Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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To understand the nature of taxation in India, an Englishman should
suppose that all the non-farming landholders of his native country
had, a century or two ago, consented to resign their property into
the hands of their sovereign, for the maintenance of his civil
functionaries, army, navy, church, and public creditors, and then
suddenly disappeared from the community, leaving to till the lands
merely the farmers and cultivators; and that their forty millions of
rent were just the sum that the Government now required to pay all
these four great establishments.[4]

To understand the nature of the public debt of England a man has only
to suppose one great national establishment, twice as large as those
of the civil functionaries, the Army, Navy, and the Church together,
and composed of members with fixed salaries, who purchased their
commissions from _the wisdom of our ancestors_, with liberty to sell
them to whom they please--who have no duty to perform for the
public,[5] and have, like Adam and Eve, the privilege of going to
'seek their place of rest' in what part of the world they please--a
privilege of which they will, of course, be found more and more
anxious to avail themselves as taxation presses on the one side, and
prohibition to the import of the necessaries of life diminishes the
means of paying them on the other.

The repeal of the Corn Laws may give a new lift to England; it may
greatly increase the foreign demand for the produce of its
manufacturing industry; it may invite back a large portion of those
who now spend their incomes in foreign countries, and prevent from
going abroad to reside a vast number who would otherwise go. These
laws must soon be repealed, or England must reduce one or other of
its great establishments--the National Debt, the Church, the Army, or
the Navy. The Corn Laws press upon England just in the same manner as
the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope
pressed upon Venice and the other states whose welfare depended upon
the transit of the produce of India by land. But the navigation of
the Cape benefited all other European nations at the same time that
it pressed upon these particular states, by giving them all the
produce of India at cheaper rates than they would otherwise have got
it, and by opening the markets of India to the produce of all other
European nations. The Corn Laws benefit only one small section of the
people of England, while they weigh, like an incubus, upon the vital
energies of all the rest; and at the same time injure all other
nations by preventing their getting the produce of manufacturing
industry so cheap as they would otherwise get it. They have not,
therefore, the merit of benefiting other nations, at the same time
that they crush their own.[6]

For some twenty or thirty years of our rule, too many of the
collectors of our land revenue in what we call the Western
Provinces,[7] sought the 'bubble reputation' in an increase of
assessment upon the lands of their district every five years when the
settlement was renewed. The more the assessment was increased, the
greater was the praise bestowed upon the collector by the revenue
boards, or the revenue secretary to Government, in the name of the
Governor-General of India.[8] These collectors found an easy mode of
acquiring this reputation--they left the settlements to their native
officers, and shut their ears to all complaints of grievances, till
they had reduced all the landholders of their districts to one common
level of beggary, without stock, character, or credit; and
transferred a great portion of their estates to the native officers
of their own courts through the medium of the auction sales that took
place for the arrears, or pretended arrears, of revenue. A better
feeling has for some years past prevailed, and collectors have sought
their reputation in a real knowledge of their duties, and real good
feeling towards the farmers and cultivators of their districts. For
this better tone of feeling the Western Provinces are, I believe,
chiefly indebted to Mr. R. M. Bird, of the Revenue Board, one of the
most able public officers now in India. A settlement for twenty years
is now in progress that will leave the farmers at least 35 per cent.
upon the gross collections from the immediate cultivators of the
soil; that is, the amount of the revenue demandable by Government
from the estate will be that less than what the farmer will, and
would, under any circumstances, levy from the cultivators in his
detailed settlement.[9]

The farmer lets all the land of his estate out to cultivators, and
takes in money this rate of profit for his expense, trouble, and
risk; or he lets out to the cultivators enough to pay the Government
demand, and tills the rest with his own stock, rent-free. When a
division takes place between his sons, they either divide the estate,
and become each responsible for his particular share, or they divide
the profits, and remain collectively responsible to Government for
the whole, leaving one member of the family registered as the lessee
and responsible head.[10]

