第148章

3. In Oudh, during the period of anarchy preceding the annexation, the Taluqdars or old tribal chiefs who had become feudallords and collectors of taxes like the Zemindars, usurped a quasi-independent right of property over two-thirds of the soil ofthe principality. In 1855, after the annexation, the Governor-General ordered the authorities to treat directly with thevillage-communities or the inferior zemindars, without recognizing any rights of the Taluqdars or other middlemen. (9) TheTaluqdars, whose income was greatly reduced by this measure, rushed into the mutiny which broke out in 1857; and theryots, ignorant of what was being done for them, fol lowed the example of their lords. After the fall of Lucknow, theGovernor-General, Lord Canning, issued a proclamation, which confiscated to the benefit of the Government the property inthe whole soil of Oudh. But this measure was not put into execution, and its only effect was to give to the Taluqdars a rightof property, which they had not before. "It became the means," says the Hon. John Strachey, "of rewarding and benefittingthe very men, the Taluqdars, whom Lord Canning had originally desired to punish, and of placing them in a far betterposition than that which they held under the native government." Sir Robert Montgomery, the Chief Commissioner, gainedthe submission of the Taluqdars by granting them the following advantages, which were confirmed to them by Lord Canningin October 1858: the Taluqdar, "instead of holding his estate, as he formerly did, subject to the conditions of the Hindu orMohammedan or local law, according to which his power of disposing of ancestral property is very limited, now possessesan absolute power of disposing of his estate." He owes to the state one half of the gross-rental, the rate of which is to befixed every twenty or thirty years. With regard to the ryots, the Governor-General expressed a wish "that the Taluqdarsettlement may be so framed as to secure the village occupants from extortion" ( Orders in Council , Oct. 30, 1858), and hereserved to himself the power necessary "to uphold their rights in the soil in subordination to the Taluqdars." It was for thecultivators, however, to prove their right of occupation, which they were as incapable of doing, as the Taluqdars were ofshewing their right to expel them. Mr Strachey did not hesitate to condemn, in full Council General, the agrarian regulationsestablished at the time. "In my opinion," he said, "it often bears very hardly upon the ancient proprietors of the soil, whoserights had been overborne by the Taluqdars. Practically the Taluqdars have gained everything, and the holders of subordinaterights of property have gained nothing."