Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/129

Rh Aumils, whose position was analogous to those farmers in the Lower Provinces who were not Rájás or hereditary Zamíndárs. Settlements for one year and for five years were made through these functionaries.

Rules were laid down for the valuation of crops where the revenue was usually paid in kind by a division of the produce; for the consolidation of all extra cesses into one payment with the original rent; for the differences between the old and the new form of the measuring rod and the old and new bíghás, or portions of an acre; and for divers other matters calculated to remedy abuses, to prevent oppression, and to promote prosperity and peace. At the same time, it was provided that the Amils or farmers of the revenue were to look to the Zamíndárs or hereditary landholders for the realisation of the revenue; and here, for the first time in our revenue phraseology, we must interpret this familiar term to mean something very different from the high personages, whose estates might range from fifty villages to an extent of land of the size of an English county.

The local Zamíndár of Benares and the North-West Provinces signifies a sharer in an estate or village in which the whole land is held and managed in common. The rents, with all other profits from the estate, are thrown into a common stock, and after a deduction for all necessary expenses, the balance is divided among the proprietors according to their ancestral