88 THE GOSPEL AND THE PLOW 



in local assessments and taxation. Suppose the settle- 

 ment officer decides that a given field shall pay annually 

 $1.00 per acre rent to the landlord, the government gets 

 fifty per cent, of the dollar, as land revenue. That par- 

 ticular field may grow a crop of sugar cane, turmeric 

 or potatoes where the net profit might easily be from 

 thirty to fifty dollars per acre. This sum fixed by the 

 settlement officer is the amount of rent which the tenant 

 with permanent rights must pay to the landlord. It 

 cannot be enhanced. In the case of assessing the land 

 of the tenant-at-will the settlement officer makes no 

 difference. He decides the land revenue as though all 

 tenants had permanent rights. For all the land held 

 under cultivation by tenants-at-will, the landlord can 

 charge as much rent as he can rack out of the tenant, 

 but he pays the government only fifty per cent, of the 

 amount determined by the settlement officer. For some 

 of this land assessed by the settlement officer to pay one 

 dollar per acre rent, the tenant-at-will pays as high as 

 ten dollars per acre. The government only gets fifty per 

 cent, of the assessed rental irrespective of the rent paid 

 by the tenant or the crop grown. The mistake in the 

 statement that the government takes fifty per cent, of 

 the produce of the soil, is made in confusing the amount 

 of the land-revenue with the total produce of the soil, 

 which are two entirely different things. The land-reve- 

 nue seldom equals ten per cent, of the produce of the 

 soil and of that ten per cent, the government gets fifty 

 per cent, and the landlord forty-two per cent., eight 

 per cent, goes into local cesses. 



Again the government is criticized for taxing salt, a 

 necessity. The reason is, of course, that salt is the one 



