FYZ
427
what are the profits of cultivation; the figures gi^^n in the settlement report are themselves improhable, and their error has been demonstrated by later statistics. The settlement officer reports that the gross, produce for each member of the agricultural community will average Rs. 20, of which the landlord will take two-fifths or Es. 8, and Government one-fifth or Rs. 4. At this time the regular census had not been taken a rough settlement census had been made. According to it the population was 412 to the square mile ; the actual Government demand was Rs. 3-8-0 per head of the agricultural population then counted and it was supposed to be proved that the revenue was a fair and moderate one. But in point of fact the after-census proved that the population of tahsil Dostpur, for instance, was 649 to the square mile; and it becomes evident either that the Government revenue is a very light one, or that each head of the agricultural community does not produce Rs. 20, or if he does, that he cannot spare one-fifth of it for Government. This last proposition is undoubtedly true. The landlord does get two-fifths of the produce of light unmanured lands in the shape of rent, but not of any others. We may infer that this produce of the soil is worth a good deal more than Rs. 14 per acre, as stated by the settlement officer his second calculation, Rs. 20, is probably about correct the Government revenue is only Rs. 2-0-6 per acre. It is difficult to say
Profits of cultivation,
the cultivating class are not due to the Government being too heavy, but owing to the pressure put revenue Causes of the diffiupon them by a very large number of small proprietors culties of the caltivators. and middlemen, who have now no service, and have to raise the rents in order live according to their old standard of comfort. These small zamindars will do hardly any labour for themselves ploughing they declare is contrary to their customs reaping and watering are not, still they abstain just as religiously. The trade of lonidri, or reaping for a share of the produce, receiving one-thirtieth of the sheaves, or one-sixteenth of the threshed and winnowed grain, is followed by a large class of professionals, while the owner or cultivator stands idle.
The
difficulties of
tenant's profits in this district are probably just what they are in Oudh,—just enough to pay for his labour and for the keeping up of his stock. Of recent years, owing to the rise of rent, the bad seasons, and cattle murrain, they have not reached this standard.
The
other parts of
The evidences of poverty everywhere apparent are ruined wells, which the people have not means to repair, far less to build new ones the absence of gold and silver rings from the ears and wrists of the peasants' children. Further, the children are not sent to school. In several schools examined, the children of the tenant-farmers did not form five per cent, of those on the rolls those present were the offspring of banians, braziers, holders of birts and shankalps, which are sub-proprietary tenures, and not mere farms
or leaseholds.
But an undoubted result of English order and civilization has been to give able men opportunities of rising above the masses, whatever the condition of the latter may be.
