The prevailing system throughout the Madras presidency is the ryotwari, which takes the cultivator or peasant proprietor as its rent-paying unit, somewhat as the Bengal system takes the zamindar. This system cannot be called indigenous to the country, any more than the zamindari of Bengal. If any system deserves that name, it is that of village assessment, which still lingers in the memories of the people in the south. When the British declared themselves heir to the nawab of the Carnatic at the opening of the 19th century, they had no adequate experience of revenue management. The authorities in England favoured the zamindari system already at work in Bengal, which appeared at least calculated to secure punctual payment. The Madras Government was accordingly instructed to enter into permanent engagements with zamindars, and, where no zamindars could be found, to create substitutes out of enterprising contractors. The attempt resulted in failure in every case, except where the zamindars happened to be the representatives of ancient lines of powerful chiefs. Several of such chiefs exist in the extreme south and in the north of the presidency. Their estates have been guaranteed to them on payment of a _peshkash_ or permanent tribute, and are saved by the custom of primogeniture from the usual fate of subdivision. Throughout the rest of Madras there are no zamindars either in name or fact. The influence of Sir Thomas Munro afterwards led to the adoption of the ryotwari system, which will always be associated with his name. According to this system, an assessment is made with the cultivating proprietor upon the land taken up for cultivation year by year. Neither zamindar nor village officer intervenes between the cultivator and the state, which takes directly upon its own shoulders all a landlord's responsibility. The early ryotwari settlements in Madras were based upon insufficient experience. They were preceded by no survey, but adopted the crude estimates of native officials. Since 1858 a department of revenue survey has been organized, and the old assessments have been everywhere revised.