FIXITY OF TENURE IN BENGAL.
[To T1119 EDITOR OF Tan " SPEOTA.TOR.1 Slit,—In your paper of Saturday, November 29th, there is a letter respecting Irish tenants, signed "D. H. Macfarlane," the last paragraph of which may lead to much misconception ; and it certainly is most desirable, with reference to the existing dis- mission respecting rents, that there should be no misconception as to existing facts. The writer. finishes his letter by saying,— -41 The remedy I have suggested is fixity of tenure, as it exists in Bengal, which would injure no one, but benefit all." Many, on reading these lines, may be led to suppose that the peasants of Bengal hold their lands at fixed rates of rent; but such is not the case. In 1793, the rent to be paid by the Zemeeudars- landlords—was fixed in perpetuity, but, as stated by Mr. Field in his digest of the law of landlord and tenaut iu Bengal, up to 1859 the Bengalee peasant had neither security from eviction, nor fixity of the demand of rent, nor the power of transferring his holding. The Act of 1859 gave him security against eviction; the settlement of the enhancement question will give him fixity of demand of rent. But on what principle enhancement is to be imposed is still discussed in India with as much doubt as ever. The digest of the law says, "The Courts have been unable to find a principle of enhancement, apparently because none such exists ; and what is not, cannot be found I" The task now proposed to the Legislature, then, is to create or enact a rule of enhancement ; and may be, when the English Legislature has found a principle on which rents shall be regulated in Ireland, the Indian Legislature will be more hopeful of finding a principle suitable to Bengal.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN OLD BENGALEE.
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