BOOK II.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Hindu mode

The Hindu mode of raising the revenue of the state, wholly, or almost wholly, by taking as much as necessary of the rent of the land, while it is the

converted by the meerassadar, into a right. They have made the right a property; and they of raising the retain, sell, lend, give, or mortgage, according to their inclination, the whole or any part of it." public revenue (Ibid. 829.) Even Mr. Hodgson, who is an advocate for raising the revenue through the instrumenfrom the land. tality of Zemindars, affirms the rights of the cultivators to be incontestable. "I make," says he, "the following inductions: 1st. that the cultivators have a right, every where, to pay a fixed tax for the land they occupy; 2dly. that they have the right, universally, to occupy this land, so long as they pay the standard rent; 3dly. that they have the right to sell or transfer, by deed, gift, or otherwise, the land they occupy, subject always to the condition of paying the standard rent; 4thly. that they exercise the right, stated in the third position, wherever the standard rent has not been increased, so as to absorb all the profit on cultivation, or arable land is sufficiently scarce to be of value in the acquisition." (Ib. 979.) If the writer means, by saying that the cultivator had a right to pay no more than a fixed rent, that it would have been right or good to pay only in that manner, I maintain the same doctrine; but if he means that the cultivator ever enjoyed this right, the proposition is far from true. In every other respect I assent to the propositions of Mr. Hodgson. I also agree with him, when he says; " Provided the property in private estates, that is, the standard rent, and no more, be paid by these owners of private estates, I hold it to be a matter of very secondary importance to them, whether the rent is demanded of them by the ancient rajahs or polygars, the officers of Byjnuggur or Bednore government, the rajah coorg, the tehsildars of the Company, or the (to be created) zemindars of the Company." (Ib. 980.) The collector of Tanjore also thinks it not worth inquiring what ownership the sovereign has, provided the usufruct of the ryot is well defined and secured. (Ib. 831.) See Hodgson again to the same effect. (Ib. p. 926.) We are informed by Mr. Park, that in Africa, when a permission to cultivate a spot of ground has been granted by the sovereign, it is not resumed, while the revenue or rent is paid. (Travels, p. 261.) In China, Mr. Barrow assures us, that the cultivator, though in reality a tenant at will, is never dispossessed, but when he fails to discharge the stated engagements. "So accustomed," he adds, are the Chinese to consider an estate as their own, while they continue to pay the rent, that a Portuguese in Macao had nearly lost his life for endeavouring to raise the rent upon his Chinese tenants." (Travels in China, p. 397.) Dr. Buchanan says, "The ryots or farmers have no property in the ground; but it is not usual to turn any man away, so long as he pays the customary rent. Even in the reign of Tippoo, such an act would have been looked upon as an astonishing grievance." (Journey through Mysore, &c. i. 124.) "The genius and tendency of all Hindu institutions is, to render offices, as well as property, hereditary." (Wilks's Hist. Sketches, p. 231.) "The king is the general heir of all his subjects; but when there are children to inherit, they are seldom deprived of their father's estate." (Dow's Hindostan, pref. p. xiii.) H xapa ʊns xwpx πόλεως· αλλ' εδεν ήττον των κεκτημένων έκατος κύριος επί των ἑαυτε. (Dio Chrysostom. Orat. 31. in Rhodiac.) Anquetil Duperron was the first of the Europeans who maintained that the ownership of the land was vested in the ryots. He has written a discourse upon the subject, in his work entitled, Recherches Historiques et Geographiques sur l'Inde. He proves what is now acknowledged, that a man might dispose of his farm, and was seldom turned out of it, while he continued to pay his taxes or rent. There is a learned and able chapter, in support of the same opinion, in "Historical Sketches of the South of India, by Col. Wilks."

obvious expedient which first presents itself to the rudest minds, has no incon- CHAP. V. siderable recommendation from science itself. Previous to allotment, the productive powers of the soil are the joint property of the community; and hence are a fund peculiarly adapted to the joint or common purposes and demands. If the whole of what is strictly rent were taken away, the application of labour and capital to the land would resemble the application of labour and capital to wood or iron; and the same principles, in both cases, would determine their reward.

