Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/47

the cultivating communities of the North-Western Provinces get the Great Charter of their Rights—Regulation IX of 1833. But the district officers had become alive to the real conditions of land tenure and to the magnitude of the injury that had been done. Commissioners bad been appointed in 1821 to inquire into all the transfers of property that had taken place during the first decade of our rule in the North-West: and in 1822 the famous Regulation VII was framed, by which at least the sound principle was affirmed. Unluckily the machinery was not provided for the immense operation contemplated, and during Lord Amherst's whole term of rule, in spite of strenuous efforts on the part of the district officers, little advance was made—except, as we have remarked, in the development of opinion. But that was no trifling gain. It was not till 1859 that the tenants, as distinguished from owners, received adequate legal protection. But no reform could make the crooked wholly straight, or efface from the minds of the people the painful recollection of the injuries which British rule in the first instance brought in its train. These, it must be remembered, are the things which make up the history of India for the people of India. The annals of the country are the annals of each district and each village, and no attempt to sketch the events of a Governor-Generalship would be faithful if it did not allude, however superficially, to the cares which oppressed the consciences of these who were in contact with the local realities of life.