IV. LECTURE frequent acts of Government, at pleasure or for mal-administration, in suspending their authority as collectors and depriving them altogether of territorial jurisdiction with its assigned advantages; unless in some cases with the exception of saverum or subsistence in land: then transferring their employments, official rights and privileges, to others in perpetuity or for a time. And it is finally demonstrated by the tenor of the muchulka, or written obligation, of the zemindars to discharge faithfully the trusts reposed in them; otherwise implicitly acquiescing in the justice of suspension or entire exoneration, and never acquiring at any time anything in the nature of territorial property beyond the extent of their saverum; but always to account with the treasury for the last daum collected throughout the remainder of their local jurisdiction, whether constructively or positively by royal authority; and which, though they do in general abstract by false statements of receipts and disbursements, never doth or can supersede the sovereign's right to enter into detail, resume defalcations and curtail unecessary sebundy or exorbitant mofussil expenses of the circar or state; being all that is contended for, as requiring public investigation and economical reform, in order to reduce the emoluments of intermediate agents, to the primitive, legal, and equitable standard of russooms and saverums, virtually as well as in form." In this passage we have the extreme theory of the merely official position of the zemindar. We have seen that the official element was that which the Mahomedan theory brought into prominence: but we gather from this passage, as well as from the general result of Mr. Grant's enquiries, that there was in practice another element of hereditary proprietary claim; although in strict adherence to Mahomedan theory MR. GRANT'S VIEWS. 135 he rejects this element. Again in a letter to the Board of Revenue, dated 1st March 1787, Mr. Grant says, as regards the zemindar's privileges:-" These though not ascertainable by their sunnuds, are equally to be learned as precise matters of fact from notorious usage and revolving customary forms of the year in settling the jummabundy. The first essential privilege is that by which the zemindar is entitled to stand in the place of a perpetual farmergeneral of the lawful rents claimed by Government within the circle of his jurisdiction; nor can he, or ought he, constitutionally to be deprived of any contingent emoluments proceeding from his control, during the periods of his agreements, though such should arise in concealment of the entire public resources on his part, with the corruption or ignorance of the other financial officers of the State. A second privilege annexed to the officer of zemindar is that of being made the channel of all mofussil serinjamy disbursements. A third is that of improving waste grounds, under certain limitation, to his private advantage, at least for the period of his bundobusty engagement; though not, as more recently practised, by the depopulation or fallow of other productive lands, assessed for rent to the exchequer. A fourth is that of granting pottahs for untenanted farms in the ordinary terms of an Indian leasehold, yet more or less substantially beneficial to the occupant, in proportion to the favour of his superior landholder. A fifth is the privilege of distributing internally as he pleases the burthen of abwabs or additional assessments, when levied, as in Bengal, on the ausil jumma by zemindary jurisdictions; and not specifically by pergunnahs. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 362. LECTURE IV. LECTURE IV. A sixth is that of paying his rents in money or kind, agreeable to established rules adapted to either mode, provided these obtain universally over one or more stated divisions of country. A seventh is that of adoption, or nomination of a successor to his zemindary when done in his own life-time, and not by will, with the approbation of the sovereign representative; to be confirmed by dewanny sunnuds. An eighth privilege is that of being considered to appear in the huzoor, or presence, by deputy in his proper behalf, or that of any of the ryots subordinate to his authority, unless summoned on some extraordinary occasions by a special writ applicable personally to himself. And these appear to me to be all the real privileges of a zemindar." Again he sums up their functions as " zemindars, acting permanently in one or all of the following official capacities, by virtue of sunnuds or letters patent from the high dewanny delegate of Government: viz., either as annual contracting farmers-general of the public rents; formal representatives of the peasantry; collectors of the royal proprietary revenue, entitled to a russoom or commission of five per cent. on the net receipts of the mofussil or subordinate treasuries: or as financial superintendents of a described local jurisdiction, periodically variable in extent, and denominated eantimam, trust or tenure of zemindary, talookdary or territorial servile holding in tenancy, within which however is appropriated a certain small portion of land called nancar partaking of the nature of a freehold; serving as a family subsistence to the superior landholder, to give him an attachment for the soil, and make up the Fifth Report, Vol. I, 274. remainder of his yearly stated tithe, for personal management in behalf of the State." Mr. Shore in a Minute of 8th December, 1789, says:"The most cursory observation shows the situation of things in this country to be singularly confused. The relation of a zemindar to Government and of a ryot to a zemindar is neither that of a proprietor nor a vassal, but a compound of both. The former performs acts of authority unconnected with proprietary right; the latter has rights without real property; and the property of the one and rights of the other are in a great measure held at discretion. Such was the system which we found; and which we have been under the necessity of adopting. Much time will, I fear, elapse before we can establish a system perfectly consistent in all its parts; and before we can reduce the compound relation of a zemindar to Government and of a ryot to a zemindar, to the principles of landlord and tenant." And Mr. Harington goes on to remark:-" In truth this is the principal source and origin of whatever confusion really exists in the discussions which have taken place relative to the tenures of land in India. It is by attempting to assimilate the complicated system which we found in this country with the simple principles of landlord and tenant in our own, and especially in applying to the Indian system terms of appropriate and familiar signification which do not without considerable limitation properly belong to it, that much, if not all, of the perplexity ascribed to the subject has arisen. If by the terms 'proprietor of land,' and 'actual proprietor of the soil,' be meant a landholder possessing the full rights of an English landlord or free LECTURE IV. LECTURE IV. holder in fee simple, with equal liberty to dispose of all the lands forming part of his estate, as he may think most for his own advantage; to oust his tenants, whether for life or for a term of years, on the termination of their respective leaseholds; and to advance their rents on the expiration of leases at his discretion; such a designation, it may be admitted, is not strictly and correctly applicable to a Bengal zemindar; who does not possess so unlimited a power over the khoodkasht ryots, and other descriptions of undertenants, possessing as well as himself certain rights and interests in the lands which constitute his zemindary. But Colonel Wilks, with a view to guard against this ambiguity of expression, has defined the sense in which he proposes to use the word 'proprietor' as follows: In England a proprietor of land, who farms it out to another, is generally supposed to receive as rent a value equal to about one-third of the gross produce. This proportion will vary in different countries according to circumstances; but, whatever it may be, the portion of it which remains after payment of the demands of the public may safely be described as the proprietor's share of the produce of his own land; that which remains to him after defraying all public taxes and all charges of management. Wherever we can find this share, and the person entitled to receive it, him we may without the risk of error, consider as the proprietor, and, if this right has descended to him by fixed rules from his ancestors, as the hereditary proprietor.' According to this definition, it cannot, I think, be denied that a zemindar is in a restricted sense an hereditary proprietor. His zemindary descends to his legal heirs by fixed rules of inheritance. It is also transferable by sale, gift, or bequest. And he is entitled to a certain share of the rent produce of his estate, if it be |