But as the expense requisite for the services which government renders, exceeds not a very small portion of the rent of the land, unless where the quantity of it is very minute, it is most favourable to the acquisition of the greatest possible benefit from the productive powers of the soil, that they should become the property of individuals. The disposition, accordingly, which has been made of the benefits of the soil, over the greater part of the globe, has been first to supply in whole, or for the greater part, the demands of government, next to enrich the individual occupant. The most remarkable exception is in modern Europe, where, after the conquests of the Gothic nations, the land was thrown in great portions into the hands of the leading men; who had power to place the taxes where they chose; and who took care that they should fall any where rather than upon the land; that is, upon any body rather than themselves. Further, as their influence over the sovereign made him glad to share with them the produce which he derived from the taxes, they, in this manner, not only threw the burthen off their own shoulders, but taxed the rest of the community for their own benefit; as they have continued to do, and sometimes in a progressive ratio, to the present hour.

The objections to the Hindu system of providing for the expenses of government, by the rent of the lands, arise from the mode, rather than the essence.

By aiming at the receipt of a prescribed portion of the crop of each year; and by exacting the same proportion of the produce from lands of all degrees of fertility, the Hindus incurred most of the evils which a bad method of raising a tax is competent to produce. They rendered the amount of the tax always uncertain; they rendered necessary a perfect host of tax-gatherers; they opened a boundless inlet to partiality and oppression on the part of the fiscal officers; and to fraud and mendacity on the part of the people. A tax, moreover, of a third, or a half, or any other proportion of the whole produce, is a very different tax on rich and on poor land. On poor land the expense of cultivation leaves little or no surplus. On land of much greater fertility it leaves a much greater sur

BOOK II. plus. A tax consisting of any portion of the gross produce of the soil, raises the price of that produce; because, whatever is the amount of the tax raised from the poorest of the cultivated land, the price must be sufficient to afford that tax over and above the expense of cultivation. And in this manner a tax is levied upon the consumers of corn, the amount of which is liable to go far beyond the sum paid to the government, and enriches the owners of the best land at the expense of the rest of the community.*

An expensive mode of raising the taxes is a natural effect of a rade state of society. We are informed by Sully, that the receipt into the French exchequer, in the year 1598, was only thirty millions of French money; while the sum, dragged out of the pockets of the people, was 150 millions. "The thing appeared incredible," says the statesman: "but by the due degree of labour, I made the truth of it certain." The proportion was doubtless greater in Hindustan.

Receiving the taxes in kind was a practice which ensured a prodigious expense, and a prodigious waste, by which nobody gained. Scarcely any other mode seems to have been known to the Hindus in the time of their ancient institutions; and to a great degree it continued down to the latest period of their history. How rude and inconvenient soever this practice must be regarded; and how certainly soever a better mode is adopted, after the use of money is generally known and a slight degree of civilization has been attained, we find several nations, who make a considerable figure in the history of the world, and who in this respect have not proceeded beyond the Hindus. It may not surprise any one, that taxes were raised in kind in the ancient empire of Mexico. § The

* See a Dissertation on the Principles of Taxation, the most profound, by far, which has yet been given to the world, by David Ricardo, Esq. in his work "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation."

+ Mem. du Sully, liv. xx.

Among the Mexicans, says Dr. Robertson, "Taxes were laid upon land, upon the acquisitions of industry, and upon commodities of every kind exposed to sale in the public markets. These duties were considerable, but not arbitrary or unequal. They were imposed according to established rules, and each knew what share of the common burden he had to bear." History of America, iii. 295, 229. The political descriptions of this admired historian are, commonly, by far too general and thence vague. We cannot suppose that the Mexicans were more skilled in the policy of taxation than the Hindus.