In the Ryotwar System of Southern India, Government officers,
removable at the pleasure of the Government collector, are
substituted for these farmers, or more properly proprietors, of
estates; and a System more prejudicial to the best interests of
society could not well be devised by the ingenuity of man.[11] It has
been supposed by some theorists, who are practically unacquainted
with agriculture in this or any other country, that all who have any
interest in land above the rank of cultivator or ploughman are mere
_drones_, or useless consumers of that rent which, under judicious
management, might be added to the revenues of Government--that all
which they get might, and ought to be, either left with the
cultivators or taken by the Government. At the head of these is the
justly celebrated historian, Mr. Mill. But men who understand the
subject practically know that the intermediate agency of a farmer,
who has a permanent interest in the estate, or an interest for a long
period, is a thousand times better both for the Government and the
people than that of a Government officer of any description, much
less that of one removable at the pleasure of the collector.
Government can always get more revenue from a village under the
management of the farmer; the character of the cultivators and
village community generally is much better; the tillage is much
better; and the produce, from more careful weeding and attention of
all kinds, sells much better in the market. The better character of
the cultivators enables them to get the loans they require to
purchase stock, and to pay the Government demand on more moderate
terms from the capitalists, who rely upon the farmer to aid in the
recovery of their outlays, without reference to civil courts, which
are ruinous media, as well in India as in other places. The farmer or
landlord finds in the same manner that he can get much more from
lands let out on lease to the cultivators or yeomen, who depend upon
their own character, credit, and stock, than he can from similar
lands cultivated with his own stock; and hired labourers can never be
got to labour either so long or so well. The labour of the Indian
cultivating lessee is always applied in the proper quantity, and at
the proper time and place--that of the hired field-labourer hardly
ever is. The skilful coachmaker always puts on the precise quantity
of iron required to make his coach strong, because he knows where it
is required; his coach is, at the same time, as light as it can be
with safety. The unskilful workman either puts on too much, and makes
his coach heavy; or he puts it in the wrong place, and leaves it
weak.

If government extends the twenty years' settlement now in progress to
fifty years or more, they will confer a great blessing upon the
people[12] and they might, perhaps, do it on the condition that the
incumbent consented to allow the lease to descend undivided to his
heirs by the laws of primogeniture. To this condition all classes
would readily agree, for I have heard Hindoo and Muhammadan
landholders all equally lament the evil effects of the laws by which
families are so quickly and inevitably broken up; and say that 'it is
the duty of government to take advantage of their power as the great
proprietor and leaser of all the lands to prevent the evil by
declaring leases indivisible. 'There would then', they say, 'be
always one head to assist in maintaining the widows and orphans of
deceased members, in educating his brothers and nephews; and by his
influence and respectability procuring employment for them.' In such
men, with feelings of permanent interest in their estates, and in the
stability of the government that secured them possession on such
favourable terms, and with the means of educating their children, we
should by and by find our best support, and society its best element.
The law of primogeniture at present prevails only where it is most
mischievous under our rule, among the feudal chiefs, whose ancestors
rose to distinction and acquired their possessions by rapine in times
of invasion and civil wars. This law among them tends to perpetuate
the desire to maintain those military establishments by which the
founders of their families arose, in the hope that the times of
invasion and civil wars may return and open for them a similar field
for exertion. It fosters a class of powerful men, essentially and
irredeemably opposed in feeling, not only to our rule, but to settled
government under any rule; and the sooner the Hindoo law of
inheritance is allowed by the paramount power to take its course
among these feudal chiefs, the better for society. There is always a
strong tendency to it in the desire of the younger brothers to share
in the loaves and fishes; and this tendency is checked only by the
injudicious interposition of our authority.[13]

