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flaws.] TRE LEADER; &79~
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LATEST INTELLIGENCE. " Alexandria, May 1...
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EXPERIENCES OF A LEASEHOLDER AND INDIGO ...
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* Aberdeen: Jolm.Smith. London t Sirankl...
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COMMERCIAL.
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They say, too, that her Majesty's Procla...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Labour Readily Obtained, And There Are T...
Xieut . Col . C . E . ITaber , Madras Engineers :, has leave to reside at Bangalore , or in any portion of Mysore . Mr . R . A . L . Greeves has beenmarried at Bangalore to Fanny , daughter of Lieut .-Gol . Arbuthnot . Sir . Charles Trevelyan has begun his adminisr trative labours at Madras by sweeping off a lot of the copying and correspondence . This will cause a dreadful howl among the enormous host of half caste and native writers , who have already been sadly aggrieved by the copy ing machine ,
lithography , and the printing press . The saving will be very great indeed . Sir Charles is taking measures to abolish compulsory cart hire in his Presidency . He has likewise in hand the reform of the deputy collectors . A general exhibition is to be held in the " Vellore district of Madras in April , 1860 , as also of a preliminary cattle show in December , next . The total expense of building and shows is not to exceed 5001 .
The works of the Baree Doab Canal , one of the really great undertakings of India , are so far advanced that on the 11 th April water was admitted at Madhopoor with great success .
Flaws.] Tre Leader; &79~
flaws . ] TRE LEADER ; & 79 ~
Latest Intelligence. " Alexandria, May 1...
LATEST INTELLIGENCE . " Alexandria , May 19 . The India and China mails leave to-day . The dates are—Calcutta , . April 22 nd : Madras , 29 th ; Hongkong , 13 th . The new Five-and-a-Half per Cent , loan was announced to he open on the 1 st of May , .. when the ITive per Cent , would be closed , except to holders of Pour per Cent , paper in Europe , for whom the Fives remain open till the 1 st of June . Import markets steady . Money abundant . Freights unaltered . Exchange 2 s . l £ d . for credits . China markets generally dull . Exchange at Hongkong 4 s . 8 ?] d . At Shanghai , on the 4 th of April , the silk settlement was 2 , 500 bales . A decline of 20 to 25 taels in Tsatlees and Taysaams . Exchange on London , 6 s . 5 d . to Gs . 5 £ d . Tea markets generally inactive . Decrease in exports to great Britain , 4 , 439 , 000 lbs . We haA'e been favoured with the following telegram by the Peninsular and Oriental Company : — " The Nepaul , with the mails from Calcutta and China , arrived at Marseilles at eight a . m . yesterday ( Thursday ) . " The mails left for London at ten a . m . "The mails left Malta for Southampton on the 23 rd inst ., at nine a . m .
Experiences Of A Leaseholder And Indigo ...
EXPERIENCES OF A LEASEHOLDER AND INDIGO PLANTER IN EASTERN BENGAL . * An unpretending pamphlet , written by a gentleman of position and large experience , is worth attention , as corroborating , if that were needed , the proofs laid before the House of Commons Committee , that a radical reform was necessary in the laws of Indian land tenure ; and will help to secure inornl support for Lord Stanley in those changes he has announced as in contemplation . The
of collecting the rents of the jo war , and left only the trouble of paying the Government revenue . " During these investigations I need not say bow little of the rent swelled the profit account in my ledger ; the necessity of keeping up a host of people to watch the proceedings on the spot and at the courts ran away with thousands of rupees yearly . " Fortunately , a reasonable member of the Calcutta Board of Iievenue at last condescended to listen to my prayers , that the whole estate might be measured and any surplus land ¦ at once confiscated by Government . Fortunately also the estate had been measured at the Decennial Settlement by a
Government officer , and all the confusion arose from the circumstance that between 1792 and 1834 nearly the whole land had been carried away by the rivers Ganges and Megna , and reformed . Orders were transmitted to the Commissioner to carry into effect the measurement prayed for ; and after two or three years of farther inquiry , and measurement- * it was found that instead of two hundred and five doorans , of which the estate consisted in 1792 , I had in all not more than one hundred and sixty-one , and consequently that I had been unnecessarily harassed and the time of the authorities most unprofitably wasted , independent of the cost of an army of subordinates for nearly ten years .
