are hurtful, as he generally supposes them to be signs of weak ness. We are anxious to see healed all the jealousies existing between the Regular and Irregular services. The officers, men, and horses of the former, are as good as those of the latter in every respect; but the discipline and organisation of Regulars fail. When that pursued in the Irregulars, and which has been proved to answer so well, is generally adopted, we shall no longer hear invidious comparisons made, no longer witness the rivalries that make each suppress the good which is to be found in the other, no longer hear that such preference is given to Irregulars, as was given by Lord Gough, and Hardinge, and Sir Charles Napier. Let any one who doubts, or wishes to confirm the truth of, our remarks, peruse the concluding chapter of Sir John Malcolm's Political History of India, headed "General Reflections on the Government of India." None have comprehended the native character better than that illustrions man, and few have had such opportunities of doing so. One extract from it will be a fitting peroration for our article. "Should any plan be suggested, by the action of which we can promise ourselves to improve and confirm the attachment of the military classes in India, and particularly of those employed in our ranks (at the same time that we accelerate the period at which they shall occupy themselves in peaceful pursuits, and become good, instead of dangerous subjects) we ought to hasten its adoption. Both the rigid principles of economy, and the usual forms of our Civil rule, should yield to the establishment of this corner stone of our strength; as, without it, the vast fabric, which has been raised with such pains, must totter to its base at every tempest with which it is assailed." ART. IV. THE LAND ASSESSMENTS OF INDIA. 1. Parliamentary Return. Revenue Survey of India, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. London, 20th August 1853. 2. Modern India, a sketch of the System of Civil Government. By GEORGE CAMPBELL, Esq., Bengal Civil Service. London, 1852. SINCE the days when the brilliant talents, unswerving resolution, inflexible and determined tenacity of purpose, possessed and exercised by Clive and Warren Hastings, had confirmed and consolidated our power and possessions in the East, in fact had permanently directed its chief streams of wealth into our coffers, no question has engaged a moiety of the interest, consideration, and discussion bestowed on the subject of our present article. On no one subject does there exist as much diversity of opinion; on no one subject are the arguments on either side apparently so equally conclusive; but at the same time we are bound to admit, that on no one subject of such pressing and vital interest, and on which opinions are so diametrically opposed, have the views held on all sides been more liberally and diffidently enunciated. We speak here, of course, broadly and generally, and principally of the great exponents of the various systems propounded, of Mr. Holt Mackenzie, of Mr. Bird, of Sir Thomas Munro, of Captain Wingate, of the ever-to-be-lamented Mr. Goldsmid. These are the wise men who have written and pondered, who have sifted and re-sifted the subject; who have weighed all conflicting evidence in the balance of a judgment, rendered acutely sensitive and critical by intelligent observation and unbending perseverance. The task before us is, to trace out and develope these various views, for which purpose the materials we have selected are tolerably ample; and finally, with the aid of such light as we may discover during the course of our examination, to point out the errors and deficiencies in each. The subject of Land Revenue, as relating both to the various nature of tenures, as well as to the method and amount of its collections, is, we believe, by no means generally understood. A knowledge of a peculiar local system may not be wanting; but a comprehensive idea of the various systems, equally numerous and diversified, prevailing over the entire continent, is far from universal. Nor is this to be wondered at, for the subject cannot be considered simple; its details, indeed, are most complicated; and the only sources of information, apart from actual observation and experience, are the official records of Government, and the Parliamentary Papers, the title of which is placed at the head of this article; neither the one nor the other are sufficiently succinct or condensed to offer much inducement to perusal. And here we cannot refrain from expressing our deep conviction of the vast benefits likely to accrue from the plan Government has recently adopted of publishing selections from its records. Any one almost may now acquire with comparative ease a very tolerable acquaintance with most of the important operations progressing throughout the presidency; or he may learn the condition and prospects, the statistics and peculiarities, of any of the Collectorates or dependencies of Bombay. This indeed is a great and important step, even in this age of great reforms and great improvements,-a boon not only to be highly estimated by the community at large, but in itself a great addition of strength to Government. There is not, there cannot be, a question but that our Governmentwe speak in the generic term of an English Government-is in every proceeding, from every point of view, the most straightforward and honorable Government which the world can produce; we say it in no spirit of self-complacency, but feel convinced that the heads of our Government, as English gentlemen in the true sense of the term, are incapable of individually doing that which is deliberately dishonorable. Only the injudicious, almost inane, practice of secresy and monopoly of information has so frequently induced unreflecting and precipitate men to accuse Government, as a body, of acts and proceedings, of which they would have considered them incapable as individuals of acts and proceedings, the perfect integrity and uprightness of which would have been established at once, without cavil, without doubt, without one uneasy suspicion, had a reasonable publicity been afforded to their necessitating causes. The age for extended publicity, for free discussion, for communicating freely to the people at large the whys and the wherefores of Government, for explaining fully and explicitly the causa, as well as the modus operandi, in every important action, has long arrived. It had arrived in Lord Metcalfe's time; he felt the urgent pressure of the necessity; he appreciated the importance of the movement; and seizing the opportunity which fortuitous circumstances had, for a few short months, placed in his hands, he took the first great initiatory step, and liberated the press. The mission of that press in India is, we must think, of high importance; its capabilities for diffusing the most valuable information, Importance of publicity. 