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4. LAND TENURE IN KELANTAN. 
By A. F. Worthington. 
British Adviser, Kelantan. 
“ The axiom that all land fundamentally belongs to 
the ruler obtains in Kelantan, and though, at 
present, fallow land is not assessed to revenue 
of any kind, there is in reality no such thing as 
freehold landed property there. In the plains, 
however, where land is of high value, it is 
almost all held by persons who have acquired 
the status of landholders, that is, who have 
acquired heritable and alienable rights by grant 
or purchase from the ruler at some more or less 
remote period/’ 
" Previous to the year A.H. 1299 (1881), the State 
kept no sort of land registers, and consequently 
little or nothing was known of the condition of 
land tenure in different districts,- except to the 
local Headman, in whose hands lay the disposal 
of waste lands on behalf of the Ruler. A 
person desiring to take up land had to apply, in 
accordance with a very old established custom, 
to the Headman of the district, in which land in 
question was situated, and from him to obtain 
permission to occupy, on payment of a fee, 
which varied according to the nature of the 
land. The fee was supposed to be paid in to 
the Ruler, but was usually retained by the 
Headman. Having paid the fee and taken 
possession, the holder had done all that was 
considered necessary; but as title granted by 
the rural officials was not considered as con- 
stituting an indisputable right, he could never 