To give India the advantage of free institutions, or all the
blessings of which she is capable under an enlightened paternal
government, nothing is more essential than the supersession of this
feudal aristocracy by one founded upon other bases, and, above all,
upon that of the concentration of capital in commerce and
manufactures. Nothing tends so much to prevent the accumulation and
concentration of capital over India as this feudal aristocracy which
tends everywhere to destroy that feeling of security without which
men will nowhere accumulate and concentrate it. They do so, not only
by the intrigues and combinations against the paramount power, which
keep alive the dread of internal wars and foreign invasion, but by
those gangs of robbers and murderers which they foster and locate
upon their estates to prey upon the more favoured or better governed
territories around them. From those gangs of freebooters who are to
be found upon the estate of almost every native chief, no
accumulation of movable property of any value is ever for a moment
considered safe, and those who happen to have any such are always in
dread of losing, not only their property, but their lives along with
it, for these gangs, secure in the protection of such chief, are
reckless in their attack, and kill all who happen to come in their
way.[14]

Notes:

1. This phrase is meant to include America.

2. Money-lenders naturally have flourished daring the long period of
internal peace since the Mutiny. They vary in wealth and position
from the humblest 'gombeen man' to the millionaire banker. Many of
these money-lenders are now among the largest owners of land in the
country. Under native rule interests in land were generally too
precarious to be saleable. The author did not foresee that the growth
of private property in land would carry with it the right and desire
of one party to sell and of another to buy, and would thus favour the
growth of large estates, and, to a considerable extent, counteract
the evils of subdivision. Of course, like everything else, the large
estates have their evils too. Much nonsense is written about sales of
land in India, as well as in Ireland. The two countries have more
than the initial letter in common.

3. Theorists declare that it is right that the tax-payers should know
what is taken from them, and that, therefore, direct taxes are best;
but practical men who have to govern ignorant and suspicious races,
resentful of direct taxation, know that indirect taxation is, for
such people, the best.

4. This illustration would give a very false idea of modern Indian
finance.

5. They have no duty to perform as creditors; but as citizens of an
enlightened nation they no doubt perform many of them, very important
ones. [W. H. S.] The author's whimsical comparison between
stockholders and Adam and Eve, and his notion that the creditors of
the nation may be regarded as officials without duties, only obscure
a simple matter. The emigration of owners of Consols never assumed
very alarming dimensions.

6. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, and the shilling duty which
was then left was abolished in 1869. Considering that the author
belonged to a land-owning family, his clear perception of the evils
caused by the Corn Laws is remarkable.

7. By the 'Western Provinces' the author means the region called
later the North-Western Provinces, and now known as the Agra Province
in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, with the Delhi Territories,
which latter are now partly under the Government of the Panjab, and
partly in the new small Province, or Chief Commissionership of Delhi.

8. At the time referred to, the provincial Government had not been
constituted.

9. Fifty per cent. may be considered as the average rate left to the
lessees or proprietors of estates under this new settlement; and, if
they take on an average one-third of the gross produce, Government
takes two-ninths. But we may rate the Government share of the produce
actually taken at one-fifth as the maximum, and one-tenth as the
minimum. [W. H. S.]

It is unfortunately true that in the short-term settlements made
previous to 1833 many abuses of the kinds referred to in the text
occurred. The traditions of the people and the old records attest
numerous instances. The first serious attempt to reform the system of
revenue settlements was made by Regulation VII of 1822, but, owing to
an excessive elaboration of procedure, the attempt produced no
appreciable results. Regulation IX of 1833 established a workable
system, and provided for the appointment of Indian Deputy Collectors
with adequate powers. The settlements of the North-Western Provinces
made under this Regulation were, for the most part, reasonably fair,
and were generally confirmed for a period of thirty years. Mr. Robert
Mertins Bird, who entered the service in 1805, and died in 1853, took
a leading part in this great reform. When the next settlements were
made, between 1860 and 1880, the share of the profit rental claimed
by the State was reduced from two-thirds to one-half. Full details
will be found in the editor's _Settlement Officer's Manual for the N.
W. P._ (Allahabad, 1882), or in Baden Powell's big book, _Land
Systems of British India_ (Clarendon Press, 1892).

10. Since 1833 the people whom the author calls 'farmers' have
gradually become fall proprietors, subject to the Government lien on
the land and its produce for the land revenue. For many years past
the ancient custom of joint ownership and collective responsibility
has been losing ground. Partitions are now continually demanded, and
every year collective responsibility is becoming more unpopular and
more difficult to enforce.