89 its usefulness as a medium for the prosecution of free and instructive discussion, its powerful voice for the exposure of injury, injustice, and wrong cannot be too highly appreciated. For the successful and legitimate attainment of this great object many of our Indian newspapers have labored steadfastly, and with a zeal and intelligent perseverance, well worthy of so noble an end; and although we are compelled to deplore that some portions of the press have fallen into hands, which, by their low malevolence and personal scurrility, have assisted in degrading the status of the fourth estate, still we think that Mr. George Campbell is guilty of no small injustice, and exhibits no small want of discrimination, when he stigmatises the entire Indian press in the following terms: "It is certain that the Indian press has become unscrupulous beyond all precedent, and extremely false and libellous; and that it is only tolerable, because most of the papers have rendered themselves discredited and contemptible." Highly appreciating, as we do, the boon conferred on the community by the publication of selections from Government records, we are still of opinion that one step remains yet to be taken, before the liberality of Government fully accomplishes its full purpose. We consider that the value of these publications would be most materially enhanced, if readable epitomes of their contents were attached to them. We much fear that, in their present form, they are regarded by the majority of Government officers, who do not happen to be immediately interested or mixed up with their subjects, in the same light as a parliamentary blue-book, into which every letter or paper, relating to the question under discussion, is thrust with no other arrangement than a strict chronological order. The consequence is, that these selections, replete indeed as they are with valuable information, are read only by a comparative few; and thus the sphere of their usefulness becomes considerably circumscribed. Such an analysis, as we propose, would be a matter of easy accomplishment, and would be cheerfully undertaken, we are confident, by the original compiler of the Report, or by any one of the persons principally concerned in it. Numbers would read the epitome gladly, who now regard the voluminous selections with distaste; an interest in the subject, and a desire to become acquainted with more minute details, would be excited. But to return from our digression. The Moghuls, to whose empire and institutions we very generally succeeded throughout India, seem to us, in many prominent points, to have closely resembled the Normans in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The aristocratical element was the basis of their entire political system; but they differed from the Normans in the important particular that they recognised no hereditary aristocracy. Rank was the result of official VOL. II.-NO. I. 12 position, and of that alone; and official position was dependant on the will and power of the sovereign. The appointment of Viceroys to the largest divisions, called Soubahs, emanated entirely from Delhi, the head quarters of the empire; the Viceroys themselves, residing generally in the chief towns of their principalities, appointed in their turn Kardars, or Karbaries, for the management of the subdivisions called Purgunnahs, containing from two to three hundred villages. These Karbaries were invariably men of importance, wealth and consideration; their powers were very considerable, as their functions included an almost irresponsible jurisdiction, fiscal as well as judicial, over their respective districts-powers, indeed, very much more considerable than those exercised in the present day by ordinary collectors. The only officers under the Moghuls, whose hereditary succession to office seems at all to have been tolerated, were the district Zemeendars, and the Canoongoes; and these officers are recognised by us to the present day, under the designation of Deshmooks and Deshpandelis. A Canoongoe, or Deshpandeh, is simply a district or purgunnah accountant; his duties were to receive and examine the Zeineendar's annual statement, to check his errors, intentional or otherwise, to press him for arrears, and eventually to place his accounts, in a clear and satisfactory form, before the Kardar, who, satisfying himself as to their correctness, forwarded them to the dufter of the Viceroy; where, if subjected to a favorable audit, depending in its nature on the extent of bribery employed, they were endorsed as "passed," and the amount placed to his credit in the account-current. We imagine that few terms have been more misunderstood, or misapplied, than the term "Zemeendar." It conveys precisely the original idea intended, unmistakably pointing out what was really the office of the person signified. The word "Zemeen" means land, and the affix" dar" one who manages or takes charge of any thing; and this exactly explains the duties and functions of a Zemeendar, properly so called; in fact, he was simply a supervisor; he was no more a proprietor of the district he supervised, than was the Canoongoe who checked its accounts. The remuneration of both these officers was regulated almost entirely by a fixed per centage on the collections; the amount of this per centage varied of course considerably; but the average was collectively about 5 per cent, in the proportions of 3 to the Zemeendar, and 2 to the Canoongoe. Under a native rule, however, it may easily be conceived that the Zemeendar, acting as the immediate tax-gatherer of so large a district, and having yearly two or three lacs of rupees passing through his hands, became very shortly a man of almost unlimited influence and extensive property; and the consequence was, that when the weakness of approaching dissolution paralysed, in a measure, |