INDEBTEDNESS OF THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 9 



kind. Wherever the indebtedness of the land-owners has assumed 

 serious proportions, the appointment of special Courts to examine into 

 their debts, to reduce their amount to the sum equitably due, and to fix 

 instalments which would pay the debt off in a given number of years, 

 at a rate of interest proportionate to the diminished risk, would appear 

 to be the only effectual way in which Government can remedy the 

 evil. 



18. It is, we think, deserving of consideration whether the 

 existing law of contract and the rules of procedure provide adequately 

 for the case of the ignorant peasants in any transactions which goes 

 beyond the scope of their ordinary life. It is characteristic of these 

 classes to promise anything, to submit to any condition for the 

 future, if only relief for the present can be secured ; and it is in dealing 

 with such cases that the Indian Courts are said to fail in providing 

 adequate protection. The Contract Act does, we understand, mention 

 certain specific grounds, such as mistake, fraud, or undue influence, on 

 which contracts may be disputed ; and the general duty of following 

 " justice, equity and good conscience ", which has at all times been 

 enjoined on Indian Courts, renders it obligatory on every judge to 

 secure, as far as possible, the interests of justice, in its highest sense, 

 between the parties before him. But if it be the case that this 

 obligation is sometimes insufficiently recognised, it would be well 

 that the language of the law on this subject should be rendered more 

 explicit and the duty of the judge be more distinctly pointed out. 

 Instances were brought to our notice in which bonds, the terms of which 

 were in a high degree suspicious, have, on the mere admission of 

 signature by the defendant, been, without further inquiry, made the basis 

 of a decree which involved most unfair advantage to the one party and 

 the total ruin of the other. It should, we think, be expressly enjoined 

 on the judge to satisfy himself that the defendant was fully alive to 

 the character of the transaction, that the bargain was not extorted in a 

 moment of extreme necessity, that the relations of the parties were such 

 as to leave each a free agent, and generally to apply to the contract 

 all those considerations which the scruples of English equity judges 

 have interposed between improvidence and those who would fain turn 

 it to their own advantage. 



19. We advocate, however, one modification of the Bombay Act 

 in respect of the provision which, if the land lias been specifically 

 mortgaged, necessitates its alienation, temporary or permanent, from 



