42 THE COMPETITION FOR LAND 



(i) The agricultural population has increased so that 

 competition for land becomes heavier; (2) thezamindar, 

 having no longer occasion to call his cultivators to 

 take up arms for him, enters the market more un- 

 trammelled, and accepts the best cultivator, without 

 arriere pense'e, as to whether he is as good at quarter- 

 staff or broadsword play as he is at ploughing.'* 



As population continued to increase, the economic 

 advantage of the landlord became greater, and when 

 he made use of it to the uttermost he was able to 

 rack-rent his tenants, so that they hardly retained for 

 themselves a bare subsistence. There are, of course, 

 in India many kindly landlords who deliberately allow 

 their tenants to retain their holdings upon lower rents 

 than could be screwed out of them under the stress of 

 competition. There are cases in which lands are let 

 to poor relations or to members of the same clan at 

 rents much below the market rate ; in almost every 

 country the severity of competition is mitigated in 

 particular instances by this sort of charity or benevo- 

 lence ; but, upon the whole, the landlords of this 

 province have taken full advantage of the competition 

 for land among the cultivating class ; and custom, 

 unless strengthened by law, individual benevolence, or 

 tribal sentiment has proved quite unequal to protect 

 the tenant. 



There are two ways of paying for the use of land : 

 either (a) by surrendering to the landlord a share of 

 the crop, or (b) by a cash payment which does not 

 vary with the success of the harvest. The first of 

 these methods is probably much the older of the two, 

 and in one form or other it appears to have existed all 

 over the province. Owing, however, to the difficulty 

 of actually dividing the harvest on the threshing-floor, 

 modifications of this simple system have been intro- 

 duced, which go by different names in different 

 districts. The following represent the systems most 

 * Revenue Reporter, vol. iii., No. 1, 1869. 



