460 INDIA UNDEE THE CEOWN

of civil and religious liberty, taking power to extend them as their expediency and moral superiority should be gradually recognized by the people; and slowly moulding their habits to the conception of government by laws. The policy of reform and consolidation pursued dur- ing this period in one great department of administra- tion is of such importance, and to some extent of such general interest from the standpoint of comparative legislation, that some brief explanation of it may not be here out of place. In India, where the public income from land has always been the chief mainstay of the state's finances, and where the population in a very great majority subsist by agriculture, the just and skilful management of this source of revenue has always been of vital importance to the welfare of every govern- ment and of the people. From the beginning of British rule the provincial authorities have been continually engaged in deciding questions of ownership and occu- pancy, in allocating the payments due to the treasury from every estate and sometimes from every field, in revising earlier systems of taxation, and in passing laws or framing executive rules to settle disputed proprietor- ship or to remedy agricultural distress. The fact that from time immemorial the State has invariably shared in the surplus profits of agriculture has provided every strong government in India with a direct and very substantial motive for protecting the actual cultivator; the liability of the country to periodical drought adds weight to this primary interest and obligation.