" But I have not yet done with this'estate .. A part of it consisted of right of fishery . This formed the object of a distinct proceeding on the part of the Iievenue officers . It was taken from irie inr the end of 1836 , which led to the usual routine of proceedings ; and as it clearly appeared that their claim was bad , it was about to be restored to me , when an auction purchaser of a third of aperguiinah , whence my estate had been separated at or before the perpetual settlement in 1792 , urged that the fishery belonged to the pergunnah of which , he had only the year before become a shareholder . Against Ids claim there was the forty-five or fifty years ' . silence of the
tween 1836 and 1843 , but am left to recover those of 18 . 44 and 1851 as I can , from a person who has no tangible property , arid if he had property , at the risk of repeated nonsuits from not including in my plaint all the known and unknown shareholders ?—!' men , women , and children , who have rested undisturbed far beyond the limit allowed by the statute of limitation . Altogether the litigation has cost considerably more than the sum originally paid for the entire estate , and remains- and must ever remain , a proof of the great good sense which guides our Indian courts , and an exemplification of the reasons why land in the most fertile country in the world has hitherto been selling at from three to ten years ' purchase . "
Owing to a number of similarly misplaced confidences , the author finds himself in receipt , after a life in India , of but 600 / . a-year from estates with a nominal rental of 3 , O 00 Z ., after paying 2 , 000 ? . ayear to the revenue . The perusal of his narrative will , we think , satisfy the reader that the vexatious spirit of Chancery lately exorcised from among ourselves , has a mighty stronghold on the banks of the Ganges , which . the present rulers of India Avill do well to besiege and level . Such tales arc , unfortunately , too common to rouse more than smiles in those well acquainted with India ; but the continuance of such a regime as could permit them would , we hope , draw indignation from the public
at home . What wonder that , as stated by all the witnesses before the Indian Colonisation Committee , the number of settlers decreased in India , during the last thirty . years in the face of a policy that could tolerate , and , it mayhe , from a spirit of exclusion , foster , such enormities ? What wonder that the European settlers , u nder such pressure as this , cherished in their hearts a spirit of resistance , termed by the old Conservative party " mutinous ' ?" . But let us hope that , with those of . , other , abuses , the days of this one are numbered , and that , under a future law providing simpler and securer tenure , a stream of British settlers , as well as British skill and ' money , may be turned into the broad . dominion . ' that cries so loud for all of them , and will give so much in return for them . ,
joint tenant of the remaining two-thirds of the estate , some of whom had been in possession from dates antecedent to the settlement . It might liave been considered only fair and equitable that I should have been put . in- 'possession-by the Government of what it had wrested from me , and that he should be left to seek his remedy . Such , however , was not the Commissioner ' s vieAv of the subject , and Ms decision was to the effect that this new claimant of one-third of the fishery should be put in possession of the whole at a rent something under the ] ialf of what was offered for it ; but this rent was to be lodged in the Collect orate , and I had permission to sue for possession ,
" In the course of the following year—that is , m 1839 , a suit against' the Honourable Company and this , their farmer-of the fishery , was instituted y and at considerable expense , in the payment of aiueens deputed by the law court to inquire on the spot into the facts of the original separation and management of the collection subsequent to 1792 , the result was a very clear decision in iny favour in 18-12 , and recovery of possession in the following year . J 3 ut , in the meantime , the fishery rents accumulated from 183 G to 1843 , in the Collect-orate , and the Collector demurred to the estimate of the court specifying the
amount he received , and the rate of interest to be allowed . Three or four months , therefore , after the period allowed by law had lupseil , the llevemie authorities appealed to the Biidder Dewany , where also the farmer had gone . There the matter slumbered for eight years , and in 1851 was taken up lobe reopened by the Judge of the SudderDewany Aclawlut , oil the ground that I ought to have included in my suit all the proprietors , known or unknown , of Fergunnah pore , though they had all maintained the most respectful silence while the contest was in progroas—indeed , for above a half contmy before it began . . .
