Treaties. etc., ii, CCXLII—CCXLIII.

The Government of Fort St. George having received information through various channels that great inequalities exist in the present revenue jamabundy of the province of Malabar, transmitted orders some time back to the Principal Collector to frame by survey and assessment a new jamabundy upon improved principles founded on a liberal consideration of the relative rights of the Sirkar, of the proprietor and cultivator. Those orders the Principal Collector has now determined to carry into immediate and due execution.

It is well known to be considered a just system of assessment for the Government to derive its land revenue from the pattam (or net rent) payable by the cultivator’s tenant to his proprietor.

To establish a fixed rule by which the pattam shall be calculated and ascertained, it must be in the recollection of every one that the principal Malabar Rajas, Head Nambutiris and Mukhyasthans in each district were some months ago assembled by summons at Calicut, and, after the most patient inquiry into the mode by which the pattam was usually rated, it was found that a variety of systems prevailed, which might chiefly be ascribed to the existing inequalities in the revenue in the different districts in the province.

In order to rectify such errors and establish a permanent revenue by which one ryot shall neither be more heavily nor more favourably assessed than another, it became obviously convincing and desirable to all parties that one uniform system should obtain in estimating the pattam on which the Sirkar revenue was to be fixed.

Having fully and deliberately discussed the many points connected with so material a question and pretty accurately ascertained the customs which in former times regulated pattam on lands and gardens generally throughout the province the aforesaid Rajas, Head Nambutiris and Mukhyasthans at length unanimously concurred in certain fixed principles whereby to determine the Sirkar revenue, which they recorded and authenticated by their several signatures.

Those being the very principles which the Right Honourable the Governor in Council had formally and finally confirmed and ordered to be adopted framing the new assessment of Malabar, they are now hereunder written and hereby published for the information of all its inhabitants.

First—On wet or rice grounds after deducting from the gross produce the seed and exactly the same quantity for expenses of cultivation and then allotting one-third of what remains as kolu-labham {or plough profit) to the kudiyan, the residue or pattam is to be divided in the proportion of six-tenths to the Sirkar and four-tenths to the janmakkar ;

Secondly,—On parambu or orchard lands one-third of coconut, supary, and jack-tree produce being deemed sufficient for the kudiyan, the remainder or pattam is to be equally divided between the Sirkar and janmakkar ; and

Thirdly.—-On dry grain lands (which are very scantily cultivated in Malabar) the Sirkar’s share is to be half of the janmahkar's varam on what is actually cultivated during the year.

The assessment on the pepper produce will be fixed upon hereafter.

The new paymash on the preceding principles has in the first instance been entrusted to the execution of the several Subordinate Collectors, to whom the necessary orders have been issued.

As the present mode of assessment has been acknowledged to be fair and moderate, it is expected that the janmakkars will render a true and faithful account of the pattam of their estates at the cutcherries of the Subordinate Collectors, who on their part will take care that every assistance shall be given by the local revenue servants in each district as the janmakkars belonging to it might want to obtain information from their tenants relative to the existing state of their landed property. A form will be likewise given to the several janmakkars by order of the Sub-Collectors, agreeably to which the required accounts are to be drawn out.

After these accounts are all delivered in, a rigid scrutiny will be made and the fullest means devised to ascertain their accuracy. The true result will then be submitted for the approbation of the Board of Revenue and Government, under whose sanction the Principal Collector will visit each district for the purpose of granting sealed and signed pattas, or assess notes to the several janmakkars and other inhabitants, specifying the correct annual revenue they are to pay to the Company's Government.

The Principal Collector therefore confidently expects that, without making themselves liable to punishment by any act of palpable fraud or deception, the inhabitants will willingly and readily render exact accounts of their property in order that all their apprehensions might be dissipated by the early establishment of an unalterable assessment.

Calicut, (Signed) T. WARDEN,

21st July 1805. Principal Collector.