158 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
in Bengal. The question, Who is the landowner? was, 
however, one to which no precise answer could be given. 
For one thing, the rights which in the aggregate constitute 
ownership, in the English sense of the word, were not as a 
rule vested in one person, but were distributed irregularly 
among the various parties connected with the land; and for 
another, the collapse of the Mogul administration had pro- 
duced an environment in which might counted for more 
than right. As the administrators came into closer contact 
with the facts, they learned by degrees that the important 
thing was, not to search for non-existent landowners, but 
to ascertain and respect the rights, interests, and privileges 
of the different parties found in enjoyment of the produce 
of the soil; but, before this stage had been reached, many 
dubious claims had been recognised, and many existing 
claims had disappeared, so that the first formal Record of 
Rights did not represent accurately the position at the end 
of the Moslem period. 
The attitude of the people, especially the important 
classes of Intermediaries, contributed materially to this 
result. As we have seen in the last chapter, the collapse 
of Mogul authority had resulted in a misleading appearance 
of uniformity among these classes. Assignments had 
declined in importance, while farms of the revenue had been 
given for longer terms, and tended in practice to become 
hereditary. The position of a hereditary Farmer looks 
from the outside very like that of a Chief; and Chiefs and 
Farmers alike had been busily engaged in extending their 
spheres of influence, bringing into their Dependencies, by 
fair means as well as foul, the peasants of villages who wanted 
only to be left alone, and were ready to pay the King’s 
Share to anyone who would undertake the King’s duty of 
protecting then against interference from outside. When 
English administrators looked for landowners, it was usually 
these Intermediaries who presented themselves; some of 
them, at least, realised from the outset that the English 
were offering a new, and possibly a stable, form of tenure; 
and men who had been following the road leading to kingship 
naturally strove for ownership when they found that king- 
ship was beyond their reach