180 POLICY FOE WESTEEN INDIA 



one better able to turn it to advantage." It must be 

 admitted that this facility for the transfer of land did 

 not produce all the advantages that were expected of 

 it, and led at times to inconvenient consequences. It 

 has in the past been subjected to severe criticism, and 

 has undergone some modifications to meet certain 

 definite difficulties ; but as a general principle it still 

 holds the field, and is commonly accepted by those 

 who aim at material progress. 



It will be realised from the above that the land 

 policy adopted in the Bombay Presidency was at first 

 a somewhat negative policy of non-intervention. The 

 early British administrators, brought up in the school 

 of Adam Smith, Eicardo, and Arthur Young very 

 soon made up their minds as to the lines on which 

 progress was indicated. " Give the cultivators a 

 definite property in the land," they said, "give them 

 security of tenure, a guarantee that their improve- 

 ments will not be taxed, and a light, equitable assess- 

 ment, and, with settled conditions, there will be a 

 great improvement in agriculture and a marked 

 increase in prosperity." The area under cultivation 

 certainly increased by leaps and bounds as a result 

 of this policy, and land values, which had hardly ex- 

 isted before, were created and tended to increase 

 steadily; but progress towards land improvement, 

 intensive cultivation and improved methods was very 

 meagre ; indeed the development that attracted most 

 attention in the middle of the last century was the 

 tendency of the land-holders to take advantage of the 



