Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/66

 54t PUBLIC REVENUE. gins already to press on the good land, the culti- vator exercises no such risrhts over the soil, and I hardly know any privilege which he possesses in regard to it, except the liberty of abandoning it. Under governments so arbitrary as those of the Indian islands, it would be idle to speak of a pri- vate right of property in the soil, — the most tangi- ble of all sources of revenue, and that most inva- riably within the grasp of an absolute sovereign. A bare establishment of the amount of the peasant's tenement, which never exceeds the little spot which he and his family are capable of labouring with their own hands, and which never increases or accumu^ lates beyond it, is quite conclusive on this subject. Had an actual right of property existed, we should, without doubt, find estates of some magnitude in private hands, accumulated by industry, or acquir- ed by violence. No such estates are found to exist. The unbounded influence of arbitrary power ob- literates all private or minor rights. With all the rudeness, barbarism, and despotism which characterize the governments of the Indian islands, the condition of the peasant or cultivator is perhaps, upon the whole, more fortunate than in any other country of the east. This advantage arises mainly from two causes, — the competition for cultivators and for labour in general, in countries where an extraordinary quantity of good land is still unoccupied, — and the habits and character of