64 



Koics on Ryoticar, or 



country by some ryotwar authorities avIio have kept out of sight the 

 luonientous consideration, that the return from land hekl by this class, 

 is full one third less, than if cultivated by a proprietor of substance, 

 who could afford to dress it properly; and that the permanent effects 

 of a system which brings the mass of the land into the hands of the 

 poorer classes, is, to place the country under a sentence of comparative 

 sterility, covered like Ireland with pauper occupants, without capital 

 to meet any reverse, or surplus to undertake any improvement ; and 

 unable to command those comforts and conveniences of life, which 

 would gradually raise them in the scale of society, and advance the 

 country in civilization and wealth. 



Before closing these remarks, I would notice briefly two other evils 

 inherent in fixed money rents. All iields permanently classed and 

 assessed as v/et or garden land {Niuijah o\- Bhagayet) must continue 

 always such, in order to give the higher permanent tax. The con- 

 version therefore of wet or garden into dry grain land according to the 

 varying demand of the market, is prohibited by the system itself. 

 And though the demand for garden or wet produce in a district, may 

 fall off SO per cent, or more, and prices may sink, to an extent to make 

 such produce an unprofitable crop at the wet, or garden rate of tax, 

 compared with dry grain, yet the ryot has no option, he must still sow 

 this land with rice, &c., for that alone will yield in money the higher 

 rate of assessment. 



Again no adequate provision is made, except in the putcut ryot war of 

 Coimbatore, for fallows, and for the exhaustion of the soil, the certain 

 consequence of the continual cropping rendered necessary to enable 

 the ryot to meet the invariable annual Government demand. Of the 

 evil effects of this omission, ths following instance was brought to my 

 notice. The Bhagmjet of a ryot, then a floarishing and productive pro- 

 perty , had been classed and permanently assessed in 1802. But in the 

 long period intervening, the soil had become exhausted, and did not re- 

 turn any thing like an average crop. Still the proprietor was called 

 upon to pay for it, the same full Bhagayet tax, as when first 

 assessed. At the date it was examined (1832), the land was so 

 exhausted by continual heavy cropping, as scarcely to repay the charges 

 of cultivation, and for some years previously it had of course been de- 

 teriorating, whilst throughout the v/hole period of this deterioration iVom 

 natural causes, the full rent had been demanded, and paid. The mean- 

 of the holder were necessarily therefore annually impaired, till he i)*:^-^ 

 came unable to bear *he tax; and uoihiiig- but ample remissions, nor 



