INDEBTEDNESS OP THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 11 



Another cause of the increase of indebtedness is the facility with 

 which the money-lending class can command the 



Increase of money- * 



lenders and money- assistance of the law in the recovery of debt, and 



lending business. .,. . . , 



consequent upon that facility, an expansion or the 

 ryot's credit, inducing numbers of small capitalists to compete for 

 investments in loans to the Kunbi. We have already quoted Sir G. 

 Wingate's remarks on this point, although at the present time other 

 causes have combined to impair the ryot's credit, still one material 

 cause of his present condition must undoutedly be sought in the state 

 of things described in 1852, and since that date other causes have 

 operated to aggravate immensely the evil which was then 

 discerned. Whatever facilities were afforded by the law to the 

 creditor in 1852 have been greatly enhanced by the introduc- 

 tion of the present procedure in 1859, and by the punctual 

 conduct of judicial duties now exacted from the subordinate courts, 

 while the ryot's credit has been enhanced by the addition of his land 

 and agricultural stock and implements to the security liable for his 

 debts. 



The introduction of compulsory registration of deeds dealing with 

 immovable property in 1865, protected the creditor from attempts to 

 repudiate or dispute a registered bond. In the meantime the ryot's 

 estate had risen in value, and new cultivation offered securities for new 

 loans ; his personal solvency was assured by the large demand for 

 labour on the railway and other public works, and his title in his land 

 was, in 1865, recognized and secured by an Act, which confirmed the 

 rights vested in him by the survey settlement. The American War 

 from 1862 to 1865, while, on the one kand, it poured money into the 

 country to seek investment, on the other hand, raised to an extravagant 

 pitch the value of agricultural securities. To the above causes tending 

 to attract capital to the business of agricultural money-lending, 

 we may add that in the dearth of other industries in this 

 country with a population whose wants embrace little but the 

 merest necessaries, capital which under other conditions would 

 find employment in trade or manufactures, here naturally turns to 

 agricultural investments, and almost the only course open to the 

 clerk or servant who has saved a little money in a village sow&ar's 

 employment and desires to earn an independent living, is to set up 

 in the same business himself, preferably in the place where he is 

 already known. 



