116

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

of the king as lord paramount of the soil,

whence originated a strictly feudal system; and the right of the crown, the church,

and the

chiefs, as landlords, to services in lieu of rent in other words, to a service-rent instead of a

money-rent—a system closely resembling em

phyteusis. *... The public burdens fell on those who held on the feudal tenure. They guarded

the barriers and passes into the hills; they served as soldiers, cut timber for public purposes, and executed public works. To ensure the due per formance of these services, a careful register was

kept of every separate holding, and the holdings were placed under the several public departments, the heads of which were responsible to the king

for the proper distribution of the labour available for carrying on the public service of the country. The non-feudal tenant, or emphyteuta, if he may be so called, cultivated the land whence the palace,

monastery, or manor-house was supplied with corn; he provided domestic officers and servants of every grade, from the seneschal of the palace to the cook-boy of the kitchen at the manor-house, and rendered personal service of every kind, for which he was paid wages in land. . . It is with these two classes of tenants—the ten

ants of the temples, and the tenants of private

proprietors—that the present Ordinance has to deal; and the claim of the temples and proprietors to receive a fair equivalent in the shape of a money-rent in lieu of the services is fully recog

[APRIL, 1873.

in return for it, have agreed to perform heavy and laborious services. Again, the tenant having originally no right in the soil, some landlords have in times past arbitrarily divided the original al lotments into two or, sometimes, four portions, requiring for each sub-division the whole service originally required for the entire allotment, thus raising the rents sometimes twofold, sometimes fourfold. The result is that there is no system whatever.

The extent of the services

has

no

necessary relation to the extent and value of the holding: in some cases the landowners have been careless and negligent of their interests, and receive less than a fair equivalent for the dominium utile of their land; in others the services rendered exceed a fair rent for the land. It fol

lows that to assess the money-value of the exist ing services would be to continue an arrangement which is unsystematic and opposed to the true interests of the people, being in some cases, as regards the interests of the landowner, wasteful and unprofitable, in others unduly heavy on the tenants; and it is to be remembered that if a money-rent were fixed, based absolutely on the

present money-value of the services (if that could be ascertained), it would bring out with such dis tinctness and prominence the inequalities, irregu larities, and unprofitableness of the system which has grown up in the course of many generations, that in a short time it would be impossible to resist the inevitable demand for a revision of the

nized.

money-rent assessed in this unequal and unsyste

These services are of every imaginable kind— some simply honorary, some of the most menial and laborious description, the lightest being usu ally paid most highly, while the heaviest are generally rewarded by enough land to afford only a bare subsistence, and precisely the same services are often paid in the same village at different

matic method. . .

rates: for instance, for sixty days' service in the kitchen one man will hold an acre of land, an

other two acres, and a third only a few perches. In fact the services have become attached to the

land in the course of many generations, according to the pleasure of many landlords, and to the vary ing necessities of many tenants. Large farms have been bestowed on younger branches of a house, on the condition of a mere nominal recogni tion of allegiance. A family of faithful servants has been liberally provided for by a grant of part

On the estates of the chiefs and large landown ers (Nindagam) the services, as already indicated, are of the greatest possible variety. Chiefs and Mudiyanselā perform various honorary services. Welälla tenants cultivate the home farm, accom

pany their lord on journeys, take their turn on duty at the manor-house. Duray tenants carry baggage and the lord's palanquin, while the Wahumpuray carry the palanquins of the ladies of the family, and also provide for the service of the kitchen; and though there is a complete ab sence of equality and system in the remuneration given for domestic services, all such services are provided for with the utmost care. A chief with several villages will draw his cook or his bath-boy for two or three months a year from one village from another for four months, from a third for

of an estate, in full belief in the continued faithful

one month, &c., carefully arranging to have one on

performance of the customary service. In times of famine or scarcity, starving supplicants have with difficulty obtained from a landlord a small plot of land barely sufficient to maintain life, and,

duty throughout the year. There are the potter to make tiles and supply earthenware; the smith to clean the brass vessels, and repair and make agricultural implements; the chunam-burner to

• See Brackenbury's Report on the Land Tenure in Portugal, Pt. I., pp. 176-179.