Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/65

 PUBLIC REVENUE. 53 the want of a cultivator, had still cause for sa- tisfaction ; and seldom if ever interfered.'* * This principle is, if possible, still more applicable to the Indian islands than to any part of Hindustan ; for the competition of the land for cultivators is still more pressing. There is not a country of the whole Ar- chipelago, the fifth part of which is occupied, and of many the hundredth part is not in a state of cul- ture. It will constantly be found, that, in the agricultural countries which are best peopled, the cultivator is invested with the smallest power over the land, and, on the contrary, that he possesses the greatest power over it in the countries worst peopled, or where the competition for cultivators is greatest. In Celebes, in liali, and in that ill-peo- pled portion of Java called the country of the Sun- das, the cultivator is invested with a ki?id of proprie- tary right. By sufferance he can bequeath, alien- ate, or mortgage his little tenement. In the highly peopled provinces of Java, where the population be- Report of the House of Commons on Indian Atfairs, and Mi- Mill's book, both written by gentlemen who never visited India^ and the better for being so, will constitute a new era in the history of our Indian legislation, and are, at once, a proud evidence of the difl'usion of knowledge among us, and a satisfactory refutation of the pernicious prejudice that an Indian residence is indispensable to an understanding of In- dian affairs.
 * Mill's Hislory of British India. — The enlightened Fifth