Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/64

 56 PAL “The tenure of land is zamindari; there are no taluqas except fifteen villages, which were formerly in Khairigarh. "The other landowners are relatives of the Kathria Rája of Khotár, or the descendants of the men who took farming leases from the Government in 1838, and who now have become proprietors. The land was nearly all waste at that time, and these men were engaged with as the representatives of the cultivating community; the terms of their engagement seem very favourable, and they naturally gave similarly good terms to the tenants whom they represented. The system of naqshi payment was introduced namely, that the tenant paid for each harvest, and if the crop was spoiled by flood, or destroyed by the forest denizens, the tenant paid nothing. "The average rate paid by the asámi is four andas por bigha rising to six in a few villages-that is, from eight andas to twelve for the year; this becomes Re. 1-6 to Rs. 2-7 for the jaribi bigha in dufasli land, and twelve annas to Re. 1-3-6 for ekfasli. The local bigha varies in size; it is in some places 24 to the jaribi bígha, but the average is 31 among lon caste asámis. Those rants, considering the quality of the soil, situation of the pargana between two navigable rivers, and density of the population, are absurdly low, and are due to the nature of the relation betweon the landlord and tenant, which really more resembled those between state lessee and share- holders. "I have repeatedly met asámis in the fields who admitted reaping a harvest of 8-7, and never less than 5 maunds rice per bigba, and who were paying four annas rent; now taking the average of above 61 kachcha maunds of 18 sers, the whole value of the crop at 39 sers would be Rs. 3, the lambardar's share at gths would be Re. 1-1-3, and the Government share eight annas. I do not say that all land yields an average of 6 maunds; all I say is that land which admittedly does so, and which should pay rent of more than one rupee, pays only four annas, there being very little dufasli. In other villages the asámis assured me that whenever tho crop in upmanured land becomes less than five maunds of rice, they abandoned that land and dug up new. “It is also clear that the rents are low, because the wealth of the pargana lies with the asámis; their cattle, carts, jewellery, clothes, aro infinitely superior to those in the old Oudh parganas. The lambardars, on the other hand, are very poor and embarrassed; they receive a very small margin, indeed, upon the Government jama: many of them have been sold It is abundantly evident that these rents are wholly abnormal, and cannot be used as a base for the rent rates of a thirty years' settlement, during which for the first time the lambardars, who were formerly only lessees, and fettered by Act X., will be able to truat their tenants as they please : beca:ise thoy themselves are at last formally recognized as proprio- tors, and the cultivators are now formally declared by the Oudh Ront Act to be tonants-at-will. Indeed, the lambardars have already commenced to exercise their new powers--not by raising the old ronts upon the old staplos, but by imposing disproportionably high rates upon new staples. out.