LORD STANLEYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether he has received any Report with regard to the Inquiry into the Land Tenure in Oude, which was now, he understood, approaching its conclusion; and, if so, whether he would state the substance of such Report, and whether the result of that Inquiry went to confirm the Talookdars in all important cases in their holdings?
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, in reply, that up to the present time he had not received any official Report. The inquiry was being conducted by several officials, and their Reports would in the first place be addressed to the Chief Commissioner. They would then go to the Government of India, and of course he (Sir Charles Wood) would not receive complete information until the Reports were transmitted to him. But he had received information of what was going on, and it went entirely to confirm the statement of the noble Lord. The general tendency of the Reports was to the effect that though it was perfectly true that by common custom the occupiers had not been disturbed by the landowners, whether Talookdars or Zemindars, as long as the rent was paid, yet there were but very few cases in which they had been able to establish any right to the land amounting to a legal right. They had themselves shown the greatest indifference on the subject. The result, therefore, on the whole was to confirm the possession of the Talookdars in the estates which they held, and, practically, to do away with anything like legal right on the part of the occupying tenants to the land which they occupied.