CANARA

CANARA, a province of Hindustan, extending between the twelfth and sixteenth degrees of north latitude. It is a narrow strip of territory running along the western coast of India, 200 miles in length by thirty-five in breadth; and is hemmed in on the east by the great ridge of the Ghaut Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Portuguese territory of Goa, on the south by Malabar, on the east by Mysore and the Balaghaut territories, and on the west by the Indian Ocean.

Canara is a corruption of Karnata, the table-land above the Ghaut Mountains. It is a rocky and uneven country, where cattle are scarce, and where, even when they can be procured, they cannot always be employed; where every spot, before it can be cultivated, must be levelled by the hand of man; and where even the land that has been brought under cultivation, if it be neglected for a few years, is soon broken into deep gullies by the heavy torrents of rain which fall during the monsoons. The land is divided into small properties, and the country flourishes from the minute attention bestowed by each proprietor on his own little spot. It is not likely that Canara will ever become a manufacturing country, as it does not produce the necessary materials, and also on account of the heavy rains, which oppose insurmountable obstacles to all operations which require to be carried on under a clear sky. But these same rains give it a never-failing succession of rice crops, which are exported to Malabar, Goa, Bombay, and Arabia. "Canara," says Sir Thomas Munro,¹ "produces nothing but rice and cocoa nuts; its dry lands are totally unproductive, so that the little wheat or other dry grain that is raised is sown in the paddy fields, where the water has been insufficient for the rice. It produces hardly any pepper. The sandal-wood for exportation comes all from Nuggar and Soonda. The soil is perhaps the poorest in India. The eternal rains have long washed away the rich parts, if ever it had any, and left nothing but sand and gravel." In another letter he observes, "there is hardly a spot in Canara where one can walk with any satisfaction, for the country is the most broken and rugged perhaps in the world. The few narrow plains that are in it are under water at one season of the year; and during the dry weather the numberless banks which divide them make it very disagreeable and fatiguing to walk over them. There is hardly such a thing as a piece of gently rising ground in the whole country. All the high grounds start up at once in the shape of so many inverted tea-cups, and they are rocky, covered with wood, and difficult of ascent, and so crowded together that they leave very little room for valleys between." It was in ancient times in a very flourishing state, while it remained under its Hindu sovereigns, principally owing to the moderate land-tax to which it was subjected. An increase was made of fifty per cent. to this tax under the Bednore family, besides many smaller additions, making twenty per cent. more. But all these taxes were easily paid by the inhabitants; and the country, if it did not advance in population and wealth, fully maintained the position to which it had attained. Canara was conquered by Hyder in 1762; and at that time it was a highly improved country, filled with industrious inhabitants, who enjoyed a greater degree of prosperity, and were more moderately taxed, than the subjects of any native

power in India. But no sooner was its conquest completed than Hyder ordered an investigation into every source of revenue, for the purpose of augmenting it wherever it could be done. These exactions were augmented by his son Tippoo, who was determined to relinquish no part of his father's revenue, and whose policy it was to hold one part of the proprietors and husbandmen liable for the deficiencies of their neighbours. The effect of these violent regulations was to hasten the extinction of all the ancient proprietors of the soil, and to deteriorate the value of the lands until they became unsaleable. In this manner the agriculture of the country was heavily oppressed; and Canara, when it came into the possession of the British, had completely fallen from its ancient prosperity. It is said, in the report of the principal collector of Canara,¹ "the evils which have been accumulating in the country since it became a province of Mysore have destroyed a great part of its former population, and rendered its inhabitants as poor as those of the neighbouring countries." The value of landed property has been greatly reduced; and those lands which are worth anything are reduced to a very small portion, and lie chiefly between the Cundapoor and Chundergherry rivers, and within five miles of the sea. But it is only here and there even in this tract that lands are to be found which can be sold at any price. There is scarcely any saleable land even on the sea-coast to the northward of Cundapoor, or anywhere except on the banks of the Mangalore and some of the other great rivers. The inland tracts near the Ghaut Mountains are generally waste and overgrown with wood. By the oppressions of its conquerors the population of the country has been diminished about one-third; and the value of property has been reduced in an equal proportion. "It may be said," observes the principal collector, in his report, "that this change in the condition of the country was brought about by the invasion of Hyder; by the four wars which have happened since that event; by Tippoo himself destroying many of the principal towns on the coast, and forcing their inhabitants to remove to Jumalahad and other unhealthy stations near the hills; by his seizing in one night all the Christian men, women, and children, amounting to above 60,000, and sending them into captivity to Mysore; by the prohibition of foreign trade; and by the general corruption of his government in all its departments." These circumstances, according to the opinion of the collector, accelerated the change; "but they probably," he adds, "did not contribute to it so much as the extraordinary augmentation of the land rents." "Whole villages," says Colonel Munro, who after the conquest of the country was appointed by the Company to survey it, and to reclaim it from its wild and unsettled state, "have in some places been abandoned by the owners, from the exorbitance of the assessment; in others they are barely able to keep their ground and to subsist; in others the rent is so moderate that the lands are saleable."²

On the fall of Tippoo in 1799, Canara passed to the East India Company. The territory was in the first instance placed under the management of Colonel Munro, by whose vigilance and activity order was gradually restored. The people rejoiced in the protection they received; and under the equal rule of the British government the country soon began to revive from the state in which it had languished under its former tyrants. The assessment of this district has long been a subject of discussion among the local authorities, and much difference of opinion has been manifested in regard to the best mode to be adopted for placing it on a satisfactory footing. The government demand, though upon the whole moderate, is stated to be unequally distributed; but notwithstanding this inequality, the country has greatly increased in wealth and population,

and a marked improvement is reported to have taken place in the condition of the people, which is exhibited in the dress, in the mode of living, and in the increase of their personal comforts. The lands are held for the most part under the Ryotwar tenure; and a maximum rent fixed for the best lands, which cannot be exceeded. Inferior lands, so long as they remain inferior, are of course assessed at lower rates, and the contracts with the cultivators are renewed from year to year, when remissions of rent are made if the unfavourable character of the season or the circumstances of the cultivator render such a measure expedient. Doubtless the greatest blessing which the British government could confer on the country would be the abandonment of the annual settlement, and the introduction of the revenue system which prevails in the north-western provinces of Bengal, where the government demand is limited to a fixed proportion of the net rent, and leases are granted for periods of thirty years. By this limitation of the public demand, a valuable and marketable private property is created in the land, and every cultivator, however petty his holding, becomes to a certain extent a capitalist. But before such an arrangement can be carried out, a new survey of the district must be made, and such a measure is in contemplation. In the mean time a regulation has been promulgated, under which the full benefit of all agricultural improvements effected by the cultivators has been secured to them, and no additional assessment is to be imposed on that account so long as the general rates of the district remain unaltered. The district consists of two divisions, North Canara and South Canara; and their aggregate population is officially returned at 1,056,333.