"To add to the absurdity of this di-dsjon , the farmer in his appeal actually stated that ho licit ! no interest in thy nubje ' et mattoi' in diHputo , having some timo previously made it over to his wife , that ho might not be troubled afterwards for cost . of suit . In course-of tlmu ho died , leaving a son ( a minor ) and an active guardian , who , to carry into oflbct tho nonsuit of the ' Surlder , compelled my agents to refund the collections made between 1843 nad 1851 . These , however , instead of paying into tho tronsiiry , as tho position of former required , he was suflbrod to amjronriato altoacther , boforo tho S udder Court could
bo satisfied of the orror they had committed in granting execution to a party not entitled to anything beyond his own costs . A change having , in the meantime , taken place in tho administration of revenue matters in the Eastern provinces , a new Commissioner took tho trouble to inquire into the subject , and satisfied tho Revenue Board that tho original decision ought not to have boon disturbed : that I should not bo called on for the Government expensos in the appeal , and that I might have possession of tho rights of fishery on indemnifying tho State against all . claims of , thd Zumeondars . ' I was afsa projniood payment of tho collections mn . de
boauthor , whose misfortune seems to nave been , not youth or inexperience , but confidence in Government titles , would seem to have laid out a considerable capital of others in purchasing sundry parcels of cultivable land escheated by tho authorities from-revenue defaulters , The sorrows he met with in several cases nro so naively , but forcibly depicted , " that wo would willingly amuse our readers—even at tho expense of the victim—by their recital . But scarcity of space restricts its to the following simple story , which wo have , as it is , taken tho liberty of compressing a little : —
" My earliest purchaso was a holding , paying a revenue to Government of 2 , 000 rupees a-year . This scorned a good purchaso , as tho price paid was under 20 , 000 rupees . It was , however , soon disco verod that there was " something rotten in tho state "—in short , every biga of ground had boon noted by tho emissaries of tho JRovomio Court as now creation ( by alluvial deposition ) , and no less than ton resumption suits had to bo decided before I could call myself master of an aero . Ji \> r sovoral years this wont on $ commissioner after commissioner was deputed to measuro , takeovidenco , and report . Two or thi'oc deputy collectors honourod tho ostato by visiting and manning it , and there seemed a fair prospect that I should speedily bo entirely relieved
* Aberdeen: Jolm.Smith. London T Sirankl...
* Aberdeen : Jolm . Smith . London t Siranklu < uid Co .
Commercial.
COMMERCIAL .
They Say, Too, That Her Majesty's Procla...
They say , too , that her Majesty ' s Proclamation having already called thp attention oi" tliu public to the only municipal law on tho . subject—viz ., the Foreign Enlistment Act— -it is not for her Majesty ' s Government to give any exposition of that Act with reference to any particular case . They leave the public , and especially the shipowners , very much to their own councils , and compel them to look at the sources of their present difficulties , They spring , as we stated last , week , and as seems . now . to be universally admitted , muoh moro from our own Act of Parliament than from-the usual practices of belligerents toward * neutrals . As wo then stated , too , this notorious Act ) was
NEUTRAL TRADE . —THE FOREIGN - ENLISTMENT ACT . TVTO j : > rogrcss whatever appears to have been - » - ' made in the present week in ascertaining what articles are now to be considered contraband of War . If the ministers know anything on the subject they will give no information . They content themselves with replying to questions—that Tuscany must be considered a . belligerent , and that neutrals carrying contraband of wur to Tuscan ports are liable to confiscation ; but they give us no information as to what is contraband of war .
passed for the very purpose oi prevuiitm ^ our people from giving assiiitanco to tho Colonies ot * P IiiL " 1819 , Castlcreoffh , SiMmou / li , Canning , Falmerston , and the rest of tho ' 1 onus ; real y , though not nominally—for ( hat , greatly to the chagrin of the party , tho Constitution iorbadfonScd a part of tho Jloly league lor supporting kings against people , tyranny againot freedom , and ijtnSmiwb nwUt knowledge ; and they passed tho foreign Enlistment Act , to enable Ferdinand VII . A . ? uiw . Mm mvoltod Snamsh colonies . JNot
_ ,, contented with prohibiting , tlio suppl y ol warlike stores or war ships , they prohibited our people from assisting the South Americans by lending them " transports or store ships . " Though those terms are , susceptible of a technical definition ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1859, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28051859/page/23/
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