11. This judgement, I need hardly say, would not be accepted in
Madras or Bombay. The issue raised is too large for discussion in
footnotes.

12. The advantages of very long terms of settlements are obvious; the
disadvantages, though equally real, are less obvious. Fluctuations in
prices, and above all, in the price of silver, are among the many
conditions which complicate the question. Except the Bengal
landowners, most people now admit that the Permanent Settlement of
Bengal in 1793 was a grievous mistake. It is also admitted that the
mistake is irrevocable.

13. These two suggestions of the author that the law of primogeniture
should be established to regulate the succession to ordinary estates,
and that it should be abolished in the case of chieftainships, where
it already prevails, are obviously open to criticism. It seems
sufficient to say that both recommendations are, for many reasons,
altogether impracticable. In passing, I may note that the term
'feudal' does not express with any approach to correctness the
relation of the Native States to the Government of India.

14. The evils described in this paragraph, though diminished, have
not disappeared. Nevertheless, no one would now seriously propose the
deliberate supersession of the existing aristocracy by rich merchants
and manufacturers. The proposal is too fanciful for discussion.
During the long period of peace merchants and manufacturers have
naturally risen to a position much more prominent than they occupied
in the author's time.

CHAPTER 73

Meerut--Anglo-Indian Society.

Meerut is a large station for military and civil establishments; it
is the residence of a civil commissioner, a judge, a magistrate, a
collector of land revenue, and all their assistants and
establishments. There are the Major-General commanding the division;
the Brigadier commanding the station; four troops of horse and a
company of foot artillery; one regiment of European cavalry, one of
European infantry, one of native cavalry, and three of native
infantry.[1] It is justly considered the healthiest station in India,
for both Europeans and natives,[2] and I visited it in the latter end
of the cold, which is the healthiest, season of the year; yet the
European ladies were looking as if they had all come out of their
graves, and talking of the necessity of going off to the mountains to
renovate, as soon as the hot weather should set in. They had
literally been fagging themselves to death with gaiety, at this the
gayest and most delightful of all Indian stations, during the cold
months when they ought to have been laying in a store of strength to
carry them through the trying seasons of the hot winds and rains. Up
every night and all night at balls and suppers, they could never go
out to breathe the fresh air of the morning; and were looking
wretchedly ill, while the European soldiers from the barracks seemed
as fresh as if they had never left their native land. There is no
doubt that sitting up late at night is extremely prejudicial to the
health of Europeans in India.[3] I have never seen the European, male
or female, that could stand it long, however temperate in habits; and
an old friend of mine once told me that if he went to bed a little
exhilarated every night at ten o'clock, and took his ride in the
morning, he found himself much better than if he sat up till twelve
or one o'clock without drinking, and lay abed in the mornings. Almost
all the gay pleasures of India are enjoyed at night, and as ladies
here, as everywhere else in Christian societies, are the life and
soul of all good parties, as of all good novels, they often to oblige
others sit up late, much against their own inclinations, and even
their judgements, aware as they are that they are gradually sinking
under the undue exertions.

When I first came to India there were a few ladies of the old school
still much looked up to in Calcutta, and among the rest the
grandmother of the Earl of Liverpool, the old Begam Johnstone, then
between seventy and eighty years of age.[4] All these old ladies
prided themselves upon keeping up old usages. They use to dine in the
afternoon at four or five o'clock--take their airing after dinner in
their carriages; and from the time they returned till ten at night
their houses were lit up in their best style and thrown open for the
reception of visitors. All who were on visiting terms came at this
time, with any strangers whom they wished to introduce, and enjoyed
each other's society; there were music and dancing for the young, and
cards for the old, when the party assembled happened to be large
enough; and a few who had been previously invited stayed supper. I
often visited the old Begam Johnstone at this hour, and met at her
house the first people in the country, for all people, including the
Governor-General himself, delighted to honour this old lady, the
widow of a Governor-General of India, and the mother-in-law of a
Prime Minister of England.[5] She was at Murshidabad when Siraj-ud-
daula marched from that place at the head of the army that took and
plundered Calcutta, and caused so many Europeans to perish in the
Black Hole; and she was herself saved from becoming a member of his
seraglio, or perishing with the lest, by the circumstance of her
being far gone in her pregnancy, which caused her to be made over to
a Dutch factory.[6]

