26 THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND 



sleep, because the price of agricultural produce rose 

 enormously with the growth of population, the de- 

 velopment of means of transport, and the inflation of 

 the currency, to none of which can the landlords of 

 India claim to have contributed. 



But these arguments against a permanent settlement 

 were not present to the minds of the English officers 

 of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. They 

 were in sympathy with the proposal to fix the land 

 revenue in perpetuity, but they advised that that 

 decisive step should be postponed until the country 

 was more fully populated. The result of this post- 

 ponement was that they became better acquainted 

 with the Indian conception of land tenure, and as this 

 acquaintance deepened they modified their precon- 

 ceived notions of the absolute proprietary rights of 

 the landlord. From the first the Government had 

 shown a laudable desire to make settlements of the 

 land revenue with the actual landholders and not with 

 contractors who offered to farm the revenue for them. 

 They were conscious of their ignorance of essential 

 facts ; they did not know who the actual landholders 

 were, and they directed their officers to make inquiries 

 upon this point. The answers which they received 

 are evidence of the perplexity into which new names 

 and unfamiliar proprietary rights had plunged the 

 English officers. In reply to the Board's circular 

 regarding tenures (1808) Mr. T. Balfour wrote from 

 Gorakhpur: 'The ancient landlords, whether under 

 the denomination zemindar, talookdar, rajah, or baboo, 

 are admitted to have a proprietary right.' His neigh- 

 bour, Mr. W. J. Sands, the collector of Bareilly, on 

 the other hand, describes the 'talookdar' as a person 

 who held estates in farm from the Government, and 

 declares that the ' talookdar ' usually asserted no 

 claim to proprietary rights ; ' there are, however, 

 some,' he says, ' who from long possession assert a 

 right, and deny the proprietary right of the village 



