Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/267

Rh relations of both should be definitely put on a definite basis. He agreed with Sir Courtney Ilbert, a member of the Select Committee, who during the course of the debate on the Bill aptly summed up the position. 'What the Council have to consider as practical men is, not whether this is an ideally perfect measure, not whether it is a final settlement of questions between landlord and tenant in Bengal, not whether it is likely to usher in a millenium either for the Zemindars or for the ryot, but whether it represents a step in advance, whether it does something substantial towards removing admitted defects in the existing law, whether it does not give some substantial form of security to the tenant, some reasonable facilities to the landlord. It is because I believe that the measure, however it may fall short of ideal perfection, does embody substantial improvements to the existing law that I considered it to be favourable consideration of the Council.'

The main object of the Bill as finally passed was to give the ryot full security in his holding at the same time that it gave the landlord facilities for the collection of rent actually due and a fair share in the increased value of the soil. While it threw on the landlord the onus of disproving the tenant's claim to occupancy, it relieved it, by means of a system of price lists, of the difficulty of proving the increased value of the land. Above all it attempted