12 INDEBTEDNESS OP THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 



The enquiries of the Commission have made it clear that the 



, .... smaller class of soivkars, who are also the most 



Increase m inferior 



kind of money-lending unscrupulous, have increased very considerably 



during the last ten years, and that it has been 

 a common practice for the ryot to borrow from one iowkar to pay 

 another, or to borrow from two or three at a time. A result of this is 

 that in the competition with inferior members of their class even 

 respectable sowkars are obliged more and more to resort to the methods 

 of swelling the debt and coercing the debtor practised by them. We 

 here again quote the letter of Sir G. Wingate describing the change in 

 the relations of the parties : 



"The prosperity of the ryot is no longer necessary to the 

 prosperity of the village money-lender. The latter has no longer 

 occasion to trust to the good faith or honesty of the former. Mutual 

 confidence and good- will have been succeeded by mutual distrust 

 and dislike. The money-lender has the ever-ready expedient of a 

 suit at law to obtain complete command over the person and 

 property of his debtor. Lt..becomes the interest of the former to 

 reduce the latter to a state of hopeless indebtedness in order that 

 he jnay be able to appropriate the whole fruits of his industry 

 beyond what is indispensable to a mere existence. This he is 

 enabled without difficulty to do. So long as a ryot is not much 

 involved, the money-lender is ready to afford him the means of 

 indulging in any extravagance without troubling him at all about 

 future repayment. The debt may lie over and he may choose 

 his own time for repayment. The simple and thoughtless ryot is 

 easily inveigled into the snare, and only becomes aware of his folly 

 when the toils are fairly around him and escape is impossible. From 

 that day forward he becomes the bondsman of his creditor. The latter 

 takes care that he shall seldom do more than reduce the interest of 

 his debt. Do what he will, the poor ryot can never get rid of the 

 principal. He toils that another may rest, and sows that another may 

 reap. Hope deserts and despair possesses him. The virtues of a free- 

 man are supplanted by the vices of a slave. He feels himself to be 

 the victim of injustice and tries to revenge himself by cheating his 

 oppressors. He cannot get into a worse position than he already 

 occupies, and becomes reckless. His great endeavour is to despoil 

 his enemies, the money-lenders, by borrowing continually. When he 

 has got all that he can from one, it is a triumph to him if by any 



