Indian Antiquary Vol 02

SR No.: 032494
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 428
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 128

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1873.
of the king as lord paramount of the soil, whence originated a strictly feudal system; and the right of the crown, the church, and the chiefs, as landlords, to services in lieu of rentin other words, to a service-rent instead of a money-rent- system closely resembling emphyteusis... The public burdens fell on those who held on the feudal tenure. They guarded the barriers and passes into the hills; they served as soldiers, cut timber for public purposes, and executed public works. To ensure the dae performance of these services, a careful register was kept of every separate holding, and the holdings were placed under the several public departments, the heads of which were responsible to the king for the proper distribution of the labour available for carrying on the public service of the country.
The non-feudal tenant, or emphyteuta, if he may be so called, cultivated the land whence the palace, monastery, or menor-house was supplied with corn; he provided domestic officers and servants of every grade, from the seneschal of the palace to the cook-boy of the kitchen at the manor house, and rendered personal service of every kind, for which he was paid wages in land...
It is with these two classes of tenants--the tenants of the temples, and the tenants of private proprietors--that the present Ordinance has to denl; and the claim of the temples and proprietors to receive a fair equivalent in the shape of a money-ront in lieu of the services is fully recog. nized.
These services are of every imaginable kind-- some simply honorary, some of the most menial and laborious description, the lightest being usu- ally paid most highly, while the heaviest are generally rewarded by enough land to afford only a baro subsistence, and precisely the same services are often paid in the same village at different rates : for instance, for sixty days' service in the kitchen one man will hold an acre of land, an- other two acres, and a third only a few perches.
n fact the services have become attached to the land in the course of many generations, according to the pleasure of many landlords, and to the varying necessities of many tenants. Large farms have been bestowed on younger branches of a house, on tho condition of a mere nominal recogai. tion of allegiance. A family of faithful servants has been liberally provided for by a grant of part of an cstnte, in full belief in the continued faithful performance of the customary service. In times of famine or scarcity, starving supplicants have with difficulty obtained from a landlord a small plot of land barely sufficient to maintain life, and,
in return for it, have agreed to perform heavy and laborious services. Again, the tenant having originally no right in the soil, some landlords have in times past arbitrarily divided the original al. lotments into two or, sometimes, four portions, requiring for each sub-division the whole service originally required for the entire allotment, thus raising the rents sometimes twofold, sometimes fourfold. The result is that there is no system whatever. The extent of the services has no necessary relation to the extent and value of the holding : in some cases the landowners have been careless and negligent of their interests, and receive less than 5 fair equivalent for the dominium uile of their land; in others the services rendered exceed a fair rent for the land. It fol. lows that to assess the money-value of the existing services would be to continue an arrangement which is unsystematic and opposed to the true interests of the people, being in some cases, as regards the interests of the landowner, wasteful and unprofitable, in others unduly heavy on the tenants; and it is to be remembered that if a money-rent were fixed, based absolutely on the present money-value of the services (if that could be ascertained), it would bring out with such dis. tinctness and prominence the inequalities, irregu. larities, and unprofitableness of the system which has grown up in the course of many generations, that in a short time it would be impossible to resist the inevitable demand for a revision of th3 money-ront assessed in this unequal and unsystematic method...
On the estates of the chiefs and large landowners (Nindagam) the services, as already indicated, are of the greatest possible variety. Chiefs and Madiyanselk perform various honorary services. WelAlls tenants cultivate the home farm, accompany their lord on journeys, take their turn on daty at the manor house. Duray tenants carry baggage and the lord's palanquin, while the Wahumpuray carry the palanquins of the ladies of the family, and also provide for the service of the kitchen; and though there is a complete absence of equality and system in the remuneration given for domestic services, all such services are provided for with the utmost care. A chief with Several villages will draw his cook or his bath-boy for two or three months a year from one village from another for four months, from a third for one month, &o., carefully arranging to have one on duty throughout the year. There are the potter to make tiles and supply earthenware; the smith to clean the brass vessels, and repair and make agricultural implements; the chunam-burner to
+ See Brackenbury's Report on the Land Tenure in Portugal, Pt. I, pp. 176-179.