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failure of the monsoons. The tracts protected from failure from 

 this cause are (i) the canal irrigated tracts, and (2) the regions 

 of heavy rainfall, via., Assam and parts of Eastern Bengal, the 

 Cis-Himalayan regions of Northern Bengal, and Eastern and 

 Western Ghauts and Southern Burmah i. e. all those tracts 

 where the normal rainfall is 70 inches per annum or more. 

 The rest of India may be looked upon as ' precarious tracts/ 

 Because the Rarh country suffered more than the Bagri in 

 the famine of 1874, the Rarh was at one time considered 

 a precarious tract, but in the famine of 1897 it was the Bagri 

 country that suffered and not the Rarh. 



CHAPTER CXLII. 



THE SYSTEM OF I,AND REVENUE AS AFFECTING THE QUESTION. 



TT has been said that the land revenue levied by Govern- 

 ment is so heavy, that it is indirectly a potent cause of 

 famines. The total annual income from all sources which 

 our Government receives is a little over 100 crores of 

 Rupees, of which land revenue accounts for about 26 to 

 27 crores, or a little over one-fourth of the total income. 

 Sir William Hunter estimates the revenue demand at 5^ per 

 cent, of the gross produce of land. In Bengal, where most 

 of the land is permanently settled on zamindars, the revenue 

 demand of Government usually bears but a small proportion 

 to the rent recovered by zemindars or the superior land- 

 lords from actual cultivators. The Government demand 

 alone, bearing but a small proportion to the actual outturn 

 from land, causes no appreciable hardship to the cultivator 

 in Bengal. In comparison with the N.-W. P. and Oudh, 



