India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    458/552 page 428
    the district just mentioned, have an area of 2400 square miles, a population of more than 750,000, and a rental exceeding £130,000 a year. The increase in the net rental of the zemindars of North Behar in the last three generations has been immense. At the time of the Permanent Settlement it was about £3000, and in 1893, a hundred years later, it wTas about £2,400,000, or eighty times greater.1 If the intentions of the framers of the Settlement had been carried out, the larger part of this vast sum would have been in the possession of the unfortunate peasants whose rights have been swept away. Happily, the condition of the agricultural population in the greater part of Bengal is much better than in Behar; the necessity for their protection was urgent, but they were not reduced to !a condition such as that common in Behar; climatic conditions are such that the productive powers of the land are not precarious, and they live, as a rule, in reasonable comfort. The discussion of the measures required for placing the law of landlord and tenant throughout Bengal on a better footing continued for many years. In 1885 the “ Bengal Tenancy Act ” was passed by the Governor- General in Council, mainly with the view of benefiting the tenantry of Behar. I will not attempt to describe all its provisions, but its value cannot be doubted. It aimed at giving protection to the ryots without inter- fering with the rights of landlords. It defined the position of the various classes of landlords and tenants, the incidents of the various tenures, the conditions under which rights of occupancy in the land could be acquired and maintained, the manner in which rents were to be 1 “Minute by Sir Antony MacDonnell, Officiating Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 21st September 1893.”
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