Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/63

Rh no period the power, and not often the will, to resort to evictions. And instances of abuse of power and of a disregard and defiance of law, police, and magistrates, for particular objects, are no proof of any deliberate intention to override what may be termed the common law of the country.

Left to himself in many matters, the Ryot was his own master in all the processes of agriculture and cropping. No Zamíndár ever dreamt of insisting on rotation of crops, consumption of straw on the spot, or any of those familiar conditions which tenants in other countries holding under contracts are compelled to accept. The tenant-proprietor and even the non-occupancy Ryot, erects his own dwelling-house, finds his own materials, puts up his slender fences, cuts the channel to conduct superfluous water from his own plot to his neighbour's, maintains the small embankments of earth that serve for communication over the plain as well as for boundaries of holdings, expends time and money on the higher and more remunerative species of produce, and in short makes the most of his land without advice, direction, or hindrance from the superior landlord. These are distinct and irrefragable proofs of a permanent interest in the land, and yet they are perfectly compatible with the existence of rights and privileges of others. It has been said in a previous part of the memoir that the Ryot was expected to notify to his superior any sale or transfer of his own interest. But that duty, though admitted in