INDEBTEDNESS OF THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 



moderate return every year, it would still be inevitable that the 

 Kunbi should draw the whole of his year's income from land in the 

 lump during the two months of harvest. As, however, there is one 

 year of drought in every three, over much of the region, and a good 

 crop also only once in three years, it follows that the income 

 yielded to the Kunbi from his land is received in fail triennially 

 instead of annually. It is everywhere a serious aggsavation of their 

 ill fortune to the cultivators of indifferent soils that, their land yield- 

 ing only one kind of produce, they receive the whole return in a lump, 

 while better soils that admit of a variety of crop enable the cultivator 

 to spread his receipts over six months of the year. This evil 

 is intensified for the ryots of the disturbed districts by their capri- 

 cious climate. It is hardly possible to conceive any conditions more 

 certain to produce indebtedness among the poorer classes than these. 

 When to these conditions is added the variation in the value of the 

 ryot's produce which leaves him in absolute uncertainty at seed time 

 what his crop will be worth if he get one, it is apparent that no great 

 degree of improvidence is needed to account for his indebtedness, but 

 rather that considerable industry supplementing the income of agri- 

 culture, and considerable frugality in living must be presumed in order 

 to account for the large number of Kunbis who are not burdened with 

 debt. 



Improvidence. 



It would be idle to say that improvidence does not exist as a cause 

 of indebtedness. It consists however rather in 

 the short-sighted imprudence of an ignorant class 

 ready to relieve present necessity by discounting future income on any 

 terms, and unable to realise the consequences of obligations foolishly 

 contracted, than in an extravagant expenditure or misapplication of 

 income. The results of the Commission's enquiries show that undue 

 prominence has been given to the expenditure on marriage and other 

 festivals as a cause of the ryot's indebtedness. The expenditure on 

 such occasions may undoubtedly be called extravagant when com- 

 pared with the ryot's means, but the occasions occur seldom, and 

 probably in a course of years the total sum spent in this way by any 

 ryot is not larger than a man in his position is justified in spending 

 on social and domestic pleasures. The expenditure forms an item of some 

 importance in the debit side of his account, but by itself it rarely 

 appears as the nucleus of his indebtedness. The sums usually spent on 



