758 REPORT — 1881. 



In 1879 the address was delivered by Mr. Lefevre, and a most timely and use- 

 ful address it was, dwelling upon the relations between our agriculturists and those 

 of the United States with that clearness of thought, and, to use the famous Thucy- 

 didean phrase, painfulness in the search after truth, which one always expects in 

 the writings and speeches of that very distinguished man. The address of 1880, 

 by Mr. Hastings, has by some unfortunate accident not been printed in our annual 

 volume. 



With a view to giving you this brief sketch of the proceedings of our Section, 

 it has been necessary for me, of course, to look through those proceedings since 

 its foundation ; and I have been led to one or two conclusions which I should like 

 to lay before you. 



In the first place, I greatly doubt whether our system of publishing epitomes 

 of papers is a good one. These abstracts of abstracts are indeed most ghastly 

 reading. I think it would be worth while for those who organise the business of 

 the Section to consider next year whether it might not be better to print good 

 papers upon local statistics in full ; such will hardly in many cases have any other 

 means of being introduced to a wider public, whereas statistical papers of more 

 general interest may be safely left to the care of our first-born, the Statistical 

 Society. It would be enough to mention in our annual volume that they had been 

 read before us, without attempting an analysis which can hardly be satisfactory to 

 the author and must be dismal to the reader. 



In the second place I am inclined to think that we must adopt the policy 

 recommended by Professor Ingram, and widen our basis, taking care at the same 

 time to treat things scientifically, that is to say, as they are or were, and to avoid, 

 as much as possible, dealing with them as they ought to be. The Social Science 

 Association is better, I think, fitted than the "British Association for many even 

 good papers that have been read in this Section. 



Still more imperatively necessary is it absolutely to refuse a hearing to all who 

 wish to discuss burning questions of English politics, even although they have a 

 scientific side. However disagreeable it may be to individuals to have to take 

 elsewhere papers on which they may have bestowed much trouble, our first duty 

 as a Section is to continue to exist, and we shall assuredly not continue to exist if 

 we do not steel our hearts against their complaints. 



Another great reform would, I conceive, be accomjjlished if the authorities of the 

 Association were to encourage persons to read in this Section accounts of valuable 

 works on economical and statistical subjects appearing in foreign countries. 



It only remains for me to thank you for the patience with which you have 

 listened to an address which, although I think under the circumstances necessary, 

 has contained little or nothing that is new. I must add that I accepted the 

 honour of presiding over this Section some months ago, and before a very consider- 

 able change had come over my life. It has been a great pleasure to me to be able 

 to fulfil my engagement, but as I leave England next month and am necessarily 

 very much occupied, I am sure you will forgive me if I resign the presidency of 

 the Section into other and abler hands this afternoon. 



The following Papers and Eeport were read : — 



1. Notes on the Village System, and the Tenure of Land in the Dravidian 

 Villages of the Bclchan. By Sir Walter Elliot, K.G.8.I., F.B.S. 



The increasing interest taken in Indian subjects is evidenced by the popularity 

 of recent publications relating to them. One of the latest of these is Sir* John 

 Phear's volume on the Aryan Village. It deals with those in the north and the 

 extreme south of Hindostan. Between these lie the Dravidian people, among whom 

 the callage system has been preserved in a still more perfect condition. 



A short sketch of the Dra-vddian municipality is then given, and the classes of 

 which it is composed, ■s'iz. : — 



a. The village council, embracing the principal cultivating ryots. 



