TENURE OF LAND. 
357 
property of the former, and that which was not required for 
cultivation he retained as his hunting or shooting ground ; 
the marked distance between the peasant and the prince led 
to dissatisfaction and agrarian violence. 
This seems to be what is naturally likely to arise when the 
patriarchal life disappears before the increase of population 
and civilization, especially when the latter only applies to the 
chief, and the tribe still continues in primseval barbarism; 
the introduction of a new and foreign element which con- 
strains the aboriginal race to deflue their rights, has the 
effect in such countries as New Zealand of equalizing rank 
and sweeping away former distinctions. 
In new lands, where moral progress has been far more 
rapid than in older countries, the transition from savage to 
civilized life appears almost too rapid to be stable and per- 
manent, still this is not confined to one solitary country, it 
is extending over the whole, it is the world’s progress. 
The tenure of land in India in some respects resembled 
that in New Zealand. The Ryot was allowed to cultivate as 
much as he liked, which was considered his own and de- 
scended to his children, for which he paid a certain fixed 
tax or rent per annum, the fee simple of the land being 
still considered vested in the Crown, but in former days sub- 
ject to exactions, which he has escaped under the British 
dominion, he now pays a fixed trifling sum per acre, still 
the land is not considered his own, but is held under a 
kind of perpetual lease. The present state, however, is not 
a satisfactory one to either party, a third having hitherto 
been employed to gather the rent, who in fact farms and 
makes as much of it as possible, only paying the sum per acre 
fixed to the Government, this however is now being changed, 
and a better system adopted. So in New Zealand, whilst 
there was no fixed amount received by the chief, he claimed 
a right over the property of every one less powerful than 
himself, and when he saw anything he fancied took it. 
There were also rights of another kind ; in former times, 
it was almost necessary for the support of life to pay a visit 
to the sea coast during the scarce months ; thus each inland 
