Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/76

CA public revenue. than another. This is so universally felt by them- selves, that to insist upon it were unnecessary. The sovereign's right to the soil, with the reservation of a land-tax, should then be sold to the highest bidder. This would place the proprietary right where it ought to be, in the hands of men of in- fluence and property. The competition for the first sales of such lands as are in the actual occu- pation of the natives should be confined to them, but all future sales ought to be unrestricted. This regulation would obviate the inconveniences which mifTfht arise from too sudden a transition of rio;hts into the hands of unpractised and inexperienced stranf2;ers, but secure eventually the wholesome and familiar admixture of the different races, the only means of reconciling them to each other, and com- municating to the least improved the intelligence and information of the most civilized. The com- petition for unoccupied land should be general. Such lands would, of course, fall chiefly into the hands of strangers whose capitals and industry, notwithstanding the inferior fertility of their pos- sessions, would place them on some equality with the natives. As an encouragement to the clear- ing and cultivation of such lands, they ought to be, according to circumstances, exempted from taxa- tion for a period of ten, twenty, or thirty years. The extent of the lots exposed to sale would ne- cessarily be regulated, in a good measure, by their