5.  Very often the Government of the country know nothing of these tenures; the local authorities allowed them to continue as a perquisite of their own.  The holders were willing to pay them a good share of the rent, assured that they would be resumed if reported by the local authorities to the Government.  These authorities consented to take a moderate share of the rent, assured that they should get little or nothing if the lands were resumed. [W.  H. S.] ‘Rent’ here means ‘land-revenue’.  Of course, under modern British administration the particulars of all tenures are known and recorded in great detail,

6.  Since the author wrote these remarks the legal position of cultivating proprietors and tenants has been largely modified by the pressure of population and a long course of legislation.  The Rent Acts, which began with Act x of 1859, are now numerous, and have been accompanied by a series of Land Revenue Acts, and many collateral enactments.  All the problems of the Irish land question are familiar topics to the Anglo-Indian courts and legislatures.

7.  This proposition no doubt was true for the ’Sagar and Nerbudda Territories’ in 1835, but it cannot be predicated of the thickly populated and settled districts in the Gangetic valley without considerable qualification.  Examples of long-established, unchanged, well-known rent-rates are not uncommon.

8.  In recent years this task of ‘mapping the waves of the ocean’ has been attempted.  Every periodical settlement of the land revenue in Northern India since 1833 has been accompanied by the preparation of detailed village maps, showing each field, even the tiniest, a few yards square, with a separate number.  In many cases these maps were roughly constructed under non-professional supervision, but in many districts they have been prepared by the cadastral branch of the Survey Department.  The difficulty mentioned by the author has been severely felt, and it constantly happens that beautiful maps become useless in four or five years.  Efforts are made to insert annual corrections in copies of the maps through the agency of the village accountants, and the ‘kanungos’, or officers who supervise them, but the task is an enormous one, and only partial success is attained.  In addition to the maps, records of great bulk are annually prepared which give the most minute details about every holding and each field.

9.  The Permanent Settlement of Bengal, effected under the orders of Lord Cornwallis in 1793, was soon afterwards extended to the province of Benares, now included in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.  Illusory provisions were made to protect the rights of tenants, but nothing at all effectual was done till the passing of Act x of 1859, which has been largely modified by later legislation.

10.  The general principle here stated of respect for personal substantive law in civil matters is still the guide of the Indian Legislature, but the accumulation of Privy Council and High Court rulings, combined with the action of codes, has effected considerable gradual change.  Direct legislation has anglicized the law of contract, and has modified, though not so largely, the law of marriage, inheritance, and succession.