or a number of persons who for years paid the Government demand, provided for the cultivation of the land, enjoyed all its products, and transferred it to others at pleasure. The payment of the Government revenue is in ordinary cases so immediately the result of proprietary right, that the latter is often held to be included in the mention of the former ... But the proprietary right may have been overborne, and it may be difficult to determine with whom it rests ... Where no proprietary right exists or has ever been exercised, it rests with the Government to decide whether they will retain it in their own hands, confer it on any class of persons already connected with the Government, or grant it or sell it to strangers. The Government have, however, always shown themselves ready to confer the proprietary right on any persons possessing a preferential claim, though it may not amount to an absolute right.'
Simultaneously he guards the rights of tenants cultivating under the peasant proprietors, or under the village communities, or under larger land-owners. These men, he finds, may have a title to cultivate with fixed rents, or have occupancy tenures, not liable to enhancement of rent save by decree of Court, or hold a hereditary position descending from father to son. Whatever their status might be, he treats it as a property though of an inferior degree. The securing of tenant-right was indeed a cardinal point in his policy; and the position of occupancy cultivators, as settled by him, became afterwards the basis of several legislative enactments in northern India.
It will be remembered that all these instructions are addressed by him to the Settlement Officers. He
