Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/488

 4'{0 F. G. KALE by them. controversy and the material condition the nature, incidence and a source of State income. I do not propose here to about the relation enter into the between laud rsvenue of the people and about justification of that tax as It is sufficient to point out that there is much more involved in the settlement inquiries than appears to a superficial that, for this reason, it will conduce thought. He have been so observer, and to immense benefited, as they have every year assured crop out-turns. Other cultivators, however, the vast majority, have, it can safely be said, not )enefited at all. When the cultivator has eithe no crop or a poor crop just sufficient to maintain his family as has happened in the majority of years since 1895-96, high prices confer no benefit on him. They are indeed only the index of the scantiness of crop out-turn.... Laborers are now as a class well off. But the cultivating owners of land in unirrigated villages who pay the Government assessment, are as a class in a crippled condition compared with 1895-96, owiug to the combined effects of bad seasons, scarcity and dearness of cattle and dearness of labor." (Selections from the Records of the Government of Bombay, 'D XX.--New Series). This view o! the Assistant Collector about high prices was public advantage if they are supplemented by further investigation and outside non-officials and officials are admitted to participation in the work of study. I shall give a few illustrations taken from various settlement reports published within recent years. The Assistant Collector of the Eastern Division of the Poona District writing in August, 1909, tried to establish the proposition that the high prices which had ruled in the tract under report did not benefit the bulk of the cultivators as at first sight might be observed:-"It is true th.at irrigators