INTRODUCTION 



More than two years ago the Calcutta University 

 decided to publish for the use of advanced students and 

 teachers a series of selections from authoritative docu- 

 ments treating of Indian economic problems, by bringing 

 together in a collected form the lar?e amount of 



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valuable materials that lie scattered in old and inacces- 

 sible Blue Books, in the proceedings of Legislative 

 Councils, and in Government reports and publications. 

 The first subject which appealed to me as one of the 

 most important and far-reaching was that of ( agricultural 

 indebtedness'. A special interest centres round the sub- 

 ject, because the general state of indebtedness is almost 

 as old as the British rule in this country, for I 

 find reference to the subject in the literature on the 

 Permanent Settlement in the Blue Books of 1813 and 

 preceding years. But it appears that no scientific and 

 systematic treatment of the 'disease' was attempted till 

 the seventies of the last century, when the indebtedness 

 of the Deccan ryots, who had been the victim of great 

 vicissitudes of fortune almost since the conquest of the 

 Deccan, rose to such magnitude as to demand prompt 

 legislative action. Their accumulated indebtedness, 

 aggravated by the cotton crisis in Bombay, culminated 

 in serious agrarian disturbances in the year 1875 ; and 

 the Government of India being awakened to the gravity 

 of the problem redressed the situation by the enactment 

 of a law for the relief of the Deccan ryots. This condition 



