GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AGRICULTURISTS. 41 



the reclamation of waste land, and so forth. There was another class 

 of works at the present time for which advances of this kind might be 

 made with special benefit, and for this class of works, through 

 imperfections in the existing law, to which he need not now more 

 particularly allude, advances had hardly been made at all. Northern 

 India was being gradually covered with a system of great canals for 

 irrigation; but the State could only construct the main channels for 

 these works. All subsidiary works, such as the smaller channels for 

 bringing water into the fields and the preparation of the land for 

 irrigation, must be done by the people themselves, by the local 

 proprietors and occupiers of land. Although these subsidiary works 

 required really little skill, and were for the most part inexpensive, 

 still the cost of them was often greater than the small proprietors 

 and cultivators in possession of the land were able to bear without 

 difficulty; and the necessity of incurring this expenditure had been 

 found very often to be a serious obstacle in the way of obtaining 

 full advantage from the irrigation canals constructed by the Govern- 

 ment. Without these subsidiary works of which he had spoken, it 

 was impossible that full benefit could be derived from the canals. 

 It rested with the occupiers of the land themselves to take water, or 

 not, as they_ pleased ; and the result of the present state of things was 

 that there was frequently extreme delay, after the main channels were 

 made, in taking the water. Thus there was delay in protecting the 

 country against famine, and obtaining for the country the vast 

 accession of wealth and prosperity which was offered to it, and at the 

 same time, necessarily, delay in obtaining for the Government an 

 adequate return on the vast sums of money that it had expended. 

 The Government believed that there could be no object to which 

 portions of the loans which it was proposed to raise for reproductive 

 works could be more advantageously and properly devoted than this ; 

 and in making loans for works of this kind there could be absolutely 

 no risk, for the loans would be given on the security of the land itself, 

 and under a system already known to the people and highly appreciated 

 by them. In a very few years all advances of this kind would be 

 repaid, without the slightest doubt, with interest; nor would any 

 elaborate or expensive machinery be required for the carrying out of 

 this system under any development we were likely to see given to it. 

 He believed there could be no doubt that the existing revenue and 

 other public establishments would be quite sufficient to do everything 

 which was likely to be required, 

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