[Extracts from the Proceedings of the Governor General's Council, dated 



the 17 tU July, 1879.] 



THE DECCAN AGRICULTURISTS' RELIEF BILL. 



The HON'BLE SIR T. HOPE said that the riots have been followed 

 by investigations in various forms. A Special Commission, in the 

 first place, was without delay appointed by the Bombay Government. 

 It was composed of two European officers, MESSRS. RICKEY and 

 IZON, of the Revenue and Judicial Branches of the service, MR. 

 SAMBHUPRASAD, a distinguished Native Administrator, and a civilian 

 from the North-Western Provinces (first MR. AUCKLAND COLVIN, 

 now employed in Egypt, and afterwards MR. CARPENTER). Their 

 report, in five volumes and above 1,500 pages, is a very able survey 

 of the difficulty in all its aspects. Besides this, the riots gave 

 a special direction in Bombay to the enquiries into the working of 

 the Civil Courts then going on throughout India in connection 

 with the amended Civil Procedure Code under the consideration 

 of this Council, which eventually became law as Act 10 of 1877; 

 and a judicial officer, MR. WILLIAM WEDDERBURN, was deputed to 

 report on the subject. Further, other circumstances led in 1878 

 to the condition of the peasantry in the four districts of the Deccan 

 being subjected to a close investigation, in which the most experienced 

 officers of the Bombay Presidency took part, and which is summed 

 up in a Minute by SIR RICHARD TBMPLE, dated October 29th, 1878. 

 The famine Commission also this year obtained a good deal of valuable 

 evidence, to which they have been so good as to allow me free 

 access. Finally, the question has been very ably and instructively 

 discussed by the Press, both in India and in England. It would be 

 impossible for me, on an occasion like the present, to summarize all 

 these enquiries, or to state separately the opinions of all the principal 

 authorities. I can only lay before the Council what seem to myself, 

 by the light of this mass of evidence and of my own knowledge and 

 general experience, to be the condition of the people in the disturbed 

 area, and the causes which have operated to produce it, and then 

 explain the measures by wjiich the Executive Government propose that 

 relief should be afforded. 



