Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/471

 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL SEPTEMBER, 1891 LAND REVENUE IN MADRAS 'IHz whole subject of Land Revenue in India is vast and not compressible; land tenures, the proportion of the gross produce enjoyed as rent, the proportion of rent which the State secures for public uses, vary infinitely even in parts of the same province. I hope to indicate a few points of interest arising in the course of s brief consideration of a part of the history of the Land Revenue liable to periodical readjustment in the presidency of Madras.  Such revenue is levied upon five-sevenths of the lands tilled in that presidency, and the holdings average seven and a half acres in extent and exceed two and a half millions in number. The fathers of Madras Land Revenue administration found the farmers organized in village communities, averse from migra- tion, tilling the village lands in severairy, enjoying in common the pasture upon fallow and stubble, the fodder, fuel and timber furnished by the waste. The ruling power enjoyed a share of the produce, generally more than Pharaoh's fifth. Manu allows one- fourth as leviable in times of war or invasion. In the fourteenth century (in the days when the greater part of Southern India formed a prosperous empire under Hari Hat Roy, of Vizianagar) we find a division of the gross produce assigning one-fourth to the State, one-fourth to the landlord, and one-half to the x The writer o! this article has been employed in revenue settlement and administration from 1869 to 1890. EDrroa.  For the facts cited a general reference may be made to the Manual of.Admiviz- tration (published by the Government o! Madras); Manuals o! the settled districts o! Madras (in the India Office Library); Selections from the Madraz Records; and the Arnual Relao o! the levenue Board of Madraz. No. 3.--0L. I G G