Those who had the making of the settlements and the governing of
these new territories did not consider that the diminution of every
_establishment_ was the removal of a _market_, of an effectual demand
for land produce; and that, when all the waste lands should be
brought into tillage, the whole would deteriorate in fertility, from
the want of fallows, Under the prevailing system of agriculture,
which afforded the lands no other means of renovation from over-
cropping. The settlements of land which were made throughout our new
land acquisitions upon these fallacious assumptions of course failed.
During a series of quinquennial settlements the assessment has been
everywhere gradually reduced to about two-thirds of what it was when
our rule began, to less than one-half of what Sir John Malcolm, and
all the other local authorities, and even the worthy Marquis of
Hastings himself, under the influence of their opinions, expected it
would be. The land revenues of the native princes of Central India,
who reduced their public establishments, which the new order of
things seemed to render useless, and thereby diminished the only
markets for the raw produce of their lands, have been everywhere
falling off in the same proportion; and scarcely one of them now
draws two-thirds of the income he drew from the same lands in 1817.
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