Page:Earl Canning.djvu/148

Tálukdárs on the close of the Mutiny secured their ready adhesion to the cause of order, and so facilitated the tranquillisation of the country. But all this does not prove that the advocates of the territorial magnates were right, or that the supporters of the peasant interest were wrong, or that the Government had erred in its endeavour to protect the feeblest class of the population from oppression. The condition of the occupiers of the soil must, so long as Indian society remains in its present phase, be one of the principal objects of solicitude to any Government which recognises the welfare of the mass of the inhabitants, rather than the conciliation of a small and privileged class of proprietors, as the object of its existence. The system of land settlement, which is known by the name of its most distinguished advocate, Mr. Thomason, has, it is certain, contributed enormously to the well-being of the agricultural classes wherever it has been introduced. It has rescued large sections of the population from suffering and degradation; it has arrested the triumph of the high-handed oppressor; it has vindicated popular rights, which had been trampled under foot by violence, or juggled away by fraud and chicanery. Its introduction may, in some instances, render the task of government more difficult; but that which is difficult is often right; and it may none the less be the duty of an enlightened and benevolent administration to adhere to its policy of protecting the weak, and to refuse to purchase the adhesion of the strong by condoning oppression. That such a