1839] 



Permanent Annual Money Reitts^ 



61 



Colonel Miiiiro to his sub-collectors as follows — " Whatever may have 

 been the crop should it have been even less than the seed, the lyots 

 < should alwaj's be made to pay (he full rent, if they can, because good 

 and bad seasons being supposed to be equal in the long run, the loss 

 is merely temporary and the making of it good, is only applying to 

 the deficiency of a year of scarcity the funds which have arisen from 

 *' one of abundance." (Letter of Principal Collector— Ceded Districts 

 to his assistants on remissions, appendix to 5th report page 769, para 5), 

 If this rule be not enforced, and the full rent for every field occupied 

 during the year be not duly collected, it is manifest, that each field 

 is permanently taxed only in name, and that the amount of the ryots' 

 payment or the annual tax on the land, is regulated by the crops or re- 

 turns to the ryot, and by his means at the time of demand. It is the 

 same thing of course to the ryot whether the Government practically 

 reduces his rental by striking off so much of the fixed tax on each field 

 he has held, or by striking from the account, a portion of the field them- 

 selves, which he has occupied at a fixed assessment, the only point he 

 can be anxious about, is that the demand upon him, should be limited 

 annually to an amount which his aunual produce will enable him to 

 meet. The great, if not the only end then now answered by ryotwar, is 

 to determine once for all a maximum payable by the ryot for the land 

 he may have been induced to occupy, which shall save the necessity of 

 an annual contract with him; and leave the revenue officer, the sole 

 duty of extracting from him at the close of each year, the utmost he 

 can pay even though the seed has not been returned. 



That a demand and collection regulated by the out-turn of the year, 

 has been, and I may add, must be the system in force, under 

 a fixed money assessment on an average produce, might also, I 

 think be demonstrated by an appeal to experience, as well as by the 

 consideration of the peculiar circumstances already adverted to in the 

 nature of the agriculture, and in the condition of the ryot. I would refer 

 to the practice in ryotwar districts of granting remissions under vari« 

 ous forms, and this, not as an extraordinary boon, but as a part of the 

 system in practice whatever may be the theory, as one proof, that 

 permanent ryotwar rents have never yet been realized. Again, the 

 amount of balances of rents in ryotwar districts struck off as dead 

 loss in the account general books. These enormous sums, further 

 proving the absolute failure of the attempt to collect a fixed invariable 

 annual rent in money from each field occupied. Finally, let the total 

 revenue, or the full tax on all the land held for five years by the ryots 

 at the beginning of each fusly, in rjotwar districts, and the amount 



