GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AG1UCI LTl -RIM'S. 95 



who has authority to grant the loan should also have authority to 

 grant suspension ; and that the suspended instalment should not be 

 made payable in the ensuing year with the instalment of that year, 

 but that the effect of suspension should be to postpone for one 

 instalment period the payment of all remaining instalments due on 

 the loan. \Vhen a man borrows money he should be required to repay 

 the loan with interest ; but time should be given him to make those 

 repayments in such a manner as will not be ruinous to him. As 

 regards remissions, the Government of India are of opinion that it is 

 a sound principle not to remit repayment of a loan so readily as 

 remissions of ordinary land revenue are granted, and that as a general 

 rule the risk of the failure of an improvement should be borne by the 

 borrower, as this affords the best guarantee that the money will be 

 judiciously applied ; but they will have no objection to a Local 

 Government's remitting outstanding instalments or a part of them, 

 when a work fails from causes beyond the borrower's control and when 

 recovery of the loan in full would occasion serious hardship ; and they 

 are prepared to consider proposals for the delegation of the power of 

 granting such remissions to local officers. 



10. The foregoing paragraphs have dealt with the treatment of 

 ordinary loans under the Land Improvement Lcfans Act. The 

 Irrigation Commission have made certain proposals with the view of 

 encouraging irrigation in epecially precarious tracts. They recommend 

 that in selected areas, which have suffered severely in recent famines, 

 and have not since obtained, by irrigation or otherwise, protection 

 sufficient to guarantee them against the recurrence of similar calamities, 

 land-owners should be encouraged to apply for loans on ordinary 

 conditions sufficient to pay for a portion of the cost of the contem- 

 plated improvements, and that Government should make a free grant 

 of the remainder of the cost, the proportion of the free grant to the 

 total cost depending on the property of the applicant and the marginal 

 profit from irrigation, the suggested maximum being half the total 

 amount required up to a limit of Rs. 500. The Government of India 

 have no objection to free grants being made under such circumstances, 

 i.e., when they are applied to works, the success of which is calculated 

 to reduce future expenditure on famine relief; but under present 

 circumstances they must be debited in the same way as actual famine 

 outlay and charged to Provincial Revenues. The Government of 

 India will consider separately whether such grants-in-aid might not 



