90 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA
got rid, once for all, of the vexatious business of com-
mutation, and made it possible for the local authorities to
assess the Demand in each season in time for prompt col-
lection. Economically, its effect was to transfer from the
State to the peasantry the benefit and the burden of fluctua-
tions in prices resulting from seasonal variations or other
causes. Having regard to the high pitch of the assessment,
the question naturally arises whether such a transfer was
wise, or even possible; the answer is found in certain oc-
currences recorded after the transfer was made. In the
43rd year we are told (Akbamama, iii. 747), that, in con-
sequence of Akbar’s prolonged residence at Lahore, and the
resulting rise in local prices, the revenue-Demand in this
region had been increased by 20 per cent.: on his departure
prices fell, and the increase was discontinued by his orders.
In this case, the State resumed at least a portion of the
benefit which the system secured to the peasants; it is the
only case I have found, but the silence of the chronicles in
such matters is by no means conclusive.
On the other hand, there is a striking series of cases where
the State was forced to resume a portion of the burden it had
shifted. Between the 30th and the 35th regnal years,
Northern India was threatened with disaster! from a series
of exceptionally favourable seasons. In the circumstances
of the time there was no adequate market for the surplus
produce, prices inevitably fell heavily, and producers who
could not realise their stocks had difficulties in paying the
revenue. Substantial reductions were made in the Demand
in three provinces, Allahabad, Awadh, and Delhi, in the
30th year and again in the 31st; the same three provinces,
along with Agra, received further remissions in the 33rd
year, and portions of them again in the 35th. There is no
record of any remission of revenue for the opposite cause
of unfavourable seasons though we know? that five years
later famine was raging in this tract; the explanation is,
I think, to be found in the fact that the system in force
provided for automatic remissions in case of crop-failure.
! Akbarnama, iii. 463, 494, 533, 577.
! Elliot, vi. 193. For remissions on account of crop-failure, see Ain, i
? 28M
