ORGANIZATION OF AGRICULTURE.
LAND-TAX NOT RENT.
IT is a favourite argument with the defenders of the present revenue sys- tem in British India that the land-tax there levied is in fact only the rent of the land, which is drawn by the Government as proprietor in chief. We need not here discuss the legality of any such claim on constitutional grounds; but it is evident that so radical a difference exists between land or produce taxes and rent, that it is scarcely conceivable how any one should seriously have confounded the two. Rent is the hire of land paid for its use, and consequently varies with its adaptation to production. The amount paid by a tenant for land is governed by the fertility of the soil, the climate of the country, the situation of the farm, the density of popu- lation in the neighbourhood, the degree of intelligence subsisting among the people, the power of associating enjoyed by the inhabitants with indi- vidual freedom, (that is to say, the good or bad constitution of the govern- ment and the laws,) in short, by all the influences which determine the prosperity of countries, or their poverty. Under all or each of these re- spective influences, the rent paid will be high or low on every separate holding; and the tenant makes his calculation according to the prospect of profit held out to him. The average rent of a country is high or low ac- cording to the number and importance of markets, the state of means of Com- munication, and other local advantages, but always subject to the prepondera- ting general influences of good government, security of property, and freedom of exertion. Still, could we suppose an average rate of rent to be fairly calculated for a country like England, it would be most unfair to assess a lands by such a standard. The grounds now paying less than an average rent would not by a mere decree (such as some visionaries have imagined) be rendered capable of paying more than before because the well-situated lands paid less than they used to pay. The result of any such attempt would be to throw great profits into the hands of owners of well-placed lands, and to throw those lands which were worse situated altogether out of cultivation. Now, a land-tax, by assessing an even rate on lands of all kinds, levies an average impost in this manner and with the same result. It is impossible to levy an equal assessment, that can be paid by any
extent of cultivated land, without rating in such a manner as to cause it to fall lightly upon well-situated land and so heavily on others as to prove a practical prohibition to cultivation. In British India, immense tracts of Waste land are kept unproductive by the operation of the land-tax. Some officials, who had a notion of improving the revenue by a deviation from the strict rule now enforced, have conceded the privilege of cultivating un- occupied land at a modified land-tax to parties willing to bring it under Cultivation. These proceedings were in the most instances disavowed by the Indian Government, and the new occupants ejected.
One incident of this kind, such as is documented by a proclamation of the Bombay Government dated 20th June 1838, stamps the impost now levied in India with the indelible mark of a land-tax, and distinguishes it Sufficiently from rent. This land-tax cannot bear the competition that rent supports; and for obvious reasons. It does not depend upon the local advantages or disadvantages of the land, any more than on the moral or intellectual improvement of society; it is not measured by the fund created With the sweat of the planter, nor is it sanctioned by his concurrence in the rate of assessment. A fixed rate, carried over the surface of one of the most varied as well as the most extensive empires, without regard to sites, soils, Or situation from which wealth and poverty are alike without appeal,— this is no bargain of choice between freemen, bat a badge of slavery im- posed by conquerors upon bondsmen: as such, we are told, it was exacted by the later Mahomedan conquerors and by Mahmtta predatory chiefs.
The land-tax can only be claimed as rent in those parts of India where the old proprietors have disappeared, and the taxgatherer has assumed their place. For it is notorious that land has been held as private pro- perty for centuries by the same families, many of whom have title-deeds to show. It is equally notorious that improvements made by individuals at great cost have, in many parts, raised the cultivation and rendered poor soils productive. Tanks and works for irrigation and drainage, with all the necessary accessories of even the humblest human dwellings, have been constructed by the investment of private property; and a comparison between what has been done in the way of public works under our rule, and what the Native sovereigns did for the people, or allowed the people the means of doing for themselves, is not to our advantage.
Now, it is upon a complicated structure of society like this that a claim For a uniform rate of tax is superinduced, and enforced to the disregard of the thousand shades of right, and the rewards of industry, which has been the eloquent theme of high-minded statesmen, and which, although denied, has never been disproved. To levy a tax imposed after cultivation has introduced rights and relative values, and to assess that tax at an arbitrary rate utterly independent of the rights and values thus created, is surely net to found a claim for rent. Then, let not this tax be called rent, with Which it has nothing in common.
The fallacy that this tax is levied in British India in lien of rent, being once rejected, the calculation which we put forward last week tells with its full force. In comparison with other taxes, the land-tax is the most Oppressive, and is consequently the least productive that can be devised. It presses on the opening link of the chain of associations which com- merce gives birth to and prevents its growing to that length which at its Other extremity would easily support a tenfold pressure. Its effects are Clearly the same in Asia as in Europe, although the degree of intensity With which the people suffer is different in each of those quarters of the globe. The invariable accompaniment of the land-tax is the breaking up Of the soil into small areas for cultivation, and a consequent bad economy of agricultural labour, which does not allow of a realization of capital. Judicious taxation on the century, encourages the free movement of every trading association, until the results of united exertion assume the shape in which they are to be consumed. At that stage the amount is un- doubtedly largest on which the taxgatherer can lay his hand; and he is wise in staying his grasp until it arrives.
The field presented by British India for organizing Tropical agriculture is so vast, and the impediments now obstructing this organization are so passable and oppressive, that the interest awakened by a study of those Magnificent countries becomes all-absorbing. It is, too, the more ne- °Mary to regulate the industry of British India, that its present para- lyzed and unproductive state holds out inducements to undertakings else- where, which ought to be directed by a due knowledge of the competition that may be expected when a reform is introduced into Indian govern- ment. We trust that the Committee now sitting on the decline of the cul- tivation of Cotton in India will hasten the day of improvement. The British public is following with no small anxiety the progress of their Isbouni.
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