§ “As the use of money was unknown," says Robertson, (Ibid. p. 296,)“ all the taxes were paid in kind, and thus not only the natural productions of all the different provinces in the empire, but every species of manufacture, and every work of ingenuity and art, were collected in the

greater part, though not the whole, were raised in the same manner, in Persia, CHAP. VI. even in the time of Darius Hystaspes; and the mixture, at least, whatever the proportion, continues to the present day. † The whole revenue of China, with the exception of some trifling articles, is paid in kind. ‡

public storehouses." It is worthy of remark that the same mode of taxing handicrafts and labourers was adopted in Mexico as in Hindustan; " People of inferior condition (Ibid.), neither possessing land nor engaged in commerce, were bound to the performances of various services. By their stated labour the crown lands were cultivated, public works were carried on, and the various houses belonging to the emperor were built and kept in repair."

* It is remarkable that, in Persia, the use even of coined money was unknown till the time of Darius Hystaspes. The portion of tribute that was paid in gold and silver was received by weight. Herodot. lib. iv. cap. clxvi. Major Rennel, not aware that this was only a portion, and a small portion, of the Persian taxes, is exceedingly puzzled to account for the diminutive amount of the Persian revenues, and at last concludes that "the value of money was incredibly greater at that time than at present." Rennel's Geography of Herodotus, p. 316.

† Ebn Haukal, translated by Sir William Ousely, p. 136. Chardin's Travels in Persia.

+ Abbé Grosier, p. 76; Barrow's China, p. 499. Mr. Barrow informs us that a vast number of the vessels on the canals and rivers are employed in conveying the taxes to the capital. Ib. p. 508. In those countries on the Euxine Sea which early attained so high a state of civilization as to have a large export trade in grain, even the custom house duties, or the taxes on export and import, were levied in kind. We are informed by Demosthenes, Orat. adv. Leptinem, that Leucon king of Bosphorus, from which Athens derived her principal supplies, levied a duty of one thirtieth in kind upon all the corn shipped in his ports.

Influence of

the condition

CHAP. VI.'

Religion.

BOOK II. IT is difficult to determine whether the constitution of the government and the provisions of law, or Religion, have, among the Hindus, the greatest influence religion upon upon the lives of individuals, and the operations of society. Beside the causes of the people. Which usually give superstition a powerful sway in ignorant and credulous ages, the order of priests obtained a greater authority in India than in any other region of the globe; and this again they employed with astonishing success in multiplying and corroborating the ideas on which their power and consequence depended. Every thing in Hindustan was transacted by the Deity. The laws were promulgated, the people were classified, the government was established, by the Divine Being. The astonishing exploits which the Deity had performed, and ever would continue to perform, in that sacred land, were innumerable. For every stage of life from the cradle to the grave; for every hour of the day; for every function of nature; for every social transaction, he prescribed a number of religious observances. And meditation upon his incomprehensible attributes, as it was by far the most difficult of all human operations, so was it that glorious occupation which alone exalted the intense votary to the participation of the Divine nature.

Origin of re

Of so extensive and complicated a subject, as the religion of the Hindus, a very general view is all that can be taken here. Every thing, however, which is interesting to the politician and the philosopher, may, it is probable, be confined within a moderate space. The task is rendered difficult by the unparalleled vagueness which marks the language of the Brahmens respecting the nature of the gods, the vast multiplicity of their fictions, and the endless discrepancy of their ideas. From these circumstances it arises that no coherent system of belief seems capable of being extracted from their wild eulogies and legends; and if he who attempts to study their religion is disposed, like themselves, to build his faith on his imagination, he meets with little obstruction from the stubborn precision of Hindu expressions and belief.

Nothing is more curious than to trace the ideas concerning Divine power ligious ideas. which the natural faculties of man suggest to him at the various stages of his