We have endeavoured elsewhere to explain the agrarian trouble which
has arisen in Bengal, and which is formidable for this reason. We can do anything in Bengal except beat down passive resistance. We cannot kill the people in millions, and if there- fore the Mussulman peasantry have made up their minds to have no more landlords, and to pay rent only to the Queen her- self, we shall in the end be beaten, as we were about the in- debtedness of Sonthals and the planters' claim to enforce long contracts. There is no proof whatever as yet that the peasants are in this mood, but there is proof that in three counties, Pubna, Dacca, and Tipperah, they are refusing to pay rent ; that in a fourth, Furreedpore, a rising is daily expected ; that the Lieu- tenant-Governor is conciliatory ; and that it may in the end cost us as much to get the rent as the rent is worth. The movement •
is not directed against the English, but is a demand, akin to the tenant-right demand in Ireland, to give the tenantry better pro- tection against eviction. That is not an easy demand to refuse if asked by twenty millions of people, in a country where we never expect a riot, keep no European garrison, are regarded as fair arbiters, and raise our surplus revenue. Yet we stand pledged to the lips to guard the Zemindars' rights of property. Fortu- nately the Government is absolute, not much afraid of either party, and able to issue an order that there shall be no open fighting.
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