Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/39

Rh Shore to the effect 'that the most cursory observation shows the situation of things in this country to be singularly confused. The relation of a Zamíndár to Government, and of a Ryot to a Zamíndár, is neither that of a proprietor nor a vassal, but a compound of both. The former performs acts of authority unconnected with proprietary right: the latter has rights without real property. And the property of the one and the rights of the other are in a great measure held at discretion. Such was the system which we found, and which we have been under the necessity of adopting. Much time, I fear, will elapse before we can establish a system perfectly consistent in all its parts, and before we can reduce the compound relation of a Zamíndár to Government, and of a Ryot to a Zamíndár, to the simple principles of landlord and tenant.' Then Harington himself goes on to say that this was the principal source of all the confusion which had been introduced into the discussions about Indian landed tenures. 'It is by attempting to assimilate the complicated system which we found in this country, with the simple principles of landlord and tenant in our own, and especially in applying to the Indian system terms of appropriate and familiar signification which do not without considerable limitation properly belong to it, that much, if not all, of the perplexity ascribed to the subject has arisen.' He follows this up by a definition of the Zamíndár as we found him, which for well-balanced antithesis, recognition of rights followed by language