10 



INDEBTEDNESS OP THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 



Holkar, when they were met by Mr. Pollen, the Assistant Collector 

 in charge of the District, through whose means they were settled on 

 waste lands in Khandesh. The cause of their leaving their homes, 

 they informed Mr. Pollen, was that "their lands had gone and 

 their creditors were merciless." In this case It is true the emigration 

 was directly caused by the consequences of debt, and in so far as the 

 creditors of these men had taken from them their yearly produce or 

 their property unfairly, so far was the pressure which forced them to 

 emigrate due to other causes than the increase of population ; but at 

 the same time the operation of this cause is indicated. We find the 

 natural course of events which follow that cause in their story, their 

 yearly income failing, they lived on their capital until that was 

 gone, their labour was not wanted for the cultivation of the land 

 they had lost, and there was no other opening for them nearer 

 home. 



The conclusion which we would adopt on the subject of the in- 

 Conclusions as to the crease of population as a cause of indebtedness is 

 increase of population. ^hat, had the agriculture of the district to support 

 only its own producers, including a fair interest on capital actually 

 expended on account of the land, it would be sufficient, with the 

 assistance of the wages of exported labour during the idle season and 

 bad years, to maintain them at their present number, and larger 

 returns might be obtained from the land by improved cultivation to 

 meet a still further increase. But agriculture pays a heavy tax to 

 to the sowkar, much of which neither represents expenditure 

 on account of the land nor ever returns to the land ; such holdings 

 as pass into the hands of the sowJcar will not, under hired 

 labour, support so many persons as lands cultivated by proprietors, 

 and these holdings are yearly increasing. Revised assessments have 

 already in a portion of this region reduced the margin of the ryot's 

 profits and thrust his creditor's demands further upon his capital ; the 

 revision of the remaining districts will make this encroachment more 

 general than it is at present. It is not to be expected that increasing 

 population will produce improved outturn ; the demands of the creditor 

 are sufficient to absorb any increased return, and the profit of labour 

 invested will go to the sowkars to the discouragement of such invest- 

 ment by the ryot in future. Without such improvement in 

 agriculture the return from the land must be expected to diminish 

 rather than increase. 





