Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/57

Rh reports, and other documents, been loosely denominated as leases and their counterparts. In truth the pattá of an ordinary Ryot has no resemblance to an English lease. No term of years is specified. There are stipulations to the effect that the Ryot is not to withhold his rent or fail in payment on the plea of drought or inundation, death or desertion of joint-shareholders, or tenants-at-will without occupancy rights.

Timber and fruit trees were not to be cut down. Not that they had been planted by the hand of the Zamíndár, but because by their destruction the value of the holding was lessened. Similarly, if a substantial tenant wished to excavate a tank, the Zamíndár might, if he chose, put in an objection on the ground that any diminution of the culturable or cultivated area diminished the security for rent. As a matter of fact, however, such objections were comparatively rare. Many of the Bengal villages suffer from a redundancy of reservoirs not sufficiently deep and not always kept in proper repair. These rights and privileges were coupled with certain liabilities and duties. The Zamíndár was bound to provide means to carry the post on what we should call cross-country roads. This postal service rarely went beyond the transmission of heavy police reports. Besides his obligation to assist the police, the Zamíndár was bound to prevent the illicit manufacture of salt and the unauthorised cultivation of the poppy, inasmuch as Government retained the monopoly of opium and