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Leader (1850-1860), 23rd October 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 24, NOTES ON INDIAN PROGRESS. Mr. Ybi/b has ...

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    • INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS.
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      ,,Oa The Leader. [No. 448, October. 23,1...

      ,, oA THE LEADER . [ No . 448 , October . 23 , 1858 .

      India And Indian Progress.

      INDIA AND INDIAN PROGRESS .

      I/And Tenures And The Cotton Association...

      I / AND TENURES AND THE COTTON ASSOCIATION . The Cotton Supply Association continues firm in its Indian agitation , and the Reporter follows up the subject . India they know is that country which can afford us a competent supply , for it has been too truly said , " that there is more cotton wool yearly wasted in India for want of means to bring it to the market than there is raised in the United States . " India has the advantage over the United States of cheap and intelligent free labour ; she has the disadvantages of disgraceful land tenures and of most serious deficiencies of

      transport . Did the cotton lands of India possess the deep-water rivers of the eastern coast , or the many arms of the Mississippi , bearing steamboats or deep flats throughout their course , the export of India would be otherwise than it is . There is water , however , in India in abundance ; let this be applied to irrigation and to navigation , and railways , giving the advantage of quick access , be opened throughout the country , and the vast resources of India , not only in cotton but other productions of the land , will be made manifest . The defective land tenures , however , cripple at every stage the application of labour and capital , for the element of uncertainty , one of the fatal influences

      which affect the free operations of capital , is purposely maintained by the Government . In vain the aid of our most eminent economists and staticians is enlisted to prove that the money levy is a rent , and not a tax ; in vain are we called _ upbn to admit the benefit of the rent of land belonging to the Community maintaining the expenses of the Government without taxation , when we see and know that by the administration of the land revenue the condition of the population is one of misery , and the lot of the capitalist . loss and disappointment . There is the less need to define the distinctions between rent and land tax , and to defend the possessions of the land

      revenues by the Government , when no one desires to dispossess the Government of the revenues , but to assure and fix the demands of the Government , and to assure and determine the position of the tenant and cultivator of the soil . The theory of the land revenue of India , as simply laid down by economists , or discussed at the Statistical Society , is admirable ; the application presents some of the worst features of the land tenures of Ireland before the Land Court was established , of the serfdom lately existing in Eastern Europe , and of the Exchequer system of England during the middle ages . The efforts of the Indian administrators , like those of the French administrators in the old regime , have tended only to regulate the corvees and gabelles , and do not abolish them or substitute other

      institutions . The Reporter reviews the condition , and brings before us a system which , admirable in the pages of the Economist , becomes in practice a system of oppression . The Reporter alludes to the present mode of deriving the public revenue in many collectoratos from an assessment of each cultivated field , collected by a countless swarm of agents , to whom is delegated the task of exacting the utmost amount of profit on the produce , with extraordinary powers of enforcing payment , and perpetuating from year to year the grossest abuses and injustice So long as these agents can call upon each cultivator , bribery will bo practised and torture perpetrated ; and as the best intentions of the Government have been frustrated , so will they be henceforth . It is

      summons fee-is levied on every petty arrear of poorrate , and the manv rates which bring the taxgatherers in contact with the rich man ' s servants and the poor man ' s wife . There is the fear , if not the reality , that rich tax-collectors and brokers tamper with the women in some cases of distress , and complaints , founded or unfounded , are constaritlv made before the magistrates . The slightest consideration , the least local experience , must minds will

      teach us that men of low caste and low practise oppression if they can , and can be hardly restrained from taking the pettiest fees and bribes . Transfer the legion of these functionaries to India , and what would be their exploits with no European superintendence , and with a police of thieves and thieves' accomplices ? The result would , perhaps , be little different from that now realised : we do not like to say it would be better , for we are not satisfied it might not be worse ' .

      The whole of our American provinces , now States , had the system of quit rents and tenures of the manor of East Greenwich and other feudal institutions , but they have been emancipated , and all land is held in fee simple and readily transferable . In Canada , our great drawback to progress was the seignorial system and the quit rents . These have been commuted or abolished , and Canada advances . In Nova Scotia , New Brunswick , and Prince Edward ' s Island , the quit rent system has been stayed . In New South Wales it was the foundation of all

      tenures , and has been acknowledged to be an obstacle to progress , and exists no more . The Reporter supports these arguments , and urges the plan of commuting the land-tax by purchase , at say twenty years ' purchase , which is countenanced by the economists . It was brought forward last year by a youngei member of the body , . Mr , Hendriks , and is allowed to gain currency . We are very much inclined to believe that at least twenty-five years' purchase could be raised for land rent , and , possibly , thirty years . _ . _ ..., possibly , thirty years . and

      The division of the Zemindarces m Bengal a commutation of Zemindarial rights by a Land Court , having the functions of the Encumbered Estates Courts of Ireland and the West Indies , and of the Copyhold Commission in England , is another necessary measure for creating a class of freehold tenants , but which is not , however , mentioned by the Reporter , although the desirability of making the ryot a landowner is advocated . The Reporter points out that the capital realised by the Government from the proposed sale of

      landtax could be applied to the reduction of the public debt , and a portion of it made available for the extension of that class of works upon which heretofore such enormous profits have been realised , works alike beneficial to tlie Government and the people . We hope that not only will this be done , but measures be taken for applying a part of the sum to the reduction of the public debt of England . In tho United States the federal Government

      retaining the property in tho lands has received enormous sums for the redemption of the public debt , and for general purposes . In England wo have squandered the public lands of Canada and Australia , and given thorn to the local legislature . In India , although enfranchisement and land sale at a pound an aero would bring many hundred millions of revonuo , it is to be hoped we shall not pursue tho same policy . At all events , with Lord Stanley and tho now Government , tho old tenures must bo amended , and in tho unsettled and now regulation distriots tlio free tenures be oxtended .

