Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/52

HAR The yeonen proprietors ; their difficulties. — The body of yeomen pro- prietors in Hardoi is sensibly diminishing; the rains are more precarious there than in most parts of Oudh; what was only scarcity in the province became famine in Hardoi in 1865 and 1869; the proprietors find it difficult to collect rents and pay the land tax. Under any circumstances, it is almost impossible for a body of small proprietors whose lands are intermingled to abstain from quarrelling, and when once litigation commences it is almost certain that whoever is worsted will mortgage and ultimately sell his few ancestral acres. In fact it is almost impossible that the majority of these communities of proprietors will survive ; they could resist the storms of oppression from without, but internal dissensions and discord commence at once when they have received from the justice and moderation of the Bri- tish Government a fixed and definite property. One-nineteenth of the entire property in Hardoi was transferred from the hands of the yeomen proprietors during the year 1871, and was mostly purchased by bankers and baniáns, sugar-boilers, usurers, distillers, and skin-dealers—men of little political power or value to the state. The difficulty which attends any effort to improve the circumstances of the Oudh military class is a com- plex one. On the one hands it is considered undesirable in a military sense to increase the high caste element at present in the army, lest it return to the state of things which preceded and brought on the mutiny of 1857. It is no longer an object of ambition to place Brahmans and Chhattris side by side in a regiment of tall and stately Pándes, from which all low castes are to be excluded. Further, it would be an advantage gra- dually to wean the fighting yeomanry from their ancient pursuits, and in- duce them to beat their swords into ploughshares ; their caste pride now forbids them to plough with their own hands, and it would only encourage such folly if military service were kept before them as an employment, to which all or many of them could aspire. On the other hand, if they are granted any favours, not personal, anything in the shape of a low assess- ment upon their lands, it is difficult to hinder them from selling the lands, and nothing is gained by transferring the favour to others for whom it is not intended. Distinctions of this kind are also regarded as invidious and unfair by other classes, who urge that there is no reason why they should be taxed more heavily because they are industrious and willing to labour with their hands. This is very true, and yet something apparently must be done. There are 21,000 recorded proprietors of land, nearly all high caste Brahmans and Chhattris, in Hardoi alone; there are 14,000 in Lucknow; altogether there are at least 100,000 adult male proprietors of patches of land varying in size from 10 acres to 200. The vast majority of these have less than 50 acres each, the average* is about 22 acres. It is not desirable to withdraw men of this class from their field and make soldiers of them, it is very difficult to lower the Government demand upon their lands; yet, unless something is done, many out of this enormous body of pauper yeomen will lose the one bond which unites them to the state, will see their ancestral acres pass into the hands of men whose birth and profession they scorn, See article Rae Bareli,