TH

POSTSCRIPT.

HE annual Financial Statement, published on the 25th instant, shews that the official year 1879-80 closed with a deficit of £1,183,000, instead of the estimated surplus of £119,000; that the accounts of the year just expired again show a deficit of £6,269,000 in the place of the surplus of £417,000, originally budgeted for, while the estimates for 1881-82 provide for a surplus of £855,000, the revenue being taken as £70,981,000, and the expenditure at £70,126,000, reckoning ten rupees to the pound sterling.

The above deficits are due entirely to the Afghan war expenditure, but for which the year 1879-80 would have closed with a surplus of £4,607,000, and the year 1880-81, with one of £4,269,000. The total net cost of the war, including the estimated expenditure of the current year and the outlay on the frontier railways, is shown to have been £18,843,000 (true sterling), instead of £4,793,000, as estimated in February 1880.

The revenue for the year 1880-81 includes £2,000,000 out of the £5,000,000 granted from the English treasury towards the cost of the war, while the whole of the remaining £3,000,000 is credited to the year 1881-82, the reason given for adopting this somewhat unusual course being, that it exactly balances the estimated war expenditure of the year, and thus frees the accounts from the influence of this abnormal charge. But for this device, it is observable, the budget would have shown a deficit of £1,645,000, instead of a surplus of £855,000. This deficit would probably, however, have been extinguished by excess receipts from opium, the net revenue from which is greatly under-estimated in the budget.

As a result of crediting the £3,000,000 of the war grant in anticipation of its actual receipt, the year is estimated to close with a reduced cash balance of £10,000,000, as compared with £12,800,000 on the 31st instant.

Besides the above sum of £3,000,000 credited from the war grant, the means for the year include a loan of the same amount to be contracted hereafter in India.

The statement contains an announcement of the determination of the Government to modify its late policy of maintaining a monopoly of the railways and other public works of the country, for the construction of which the aid of private capitalists is again invited, under terms which are left to be defined hereafter, but which are not expected to include the old form of an absolute Government guarantee. In the meantime a Company has been formed under the auspices of Messrs. Rothschild for the construction of a railway to Jessore and Khulna,

With the announcement made by Lord Hartington in the house on the 21st instant, that the Government has determined to make over the possession of Kandahar to Abdul Rahman Khan, the Afghan question may be said to have entered its final phase. A force of five thousand men has already started from Kabul for the purpose of occupying the city, and, on its arrival, it is expected the evacuation will be completed. It has been further announced that the Pishin Valley will also be abandoned, as soon as the Government of India finds it convenient, but a larger force than heretofore will be maintained at Quetta.

The debate in the House of Lords referred to above was followed on the 24th instant by a motion of want of confidence in the Lower House, which was, however, rejected by a majority of a hundred and twenty.

The opportunity furnished by the restoration of peace in Afghanistan has been seized to carry out the long-deferred purpose of chastising the Waziris for their late audacious raid on the town of Tank and other offences, and a force of four thousand native troops has been despatched with this object, a brigade of four regiments and a field battery being held in reserve. In the mean time the Waziris have been given the option of compounding for their offences by paying a fine of a lakh of rupees; and it is not expected, in any case, that the expedition will enter the Waziri country much before the middle of April.

The 30th March 1881.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

GENERAL LITERATURE.

A Digest of Civil Law for the Punjab, chiefly based on the Customary Law as at present judicially ascertained, by W. H. Rattigan (Lincoln's Inn), Barrister-at-Law. Allahabad: Printed at the Office of the Pioneer.

LAW, or set forth in as

AW, either digested or set forth in detail, is, as a rule, not by

any means fascinating reading for the bulk of men, yet we venture to think, that Mr. W. H. Rattigan's Digest of Punjab customary law will be found interesting reading, not only to students of law, but to students of human nature everywhere; and to all who care to learn in a succinct form something of the unwritten common law of a large section of the Indian peoplelaw which has survived through ages; and remained almost unchanged amid the change, decay, and overthrow of successive dynasties to the present day. Mr. W. H. Rattigan has brought together and systimatized a vast fund of legal knowledge, based on the customary law of the Punjab, and the decision of the chief court, reported and unreported, on such subjects as succession, alienation, marriage, tenure of land, adoption, and others, of a like nature, all of them bearing intimately on the social conditions and habits of the people, which will do more to throw light on, and spread knowledge regarding, the people of the north-west of India than many books much more pretentious.

One of the chief charms of this Digest is, that the statements are brief and clear, entirely destitute of circumlocution, and each statement is backed up by an array of authorities and illustrations, which are of the highest value, not only as guides to the legal practitioner, but as sources of information to all, students who desire to acquire a knowledge of what after all, is in some respects one of the most important subjects of study, viz., the social barriers within which a people have existed, even when written law and authority were overturned in anarchy, and the rule of the

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strongest trampled in the dust political and legal rights. Mr. Rattigan says in his preface:-"It had long been felt by those best acquainted with the habits and customs of the rural population, that neither the shara nor the shastras really exercised any direct influence among them in regard to such matters (matters pertaining to the domain of private rights); and it was also known that the Hindu and Muhammedan, though differing in religion, were often united together in the village community, as it was natural they should be, by the same common rules regarding the devolution and disposal of property, which in theory and frequently in practice was recognized as involving a community of interests." To put these customary laws in the form of a few simple propositions, including rules that, it is believed will be accepted by Hindu and Muhammedan alike, is the task which Mr. Rattigan has set before him, with the ulterior object of assisting any future effort to reduce to a more or less definite code, the whole customary laws of the Punjab. So far as the present work goes, and it is a supplement to, and further Digest of principles enunciated "in the larger treatise which was the joint production of Mr. Justice Boulnois" and the author, it is an eminently successful piece of work which reflects great credit on the acumen, skill, and research of Mr. Rattigan, who has in this volume reduced to small compass, something like fifteen years' notes of cases carefully investigated, and supplemented the whole with copious reference to authorities and with apt illustrations. We quote the following from the tenth chapter:-"The village Common Land," as a fair example of the power of condensation and clearness of statement which characterises the Digest. At the same time it exhibits the tenacity with which rights on common lands in Northern India have been held and guarded.

The Village Common Land.

190-Comprises the Shamilat-deh, including the uncultivated (banjar) and pasture lands, the abadi or inhabitated village sites, and the Gora-deh or vacant space reserved for extension of the village dwellings and adjoining the village site.

191. As a general rule, only proprietors of the village malikan-deh as distinguished from proprietors of their own holdings (Malikan-Nakbuza Khud) are entitled to share in the Shamilat

deh.

192. In the absence of custom none of the proprietors can do anything which alters the condition of the joint-property without the consent of all the co-sharers.

193.-Nor can any individual proprietor plant or cut trees on common land, or sink a well, except with such consent.