188 REPORT — 1876. 



allude to one or two points in what I call the middle history of man, directly 

 leading to our modern institutions, in respect of which I think that much may he 

 learned from ohservation in India. And in India we are not now left to mere 

 individual observation only. A very substantial commencement has been made 

 towards the introduction of statistical science and the collection of statistics of 

 tolerable value, in that country. For some years past great attention has been paid 

 to this subject by the Government. I may venture to say that I mj^self, when I 

 held office in that country, have done all that was in my power to promote statistical 

 Icuowledge ; and a number of earnest men have done the like. As usual in the 

 commencement of such inquiries, our difficulty has not so much been to get figures 

 as to keep our statistical figures down to those which are pretty reliable. '\\'u 

 are thoroughly aware of the necessity of caution in thi.s respect ; and we believe 

 that we are gradually coming to the point when we can say that we have .some 

 very valuable statistics on a very large scale. 



Of the history and use of local Institutions we may learn very much in India. 

 That covmtry was, locally speaking, one of the most self-governed cuuutries in the 

 world, in native times. In all parts of this ifslaud, while the civic constitutions of 

 the ancient Burghs have been preserved, the self-governing institutions of the 

 country at large have almost entirelj' disappeared, leaving only a few fossil remains 

 to testify to theii" previous existence. On the continent of Europe the old Com- 

 munes retain a good deal of vitalitj'. But it is in India under native rule tluit we 

 see these institutions in full \ig-our and working order. That little republic, the 

 villa'^e comnmnity of India, has come to be looked on as an interesting old relic 

 rather than as the subject for modern imitation. In my opinion we may draw 

 from it a very large store of economic knowledge which may be very useful to us. 

 1 orieve to say that philistine and self-satisfied as we are, prone as we are to believe 

 that there can be no good thiiigthat is not our own, instead of supporting and cheiish- 

 ing the self-governing Indian Communes, and taking from them an example 

 for om" own country, we are permitting them to fall into decay. They owed in fact 

 their cohesion and their durability to pressure from without, to the necessity of 

 the case, which made self-government indispensable to tlieir existence. Our strong 

 arm has removed that external pressure ; and in our self-confident spirit we ha\e 

 substituted our pretentious but imperfect and uncertain Courts for the rough but 

 reliable village rule of former days. I believe that the more we introduce into 

 India true economic science, the more it will be apparent that wo have taken on 

 om'selves too heavy a burden, that too great centralization is a mistake, and 

 that, in a country where political fi-eedom on a large scale is impossible, tlie only 

 satisfactory resom-ce is a large measure of the local government to which the 

 people are accustomed. 



The tenure of land is another subject on which great liglit is thrown by Indian 

 experience. After an intimate acquaintance with the tenvues which we there 

 find in existence, and those which our system has created, we seem to have before 

 us a picture of the rise and progress of property in land. Putting aside the older 

 forms of property, we have had in India many examples of the feudal tenure 

 of a conquered country by chiefs and subchiefs holding in subordination one to 

 another and ruling over communities of cidtivators, some of whom were free and 

 possessed of certain rights and privileges, and others were in a servile position. 

 Among the communities holding land Ave have manifest traces of the old sjsteni 

 of partition and repartition ; we have before our eyes the gradual disuse of that old 

 system and the gradual growth of the individual tenure of the lands under the 

 plough with commoh use of the pasture-lands, the wood, and the water, on a 

 tenure strictly analogous to that of English Commons. We ha-\-e the struggle 

 between the Lords and the Commoners, and questions between tlie Commoners and 

 the landless members of the communitj', just as we have luid in this country. 

 Then we have the growth of English ideas of property in land. "We have tlie 

 overlord, the Zemindar, no longer holding m feudal tenm-e and receiving 

 customary dues and services, but turned by us into a rent-receiver. We have the 

 struggle of the rent-receiver influenced by our ideas to turn the privileged culti- 

 vator into a tenant pure and simple, to appropriate the Commons and to establisli 

 absolute property. We have the emancipation of some cultivators as copyholder!;. 



