THE PERIOD OF COLONIAL RULEplay the role of the improving landlord after the fashion of English country
squires; others argue that he created something like Irish landlords (i.e.
absentee rent receivers) rather than English squires. The debate will
probably never be finally settled. A much more practical motive of
Cornwallis has been lost sight of in this great discussion.
He certainly was not the executor of Philip Francis’s plan: otherwise,
he would have adopted Francis’s other suggestions, too, because the
permanent settlement as a social and economic measure made sense only
in the context of the plan as a whole. Cornwallis had a more immediate
problem in mind. Since the great famine of 1770 there had been a
shortage of cultivators; vagrant peasants roamed around searching for
land which they could get on better terms. Zamindars were competing
with each other for the services of these itinerants, and when the time
came for paying the land revenue they usually complained about
absconding peasants from whom they had been unable to collect
anything. These complaints were sometimes mere pretexts for paying less
revenue; often, however, they corresponded to the facts. In any case, the
British authorities were unable to discover the facts. The Regulation of
1793 cut this Gordian knot: the demand was firmly fixed once and for all
and the payment was the exclusive responsibility of the zamindar, whose
estate would be auctioned if he did not pay his dues at the appointed
time. Excuses about absconding peasants were irrelevant under these new
provisions, because now only the zamindar paid revenue; the peasants, as
his tenants, paid rent to him as their landlord. This payment of rent was
a private transaction of no concern to the authorities. If the landlord did
not get his rent he could sue his tenant in a court of law. For the state
budget this was a great improvement, because the income from revenue
could now be predicted fairly well. In 1793 when this measure was
implemented, the assessment was not at all lenient; only in later years
when the population grew once more and rents could be increased did
the zamindars attain some prosperity. None the less, they never became
improving landlords but just pocketed the unearned increment, as the
British economist David Ricardo called the rent derived from the scarcity
of land and the rise in prices in general. In Lord Cornwallis’s time the
zamindars could not yet dream of this bright future: they could hardly
make ends meet. Cornwallis could not afford to treat them leniently as he
had spent a great deal of money on fighting Tipu Sultan. In fact, the
permanent settlement of 1793 must be seen in the context of this
dilemma of rising military expenditure and the uncertainty of revenue
collection from absconding peasants. After Tipu had been vanquished in
the South no permanent settlement was introduced by the British in that
part of the country; nor did they create landlords, preferring instead the
direct assessment of the peasants which Tipu had managed with great
efficiency in order to finance his wars.