156 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



The difficulties with which the Government was brought 

 face to face in 1829, the introduction of English law which 

 rendered the enforcement of Dutch or native customary laws, 

 however well suited to the place, impossible, the absence of 

 legislative power in the Local Government, and the conse- 

 quent impracticability of enforcing revenue claims and com- 

 pelling the delivery of the tenth, were well summarised by 

 Mr. Fullerton, in a minute dated 18th May, 1829, from which 

 I extract the following passage : — 



"This brings me to the explanation of the radical cause why 

 " revenue cannot be raised in these eastern countries. On the 

 " continent of India, the Governments are invested with legis- 

 " lative power, and that power is exercised in prescribed form, 

 " by the enactment and promulgation of laws registered in the 

 " Judicial Department, under the term of Regulations. Those 

 " Regulations, besides providing for the forms of administering 

 "justice, define the relative rights of the Government and the 

 " subject, and prescribe the mode under which those rights are 

 " to be inferred on the one part, maintained on the other, by 

 i( application to local Provincial Courts, bound to act accord- 

 " ing to those Regulations. The Supreme Courts have no 

 '•'jurisdiction in any matters of Revenue, or the collection 

 " thereof. In the Revenue Department, public officers hold 

 " summary powers of enforcing, in the first instance, all de- 

 " mands, whether for payment of arrears, ejecting from lands 

 " unduly held, leaving the onus prosequendi on the party sup- 

 posing himself aggrieved, distraint when no arrear is due, or 

 " ejectment from lands properly belonging to him. It is only 

 " under the exercise of the summary process that the collec- 

 " tion of the Government Revenue in India is insured. In 

 " these eastern settlements the Government has no power of 

 " framing those legislative provisions. There does not, there- 

 " fore, exist any distinct and clear definition of relative rights, 

 " or prescribed mode of enforcing and preserving them. There 

 " are no Provincial Courts acting under local law. Govern - 

 "ment possesses no power of enforcing its demands. The 

 " Court administering justice as a Revenue Court is a King's 

 " Court, framed on the English model, and taking the common 

 " law of England, as its guide. Questions of Revenue, there- 



