The agrarian system of Moslem India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 182285363X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-215918

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cottier, Henry

Title:: La crise du petit commerce

Place of publication:: [Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar]

Publisher:: [Verlag nicht ermittelbar]

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXI, 263 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Première Partie. La crise

Collection:: Economics Books

68 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA maintain smaller men on the same terms; and, while some land was Reserved to provide revenue for the King, it is probable that the great bulk of the kingdom was ad- ministered through assignees rather than salaried officials. The attitude of the Afghan officers towards their Assign- ments can be inferred from the fact that at one time they set up a claim! to treat them as heritable; but the King insisted on a clear distinction between private property, which would be distributed according to the law of in- heritance, and public offices and Assignments, in which no vested or contingent rights accrued. Subject, however, to this distinction, the facts on record justify the statement that the Afghan assignees had something like a free hand in the management of the land, and the peasants, placed under them. It is easy therefore to understand the silence of the chroniclers regarding general orders during this period; the only order of the kind which I have noticed is that which was issued by Ibrihim Lodi requiring that collections should be made only in grain.? The reasons for this order, and its duration, are matters of some little interest. The chronicler attributes it to low prices resulting from uniformly good harvests, but there are grounds for thinking that scarcity of the precious metals was the decisive factor. The prevailing cheapness ex- tended, we are told, to all classes of merchandise, not merely agricultural produce, while ‘gold and silver were procurable only with the greatest difficulty”; and this is only another way of saying that the precious metals had appreciated. A probable interpretation of these statements is that the course of trade at this period did not bring the precious metals into Northern India in sufficient quantities to satisfy the demand, which is one of the permanent economic features of this region. Adequate supplies could be ob- tained only through the seaports of Bengal and Gujarat. When one or other of these tracts was under the rule of Delhi, trade could move freely, and, apart from trade, the revenue could come up country in cash; when they were independent, and cut off from Delhi by lawlessness along the roads, there would be no remittance of revenue, and trade 1 Elliot, iv. 327. 2 Elliot, iv. 476.

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