of moderation was not
learned without painful experience, but the Panjab was fortunate in this
that, except as regards the Delhi territory, the lesson had been learned
and a reasonable system evolved in the United Provinces before the
officers it sent to the Panjab began the regular assessments of the
districts of the new province. A land revenue settlement is usually made
for a term of 20 or 30 years. Since 1860 the limit of the government
demand has been fixed at one-half of the rental, but this figure is very
rarely approached in practice. Between a quarter and a third would be
nearer the mark. A large part of the land is tilled by the owners, and
the rent of the whole has to be calculated from the data for the part,
often not more than a third or two-fifths of the whole, cultivated by
tenants at will. The calculation is complicated by the fact that kind
rents consisting of a share of the crop are in most places commoner than
cash rents and are increasing in favour. The determination of the cash
value of the rent where the crop is shared is a very difficult task.
There is a large margin for error, but there can be no doubt that the
net result has almost always been undervaluation. It is probable that
the share of the produce of the fields which the land revenue absorbs
rarely exceeds one-seventh and is more often one-tenth or less. A clear
proof of the general moderation of Panjab assessments is furnished by
the fact that in the three years ending 1910-11 the recorded prices in
sales amounted to more than Rs. 125 per rupee of land revenue of the
land sold, which may be taken as implying a belief on the part of
purchasers that the landlord's rent is not double, but five or six times
the land revenue assessment, for a man would hardly pay Rs. 125 unless
he expected to get at least six or seven rupees annual profit.

~Fluctuating Assessments.~--The old native plan of taking a share of the
crop, though it offered great opportunity for dishonesty on both sides,
had at least the merit of roughly adjusting the demand to the character
of the seasons. It was slowly realized that there were parts of the
province where the harvests were so precarious that even a very moderate
fixed cash assessment was unsuitable. Various systems of fluctuating
cash assessment have therefore been introduced, and one-fourth of the
total demand is now of this character, the proportion having been
greatly increased by the adoption of the fluctuating