GRANT OF LOAKS AKD ADVANCES TO AGRICTLTT RISTS. 78 



fifteen years. In the Punjab, the fixing of a period longer than twenty 

 years actually requires the sanction of the Government of India, which, 

 it is observed, will only be granted under very special circumstances, 

 and the injunction is given that advances must be repaid in as short a 

 period as is consistent with the object for which they are made. This 

 order indicates the spirit in which the law and rules have been worked, 

 and the effect has been that loans are seldom granted even for the full 

 period for which the Collector has discretion. Short periods of re- 

 payment are considered to facilitate recovery, and are alleged to be in 

 the true financial interest of the borrower. But neither of these 

 considerations is mentioned or alluded to in the law, which prescribes 

 that, in considering the periods for loans, regard should be had, (a) to 

 the durability of the works, and (b) to the expediency of their cost 

 being paid by the generation of persons immediately benefiting by 

 them. [Section 6 (3), Act 19 of 1883]. In our opinion the 

 borrower may be left to judge what his own financial interests and 

 those of his successors are in this matter, and it seems to us hardly 

 necessary for the Legislature to direct that attention should be given 

 to consideration (b). Up to the present, the periods sanctioned have 

 generally been so short that it can rarely have been brought into 

 account at all ; and if, in the future, longer periods are allowed, it will 

 be many years before the enthusiasm of the cultivating and land- 

 owning classes for agricultural improvement is raised to such a pitch 

 as to pass the bounds of prudence, and so endanger the prosperity of 

 succeeding generations. On the contrary, we apprehend that, by the 

 encouragement of such investment, posterity are likely on the whole to 

 reap substantial benefits. There is, also, no apparent reason why, when 

 desiring a loan for an agricultural improvement, the borrower should 

 be fettered by considerations, which are never allowed to stand in the 

 way of the far more extensive borrowings which are made for purposes 

 of unremunerative and extravagant expenditure. Generally speaking, 

 then, the sole consideration in determining the period of repayment 

 should be the durability, or what we may term the 'life' of the work ; 

 the full period so determined should be offered to the borrower ; and 

 no pressure whatever should be placed upon him with the object of 

 inducing him to choose a shorter period. 



193. Now there are some works, e. g., soundly constructed wells 

 in various parts of the country such as the Bombay Deccan, which, if 

 properly maintained, will last practically for ever. In such cases 

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