand 

 settlement, deducting certain reservations on payment of a " quit- 

 rent '' of Rupees 150. In consideration of these reservations 

 the Todas consented to cede " such portions of land ivithout the 

 cantonment as have already been appropriated for building 

 purposes.^' 

 Mr. C. M. But Mr. Sullivan had now retired, and the proposal to pay 



stron T""" " quit-rent " to the Todas, and the decision of Government in 1835 

 opposespolicy to acknowledge these barbarians as 'Herds of the soil/^ met with 

 m nt^^*^^' *^® viio?>i determined opposition from Mr. CM, Lushington, now 

 senior Member of Council. In a very able minute, dated the 15th 

 December 1840, he combated Mr. Sullivan's theories and the novel 

 proceedings of the Board of Eevenue, boldly asserting that "all 

 opinions of any value were unanimously concurrent in maintaining 

 that the ruling power in India not only possessed the right of 

 making grants of waste land, but that its exercise from time 

 immemorial was as frequent as undeniable.^' Passing in rapid 



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