36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST responsibility and without intervention of a zamindar, a poligar, a village headman or any other intermediary. The ryotwari settlement depended on a regular survey ascertaining the real extent of land cultivated, its description, including the tenure by which it was held and kinds of produce it yielded, the, quantity of yield, extent of uncultivated or waste land, and the 6hare of the producer and the Government.5 The object of the ryoiwari settlement was to fix a defined tax in money6 on each field, whether wet or dry, instead of on the crop,7 and the assessment on the lands was determined by the average payments, whether in money or in grain, in the last ten years.8 But in the case of the Northern Division of Arcot the ryotwari principles were modified by Cockburn, keeping in view, what he called, the 'local circumstances'.9 It is this aspect of local variation of the ryotwari system and its effects on the peasants which is the concern of this paper. Under this system in punjai or dry grain lands, the average of the 'land rent' and the 'extra assessments' in money (collected by the Nawabs of Carnatic, poligars and other chieftains) were taken as the basis for Cockbum's settlement.10 In the nunjai or wet grain lands (or lands irrigated by tanks, water courses, etc.) the customary share of the Government was calculated on the basis of the karnam 's accounts, the productive capacity of the soil and the actual produce of the year (not average of several years), together with a certain portion of the 'assumed meras\ This share of the Government was commuted for a money payment at a rate lower by six mercals in a pagoda. But the average selling price of the last ten years, which was the practice in the ceded districts of the Madras Presidency, was not followed in this region.11 In the garden lands (or plantations and lands producing tobacco, beetle, turmeric, sugarcane, etc.), while formerly the assessment was made with reference to the produce, Cockburn fixed it on the basis of the quality of the soil12 and hence the assessment was 'too high'.13 It was therefore felt necessary to reduce the rates on garden lands. This was done only during the tenure of Cockbum's successor, Grames (November 1804-1818)14 The ryotwari system introduced by Cockburn sought:15 (1) to prevent fraud in receiving shares of the produce; (2) to discover productive land not registered by karnams; (3) to promote 'prosperity of revenue'; (4) to protect the cultivators from 'undefined or immoderate exaction'; (5) to ascertain the 'truer' produce and profits enjoyed by renters; (6) to substitute money rents for payments in grain; (7) to fix the rent on equitable principles and in a permanent manner; (8) to limit the rent by patta or written engagements; (9) to 'emancipate the lower classes' of ryots, (10) to secure the rights 'to stimulate industry'; (11) to 'reward the labour of the ryof or to secure to the 'inferior ryots' the 'profits' (or 'benefit') or the 'fruits' of their 'labour'; and (12) to fetch a 'stable revenue to the Government or to secure the revenue of Government from defalcation. The Board of Revenue also directed Cockburn to make a survey for the purpose of fixing a rent on the lands of 'those districts in which the rates of warum (share in the crop) have never been distinctly