INDEBTEDNESS O* 1 THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 



It does not appear that in this respect one province greatly differs 

 from another, but certain localities are from special circumstances 

 either above or below the average condition. Thus, in the Punjab, 

 the canal-irrigated tracts are stated to be highly prosperous; 

 in Eastern Bengal, the profits of jute cultivation have enriched 

 the cultivating tenants ; in the Central Provinces, the land 

 holders have profited in the same way by high prices of cotton and 

 large exports since the American War ; in Madras, the ryots of the 

 deltas are in easy circumstances. On the other hand, the precarious 

 out-turn of the crops, with other adverse circumstances, has grievously 

 depressed^the landholders of the Bombay Deccan and the adjoining 

 districts of Madras, as well as those of the somewhat similar region of 

 Jhansi ; and many of the talukdars of Oudh, of Sindh, and of Guzerat 

 without such excuse, have been led by a course of extravagance into a 

 state of bankruptcy, to relieve them from the consequences of which 

 special legislative measures have been framed. 



5. With regard to the creditors of the landed classes we are 

 informed that in the more prosperous parts of the country the subs- 

 tantial landowners are themselves engaged in money-lending, and that 

 neither they nor the professional money-lenders of the better class often 

 employ the agency of the Civil Courts against their debtors. But it 

 has happened in some cases that when a district has fallen into depres- 

 sion, it has attracted an inferior class of foreign usurers, who have no 

 scruples in using every means open to them to secure a profit on hazar- 

 dous transactions, and who, working entirely through the machinery of 

 the Courts, are not inclined to cultivate sympathetic relations with the 

 people, by whom they are detested in turn. It is not probable that the 

 gains of these usurers are excessive, but they are exacted with the 

 utmost degree of friction, hostility, and suffering, with the unfortunate 

 result of attaching odium to the civil tribunals. 



6. However just may be the terms of abhorrence applied to the 

 " Marwari," or foreign usurer, it must be remembered that he is the 

 product of a diseased condition of the community. The like condemna- 

 tion must not be extended to the village banker of the better 

 class, with whose useful services the rural communities of India have 

 at no time been able to dispense. Any violent interference with the 

 legitimate business of the rural banker would be disastrous, as it would 

 result in the calling-in of all agricultural loans, and the transfer of this 

 capital to some other field of investment. The State should rather 



