INDEBTEDNESS OF THE LAND-HOLDING CLASSES. 85 



nothing is further from our thoughts than to impugn the excellence 

 of their intentions. What we wish to point out is that their inten- 

 tions have not been fulfilled. They expected the accumulation of 

 agricultural capital ; but their plans did not promote thrift, nor did 

 they conduce to the independence of the ryot. They looked for the 

 capitalist cultivator ; and we find the sowkar's serf. 



334. On the extent of the indebtedness of the Bombay cultivators 

 no precise official information, we believe, exists ; but there are 

 materials for a probable estimate. We know that the Deccan Riots 

 Commission of 1875 found that "about one-third of the 

 occupants of Government land are embarrassed with debt; that their 

 debts average about 18 times their assessment ; and, that nearly two- 

 thirds of the debt is secured by mortgage of the land/'' We also 

 know that the money-lenders, in tlie villages visited by the Commission, 

 paid about one-eighth of the whole land revenue their property 

 having been acquired within the preceding twenty, and for the most 

 part the preceding ten, years while it was notorious that the private 

 transfers of land were, in most cases, not recorded. The 

 Commission of 1891 found that, within the preceding eight 

 years, land paying 10 per cent, of the revenue in the 

 districts which they visited, had been sold, two-fifths going to 

 money-lenders; while lands paying 17i per cent, of the revenue had 

 been mortgaged, four-sevenths going to the sowJcars. In his evidence 

 before us, the Chief Secretary to the Bombay Government said tbat 

 8 per cent, of the land in Broach had passed into the possession of 

 the money-lending classes ; and from a report of the Collector of 

 Ahmedabad it appears that, in his district expropriation of the old 

 owners has also made considerable way. Taking all these statements 

 into account, and comparing them with the evidence we have recorded, 

 we think it probable that at least one-fourth of the cultivators in the 

 Bombay Presidency have lost possession of their lands ; that less than 

 a fifth are free from debt ; and that the remainder are indebted to a 

 greater or less extent. 



335. It is unnecessary to retrace here the efforts which since 1876 

 have been made to remedy this lamentable state of things. Commis- 

 sions have sat and reported; Acts of the Legislature have been 

 passed and amended ; executive action of various sorts has been taken. 

 But, of all, the result has been disappointment. Comparing the 

 statistics of sales and mortgages in the four districts to which the 



