survey was to be professionally made for every one of the 50,000 parishes or townships in the area, to show all the physical features with the acreage of cultivated and waste land. This was to be followed up by a cadastral survey of every field with its acreage measurement, after the native fashion, and with full particulars of its soil, culture and capabilities. Upon the data thus obtained, and after consideration of all the agricultural information that could reasonably be desired, together with the circumstances and history of the inhabitants,— the land tax was to be assessed and fixed on each parish or township for a term of thirty years, so moderately and equitably as to leave to the tax-payers and proprietors a margin sufficient to make their property valuable; on the understanding, too, that within the term they would have the full benefit of all improvements. The taxation thus to be assessed amounted to about four millions sterling annually[1]; the rural population concerned or affected was about twenty millions of souls in number. To all this was to be added a registration of landed tenures with a record of all rights and interests in land.
The man on whom the chief command of this vast operation devolved was Bird, already mentioned as Member of the Revenue Board. It is needful to advert to him here, because he was the forerunner into whose labours Thomason entered; the pioneer, the originator,
- ↑ Taken at the value of two shillings to the rupee, as it was always assumed and as it was at that time.