She had been a very beautiful woman, and had been several times
married; the pictures of all her husbands being hung round her noble
drawing-room in Calcutta, covered during the day with crimson cloth
to save them from the dust, and uncovered at night only on particular
occasions. One evening Mrs. Crommelin, a friend of mine, pointing to
one of them, asked the old lady his name. 'Really, I cannot at this
moment tell you, my dear; my memory is very bad,' (striking her
forehead with her right hand, as she leaned with her left arm in Mrs.
Crommelin's,) 'but I shall recollect in a few minutes.' The old
lady's last husband was a clergyman, Mr. Johnstone, whom she found
too gay, and persuaded to go home upon an annuity of eight hundred a
year, which she settled upon him for life. The bulk of her fortune
went to Lord Liverpool; the rest to her grandchildren, the Ricketts,
Watts, and others.

Since those days the modes of intercourse in India have much altered.
Society at all the stations beyond the three capitals of Calcutta,
Madras, and Bombay, is confined almost exclusively to the members of
the civil and military services, who seldom remain long at the same
station--the military officers hardly ever more than three years, and
the civil hardly ever so long. At disagreeable stations the civil
servants seldom remain so many months. Every newcomer calls in the
forenoon upon all that are at the station when he arrives, and they
return his call at the same hour soon after. If he is a married man,
the married men upon whom he has called take their wives to call upon
his; and he takes his to return the call of theirs. These calls are
all indispensable; and being made in the forenoon, become very
disagreeable in the hot season; all complain of them, yet no one
forgoes his claim upon them; and till the claim is fulfilled, people
will not recognize each other as acquaintances.[7] Unmarried officers
generally dine in the evening, because it is a more convenient hour
for the mess; and married civil functionaries do the same, because it
is more convenient for their office work. If you invite those who
dine at that hour to spend the evening with you, you must invite them
to dinner, even in the hot weather; and if they invite you, it is to
dinner. This makes intercourse somewhat heavy at all times, but more
especially so in the hot season, when a table covered with animal
food is sickening to any person without a keen appetite, and
stupefying to those who have it. No one thinks of inviting people to
a dinner and ball--it would be vandalism; and when you invite them,
as is always the case, to come after dinner, the ball never begins
till late at night, and seldom ends till late in the morning. With
all its disadvantages, however, I think dining in the evening much
better for those who are in health, than dining in the afternoon,
provided people can avoid the intermediate meal of tiffin. No person
in India should eat animal food more than once a day; and people who
dine in the evening generally eat less than they would if they dined
in the afternoon. A light breakfast at nine; biscuit, or a slice of
toast with a glass of water, or soda-water, at two o'clock, and
dinner after the evening exercise, is the plan which I should
recommend every European to adopt as the most agreeable.[8] When
their digestive powers get out of order, people must do as the
doctors tell them.

There is, I believe, no society in which there is more real urbanity
of manners than in that of India--a more general disposition on the
part of its different members to sacrifice their own comforts and
conveniences to those of others, and to make those around them happy,
without letting them see that it costs them an effort to do so.[9]
There is assuredly no society where the members are more generally
free from those corroding cares and anxieties which 'weigh upon the
hearts' of men whose incomes are precarious, and position in the
world uncertain. They receive their salaries on a certain day every
month, whatever may be the state of the seasons or of trade; they pay
no taxes; they rise in the several services by rotation;[10]
religious feelings and opinions are by common consent left as a
question between man and his Maker; no one ever thinks of questioning
another about them, nor would he be tolerated if he did so. Most
people take it for granted that those which they got from their
parents were the right ones; and as such they cherish them. They
remember with feelings of filial piety the prayers which they in
their infancy offered to their Maker, while kneeling by the side of
their mothers; and they continue to offer them up through life, with
the same feelings and the same hopes.[11]