Thus, The Tithe-Farmer Makes His Bargain With
The Government When The Crops Are Ripening, Recovers His Claim Directly
They Are Gathered, Indefinitely Postpones His Own Obligations To The
Government And Often Evades Them Altogether.
Although, under his bond,
interest is payable on overdue instalments, it is never enforced.
An
examination of the accounts revealed the existence of considerable
arrear claims extending over several years, and for the most part
irrecoverable now. Practically, the tithe-farmer's obligations have
never been discharged in the year to which they belonged. Of the
collections credited in the year 1876-77, nearly one-half was on
account of the claims of prior years.
These facts clearly show that the operation of the tithe system has
resulted in a loss of revenue to the State. It has impoverished the
peasant, involving him in the toils of the money-lender as well as of
the tithe-farmer. It has checked the productiveness of the island, the
area now under cultivation being less than a third of all the culturable
lands of Cyprus. Some modification of the tax, or of the machinery for
its collection, would therefore seem to be imperatively required.
There are not wanting points of analogy, as of difference, between
Cyprus and some of the British provinces of India, and a suggestion has
been made to substitute the Indian system of a fixed money payment for
the tenth of the produce in kind. Curiously enough, the converse
proposition has lately found favour in India in connection with the
agrarian riots in the Dekkan, and what is there regarded as the bane of
the Indian system is now proposed here as the antidote of the Turkish
system.
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