INDEBTEDNESS OP THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 23 



assist him in his transactions so far as they are lawful, should afford 

 additional facilities for the recovery of reasonable claims, and should 

 thus induce him to make loans at a lower rate of interest than that 

 which now prevails, under the custom established under Native rule 

 when the security was very inferior. The aim of all remedial measures 

 as regards the landholders should be to make his dealings with his 



p> ~ 



banker fair and open, and while protecting him from extortion or op- 

 pressive measures of coercion, to constrain him to pay his just debts to 

 the full extent of his means, but by less cruel and ruinous expedients 

 than imprisonment or the sale of all he possesses. The means avail- 

 able to these ends are cheap and accessible courts which shall give full 

 consideration to the equity of every claim, and a simple method of 

 recovering; debts. 



7. The origin of debt among the landed classes is traceable to 

 various causes, among which the most prominent are the failure of 

 crops from drought, expenditure on marriage or other ceremonies, 

 general thriftlessness, an improvident use of sudden inflations of credit, 

 the exactions of an oppressive body of middlemen, and administrative 

 errors, such as unsuitable revenue settlements ; and debt once incurred 

 very rapidly grows with exorbitant rates of interest. In so far as the 

 causes of indebtedness lie in the inherited tendencies of the people, such 

 as want of forethought, and readiness to promise anything in the 

 future in order to secure present gratification, no remedies are possible, 

 except through the spread of education, the gradual growth of provi- 

 dent and self-denying qualities under the influence of painful experi- 

 ence, and the success of the stronger and thriftier individuals in the 

 struggle for life. It is obvious that there is danger lest any interven- 

 tion of Government should hinder the growth of such qualities, or 

 protect the weak and foolish too completely against the consequences 

 of their own action. But where the misfortunes of the landholders 

 have ensued on the introduction of novel institutions, some- 

 what too advanced for their present stage of intelligence and 

 forethought, it is the duty of the Government, for a time at least, 

 to moderate the stridency of the action of those institutions; 

 and this has commonly been the object of the remedies which have 

 been suggested. 



8. Among the administrative measures by which indebtedness 

 is alleged to have been caused, is the system of rigid and regular 

 collection of the land revenue. 'Seeing tfie very small proportion 



