India
only, but of all Oriental despotisms, and the subdivision of landed
property is only one of the causes of the non-existence of such a
class.

3. This is quite true. The rural population want two things, first a
light assessment, secondly the minimum of official interference, They
do not care a straw who the ruler is, and they like best that ruler,
be his name or nationality what it may, who worries them least, and
takes least money from them.

4. Goldsmith, 'The Hermit' (in chapter 8 of _The Vicar of
Wakefield_).

5. Groves are still scarce in the Agra country, but much planting has
been done on the roads.

6. Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, and some other districts, forming half of the
old province of Oudh, ceded by the ruler of Oudh in 1801, were long
known as the Ceded Provinces. The western districts of the North-
Western Provinces, known as the Conquered Provinces, were taken from
the Marathas in 1803-5. The Province of Benares became British
territory in 1775. The hill districts of the Kumaun Division were
annexed in 1816, at the close of the war with Nepal. All the regions
named are now included in the Agra Province of the United Provinces
of Agra and Oudh, in which the editor served for twenty-nine years.

7. The author's remarks are not readily intelligible to readers
unversed in the technicalities of Indian revenue administration. The
author writes on the assumption that Government was the proprietor of
the soil. While he was writing, the settlements under Regulation IX
of 1833 were in progress. Those settlements, or revenue contracts,
were ordinarily sanctioned for periods of thirty years, and the
landholders, whom the author calls 'lessees', have gradually changed
into 'proprietors', with full power over their land, subject only to
the State lien for the 'land revenue' (Crown rent, or State share of
the produce), and to the laws of inheritance and succession. The
'resumption of rent-free lands' simply means the subjection of those
lands to the payment of 'land revenue'. It is inaccurate to say that
the lands are become 'the property of Government' by reason of their
being assessed. Even when land generally was regarded as the property
of the State, and the landholders were considered to be only lessees,
no objection would have been made to the planting of groves if
payment of the 'land revenue' had been continued for the planted area
as for cultivated land. Now that landholders have been recognized as
pro