54 



Notes on Ryotwar, or 



of a ryot's farm, which is not either wholly barren, or very greatly de- 

 ficient in produce. Often on the larger portion of his land, not an ear 

 of grain is left, and the seed has not been returned to hiin t and even 

 if some few showers should have fallen, and his well land has yielded 

 a crop, he has still not a fifth or often a tenth of his ordinary crops to 

 reap. No increase of price, it is plain therefore, can avail a ryot ought 

 at these seasons ; for he has no produce to bring to market, 

 or but such a fraction beyond the wants of his family, that 

 his entire crop will not give him any thing like the amount of his 

 annual rental. The extreme pressure upon him consequently at these 

 periods, arising out of the physical circumstances under which he carries 

 on his occupation, places him in a wholly different position from the 

 landholder in Europe; and in one, I believe, for which no providence, 

 nor industry, can fully prepare him, if his full annual tax, or rent, be 

 required from him, as prescribed by the present system, at a period, 

 when he has lost nearly the whole of the year's outlay upon his land, 

 and has not reaped grain enough either for seed, or to maintain his 

 family through the year. 



It is this peculiar feature of South Indian agriculture, resulting 

 from physical causes, an almost entire failure periodically of nearly 

 all return from the land, which constitutes a marked distinction 

 between the circumstances of the Indian, and the European farmer 

 or occupant of land, and which renders fixed annual money rents at 

 their present rates, however advantageous in Europe, of doubtful policy 

 in this country. When strictly acted upon for a series of years, it will, 

 I believe, be found, that the heavy demand which this system makes 

 upon the Indian landholder at seasons of extreme difficulty, and of 

 peculiar loss, sweeping away at such times the whole of his little capi- 

 tal, or involving him inextricably in debt, is one of the chief causes of 

 the present general impoverishment of the ryots. It is also to his 

 knowledge of the certain recurrence of the periodical droughts, and 

 their consequences ; so fully appreciated by the ryot, but not yet, I am 

 disposed to think, sufficiently considered by his European superior, 

 that we must ascribe it, that he has been generally led to prefer a heavy; 

 and vexatious tax in kind, of even 50 per cent of the ac^wa^ annual 

 produce, varying therefore with the season, to any permanent rent in 

 money, at a lower rate. For he knows, that he is, under that tenure, 

 protected in the season of drought, from a heavy Government demand^ 



