CHAPTER IX
RENTS, PRICES, AND WAGES
I. Rents
INDIAN rents have had a history very different from that of Origin and
develop-
rents in Europe. Throughout the periods of native rule for ment of
which we have historical data, the prevailing custom was for Indian
the cultivator to deal direct with the representative of the state, rents.
and the whole of the economic rent passed straight from one to
the other. Even when there was an intermediary, and when
that intermediary enjoyed to a greater or less degree the other
incidents of proprietary right, he seldom received any substantial
share of the profits of cultivation, and such dues as he might
intercept would more fittingly be classed as fees or perquisites
than as rent in the proper sense of the term. As the several
Provinces passed under British rule, the Government at first
continued the native practice of taking as land revenue the
whole, or nearly the whole, of the economic rent. When the
intermediaries were few or weak the Government dealt direct
with the cultivator; and it still does so in what are called the
'ryotwari' areas, which include Bombay, Burma, Assam, and
the greater part of Madras. Where, on the other hand, the
intermediaries were numerous and powerful, as in the zamindari
tracts of Bengal and the United Provinces, the Government
dealt with those intermediaries, leaving them to collect the
rents from the cultivators and, when paying the proceeds to
the state, to retain a small proportion, generally Io per cent.,
for their own use. It is from this percentage that the payments
now representing the net rental have developed, and the
development has been along two main lines of expansion. In
Bengal the Government demand, representing at the time of
its assessment go per cent. of the economic rent, was fixed in
perpetuity in 1793; but the extension of cultivation, and the
rise in the value of produce, since that date have been so
considerable that the Government revenue at the present day
is estimated to absorb no more than 25 per cent. of the
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