      m vain to think of bolstering up this system by talking of distraints on crops for rent in England , or of levies on goods for -rates and taxes , for such allusions only enforce the necessity for our abolition of the system . With all tho checks that in our advanced system of organisation wo can employ , we know that tho broker and the broker ' s man , tho mun in possession , tho sheriff's officer , tho tithe proctor , tho Irish agent and his drivers , will porpctrato on our poorer population great oppressions , and tho records of our policecourts furnish evidence enough of the , efforts made to punish tho oppressors . Wo know that under the noses of our magistrates , lawyer olorks of eeseions levy on a shilling fine twelve or fourteen shillings , and that in somo boroughs , by connivance between the collector and tho clerk , a two-shilling

      Notes On Indian Progress. Mr. Ybi/B Has ...

      NOTES ON INDIAN PROGRESS . Mr . Ybi / b has juat carried out in the Southal code groat improvements which the Supremei Government have not yet allowed to Bengal . Native perjurers , native pleaders , native court officials , or amlah , and native usurers arc guarded against . The plaint , tho ovldence , and the docree are to be written down briefly by the judge himself in English , and , the English decree is tlio only legal record of tho case . Tho judgment will bo oxplained , verbally to tho native , but he must have tho decree translated for himself . Thus , tho groat safeguard of justice advocated by Mr . Warden before the Colonisation Committee , and by others at various times , is obtained by the savage Southals . Well may the Friend of India

      say that while Mr . Yule establishes all that is required in a forest inhabited by savages , the Legislative Council announces itself incompetent to bestow the requisite protection on the thirty millions of Bengal . By abolishing written pleadings , a heavy blow is given to perjury and litigation , and by abolishing arrest for debt and protecting the homestead from restraint , the usurer is , kept at bay . In the last ten years , the agitation of the Friend of India has prompted the amendment of the law as to pleadings in the Punjab , Saugor , Nagpore , Berar , and Assam , but the Regulation provinces arc left the victims of the old abuses . The use of the English language , instead of Persian , Hindostanee , and other foreign forms in the law-courts , is , however , one essential step in reform .

      A bill is making its -way through the Legislative Council for levying rates and municipal taxes in Scinde , which will procure further funds for local improvements . The Friend of India advocates a general law for native princes , sweeping away at once , with their consent , all the subsidy treaties , which fetter the princes as much as they embarrass us , and substituting in their place a single imperial law , a . golden bull of the empire ; In this they are to recognise themselves , and . be recognised by us , a 3 feudatories o f the empire . They will be left with full power of legislation and administration , under certain limits , within which they could act without the consent of the Government of India . A provision would be made for an independent judiciary for English citizens , and no laws affecting trade should be made

      without the consent of the Governor-General . Their privileges would be lineal , and could descend only to men born of their own house . In return they would be relieved at once from all espionage and all interference , and be guaranteed their domains , under every possible contingency , save the single one of treason ^ If th at , exempt from the Resident , they stretched their authority beyond the limits allowed by the great agreement , the appeal would be to the Governor-General , -who could enforce his decree as readily and as swiftly as at present . In the course of nature , as the reigning houses die oflfj their fiefs would escheat . There would , of course , be a provision acknowledging the disposition of the Government to grant higher titl « s to well-deserving princes , and there should be a power to authorise princes so disposed to dispose of their fiefs to the imperial

      Government . The Cotton Supply Association have held an influential meeting at Glasgow , Mr . ltobert Dalglish , M . P ., in the chair , when a number of subscribers-was obtained , who promised to contribute 450 / . a year for five years . Miss Burdett Coutts has given another donation , which amounts to 200 / . . The Association havo under consideration the iurmation of Cotton Associations in India . The Secretary , Mr . G . K . Hay wood , has had some correspondence with tjho Bombay Examiner and 1 ivies , defending the Association as to the condition ot tlie cotton seed sent to Bombay , and which was too late for the March season . He likewise expresses his sympathy with the Western India Canal Irrignt on Company , which has been stopped since 185 o , because tho Sunremo Government refuses to give

      any answer whatever , as also with the case ol we Guzerat merchants who cannot obtain a cotton shipping Government in the Gulf of Cambay , « " ? more than the Bombay people can a tide btism lor cotton boats , though botli are willing to puy tne charges . , n Tea planting continues to attract more and jnoj notice in India . A writer in tho Df" o « s * ttLf * ot tho most favourable experience of it . pP / "l L Simla , the Dohrah Dboon , Gurhwal , and Kuranon and tho same applies to Dnrjceling , Assam , anu quim districts—he says it is a « ito certain that any nwn who can command 2000 / . may got up a very w 1 " * 1 ' * pluntation , which will soon make him a handsome re turn , for there is no mystery in tho business , w ' •» intervals of his occupation tho settler may enjoy fishing , shooting , visiting , and sconory in u lioaiwy and delightful country . , , . OAn nnr ) i Tho Bombay oil-seed trade increased from 240 , 000 * in 1856 to 360000 / in 1807

      , , . . „ .. lt „ , „ . Tho Chamber of Commerce of salt prop" £ tors of Cheshire and W orcostors ! uro have memo rialisod Lord Stanley lor a readjustmei « 0 I , ' salt duties and an extension of tho hJJ » JJ salt trado , pointing to tlie fact of tho creation of a salt trade of 100 , 000 tons to tho port oi Calcutta since 1840 , when tmdo was opened , thoy therefore pray that facilities for iandlnff ¦ < ; may bo provided at all the Indian ports as at uu outta .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 23, 1858, page 24, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23101858/page/24/