Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/54

48 tenants, a refuge from the tyranny and encroachment of a rival landholder. But it was the mattock and axe of the Ryot and the exercise of the Ryot's thews and sinews that cut down the jungle and cleared the waste. He worked, as it were, for himself under the Zamíndár s shadow. The new ground which he broke up without the slightest help from the superior landlord and his agents, was frequently assessed for some years at a very low rate. It might be a half or a quarter of the usual rental, or a mere nominal rate for the first twelvemonth. Sometimes, from the negligence or the indifference of the local manager, a holding might escape taxation for several seasons, or the Ryot might take in additional land beyond the amount specified in his deed of induction. But whatever might be the fate of the Ryot, and whether his Zamíndár was careless or precise in the assessment and exaction of rent, it is indisputable that all over Bengal the Zamíndár looked on placidly while the tenant-proprietor and the Ryot burnt the jungle grass, broke up the clay soil, sowed the rice, and introduced gradually the more valuable products.

It is not necessary in accepting these facts, to censure the Zamíndárs as a class for not at once filling the exact position of improving landlords which Cornwallis had anticipated. The custom of the country from the earliest times was for the Ryot to toil under the Zamíndár's protection. But the Zamíndár had often private lands or lands in his