at the Kacherí. Lands were measured and remeasured. Summary suits for the realisation of rents due in the year were followed by formidable regular suits brought to raise the old rent to the standard of the neighbourhood. In fact, by the machinery of the Courts and by pressure out of doors, a general all-round rise in rents was effected. In one district in Eastern Bengal the tenants were so distrustful of receipts and quittances given by agents, that they almost made it a rule to wait for the institution of a summary suit, when they at once paid the money into Court.
At other times it was not very easy to apportion the blame between a high-handed landlord and a defiant or obstructive Ryot. All that can be affirmed with absolute certainty is that no Ryots theoretically[1] ever objected to pay rent: that they combined equally for legitimate as for unlawful purposes: and that in the end it became the duty of the Government to interfere for their protection. And this eventually resulted in the well-known Act X of 1859. In the interim, the statutory provisions regarding the speedy realisation of rents were amended. The Preamble to Reg. V of 1812, passed in the administration of Lord Minto, is somewhat in the nature of an indictment against the Zamíndárs. There were grounds, it was deliberately said, for believing that this class had
- ↑ One exception may be made in the case of the Farází sect of Musalmáns in Eastern Bengal, who have at times propounded a theory that Hindus or infidels were not entitled to rent at all.
