Land in India. Whose is it? By Mr. Martin Wood.
(Philip S. King.)—A thoughtful and well reasoned pamphlet on the redemption of the Indian land-tax and the sale of Indian waste lands. Mr. Wood, like most non-official persons who have thoroughly studied the subject, is" aatirely in favour of abandoning the theory of State ownerships in favour of a private proprietary. He wishes, however, to see the peasant and small cultivator made proprietor rather than the zemindar, and does not apparently perceive that the land-tax once re- deemed the yeoman must ultimately acquire the soil. The law of equal subdivision destroys the great houses, and as they decay they would, if they could, sell their properties field by field. At present they cannot do this, for the whole estate is liable for the whole rent, and if the peasantry bought it in bits they might all be ruined by the failure of the single person responsible to the Revenue Board. Mr. Martin cen- sures Sir Charles Wood severely, and points out with great force and minuteness of detail that, in order to cancel Lord Stanley's and Lord Canning's orders, he has interposed delays fatal to European exertion. The whole pamphlet is well worth reading.
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