MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 337 



review the opinions of eminent revenue officers from 177G and the CHAP. XIII, 

 policy which was formulated in Regulation XXXI of 1802, he PART I. 

 quoted Sir T. Munro's remark that " there is no reason to suppose kevenue 

 that private landed property ever at any one time existed^ except History. 

 upon one footing-. Over the greater part of India from Pulicat to 

 Ganjam, in the Ceded Districts, the Baramahal and Coimbatore, it 

 seems to have been always Jis now little known except as inam 

 from the sovereign.'^ After enlarging on this celebrated 

 Governor's recorded opinions he proceeds to criticise the position 

 taken by Mr. Sullivan and the evidence produced by Mr. Sullivan 

 from Toda and Badaga customs, upon which it is based. He 

 demolished the analogy between Penn's purchase of Pennsylvania 

 and the Government acquisition of Toda lands, mentioning 

 incidentally the notorious fact that Tippu had annually sent his 

 Kichhana establishments to the Hills for pasturage whilst 

 compelling the Todas to pay tax for pasture. He enters fully 

 into the import of the custom of pajang " gudu/' and, though 

 ignorant of the meaning of the word, shows how it was admittedly 

 paid to secure " the goodwill and protection " of the Todas, 

 its sanctions being moral. He shows that whilst demanding for 

 the Todas Malabar land-rights, Mr. Sullivan had from the first 

 strenuously contended against the view that the Todas or their 

 country had ever anything to do with Malabar. He then goes on 

 to point out that Mr. Sullivan, in issuing puttas on his first advent 

 ito the Hills, made no distinction between the puttas of Todas and 

 ' 'of Badagas, and finally closes his argument by stating the legal 

 difficulties, urging that Government were in dilemma, for whilst by 

 Regulation XXXI they denied that any length of tenure constituted 

 a right without production of authentic documents, they had 

 by orders of 1835 declared that the Todas' rights in the soil 

 were paramount ; consequently no settler could obtain a valid 

 title, for if he claimed by purchase from a Toda, he was met by the 

 .abjection that the law allowed no such rights in waste land ; if 

 by purchase from Government, by the objection that Government 

 liad declared they would not sell without the consent of the land- 

 j ord Toda. He then warns the Government against the policy 

 idopted by urging that there were other claims involved in " this 

 iiession to the Toda." " These claims," he writes, " extend to a 

 rery large tract of the Neilgherries, and the person pref erring- 

 hem is the Nullumboor Zemindar, whose zemindari adjoins the 

 ^SJ'eilgherries. This is another reason against admitting the claims 

 • i»f the Todawars, except on legal proof, for, as justly observed by 

 i )ir Thomas Munro, ' We must not too hastily declare any right 

 \ o be permanent, lest we give to one class what belongs to 

 nother.' " Mr. Lushington's views were fully endorsed by the 

 ther Civilian Member, Mr. John Bird, who, whilst agreeing that 



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