MALAY LAND TENURE. 93 



so much trouble to the officers of the East India Company on 

 their succession to the Government of that Settlement in 1825, 

 were of this nature.* The grantees were nothing more than 

 a species of what are called in India " Zamindars." The abso- 

 lute right of the cultivators to retain possession of their hold- 

 ings as long as they paid to the grantees tenths of the produce, 

 was in no way prejudiced, nor was the customary right of 

 every native of the country to take up forest or waste land 

 wherever he pleased and to bring it into cultivation. The 

 grants were in accordance with Malay tenure, and in no sense 

 corresponded with the English idea of a freehold holding. 

 Nevertheless, there are not wanting, on the part of the few 

 remaining grantees, attempts to assert that their rights within 

 the districts granted to them include the fullest proprietor- 

 ship of the soil, and to act as if they were the owners of the 

 freehold. This is an illustration of the tendency to argue the 

 acquisition of a proprietary right from the exercise of certain 

 powers which, until their history is examined, seem to be 

 inconsistent with any other position. So, in Bengal, the Za- 

 minddr, who was, in the inception of the native revenue 

 system, a revenue official, or agent, established in course of 

 time hereditary and proprietary rights and came to be looked 

 on eventually as the proprietor of the district over which he 

 exercised the rights assigned to him. Had the Straits officials 

 from 1825 understood the true bearing of the position, accord- 

 ing to Malay law, as the Dutch undoubtedly did ( for the 

 same system is recognised in some districts of Java) , it would 

 have been possible, perhaps, to have left the grantees in pos- 

 session of their Zaminddri rights, to have assessed the land 

 revenue of their respective districts at a fixed sum, and to 

 have exacted full payment of this, leaving the concessionaire to 

 collect the tenth in detail from his tenantry. 



The following principles regarding land tenure in Java had 

 been laid down by Sir Stamford Raffles only eleven years 

 before the settlement with the Malacca grantees took place f: — 

 " The nature of the landed tenure throughout the island is now 



* Journ. Ind. Arch., II, 740. 



f Revenue Instructions, 11th February, 1814. 



