66 FIXITY OF TENURE 



1 The rights thus asserted in the case of the Bengal 

 ryot existed, there is reason to believe, in a more or 

 less complete form in every part of India. " There is 

 a very general consent," writes Sir W. Muir, " that in 

 the native state of things the resident ryot, simply as 

 such, is throughout the continent of India possessed, 

 as a rule, of a right of hereditary occupancy at the 

 customary rates of the vicinity." But such a right 

 was liable to become obscure under a system in which 

 the landholders were recognised as possessing virtual 

 proprietorship in the lands for which they paid revenue, 

 and the intentions of the Government to provide for 

 its adequate maintenance, were for a long period 

 not carried into execution. With the lapse of time it 

 became more and more difficult to ascertain what were 

 the precise rights of tenants, and what were the cus- 

 tomary rates of rent. . . . 



1 While the theory was that all existing rights should 

 receive equal attention, and while the benefit likely to 

 accrue to the cultivators was avowedly one of the 

 principal objects of the settlements made for long 

 periods, there grew up a generally exaggerated esti- 

 mate of the proprietary rights of the landlords, and a 

 corresponding depreciation of the tenant's position. 

 English ideas of proprietorship were allowed to 

 obscure the important limitations to which in India 



rather ' as a rent paid by a tenant, often a highly favoured tenant, 

 to a paramount owner than a tax paid by the owner to the State' ; 

 they were therefore inclined to the view that the limitation of the 

 landlord's right had always been recognised by the legislature. I 

 am of opinion that even in Cornwallis's time there were English 

 officers who understood the Indian theory of landed proprietorship, 

 and that it was to these men that the insertion of the proviso con- 

 tained in Article 7, of Regulation L, of 1793 was due, but that these 

 men were in the minority, and that English conceptions were 

 generally in the ascendant. For this reason action was not taken 

 to enforce the proviso of which the minority had secured the 

 insertion ; its significance was not realized until the bulk of official 

 opinion had become strongly antagonistic to the English doctrine. 



