BELIEF OF INDEBTED AGRICULTURISTS. 137 



The Central Deccan, which is the locality principally distressed, 

 though unfortunately not the only one, and to which the present Bill 

 is intended to apply, consists of four ' districts ' or executive col- 

 lector's charges, namely, Poona, Ahmednagar, Sholapur and Satara. 

 The three first named became British territory in A. D. 1819-21, 

 but Satara not till A.D 1849. Their area is 21,000 square miles, 

 and their population three-and-a-half millions ; that is to say, the 

 population of Scotland, located in two-thirds of its space. Mountains 

 and forests occupy much of the country, so that the actually culti- 

 vated area gives about six acres per head of the agricultural popula- 

 tion. The State is the landlord; the tenure ryotwari, on the 

 Bombay system of permanent occupancy, with revision of assessment 

 every thirty years. The peasant-proprietors themselves cultivate 

 about three-fourths of their land and sublet the remainder. The 

 assessment or rent they pay to the Government is at average rates 

 of from seven annas to twelve annas per acre, which is equivalent, on 

 fairly good land, to, from an eighth to a sixteenth of the gross produce, 

 and on the poor soils to much less. 



The proportion and extent of indebtedness are not easy to ascer- 

 tain. In one batch of twelve villages tested by the Commission of 

 1875, one-third of the peasant-proprietors were found to be very 

 heavily embarrassed ; and of these, two-thirds were petty land- 

 holders, paying assessments of only twenty rupees per annum and 

 under. Their debts came to eighteen times the average assessment, 

 and two-thirds of this were secured by mortgage of the land. In 

 another batch of seventeen villages in Ahmednagar, forty-three per 

 cent, of the proprietors were deeply in debt, the debts averaging 

 fifteen times the assessment, but reaching forty- five times in indivi- 

 dual cases. Only one-third of the debts appeared to be secured 

 by mortgage, but one-eighth of the land had already been actual- 

 ly transferred to the money-lenders ; and with regard to much 

 of the remainder, the ryots were virtually mere tenants-at-will 

 of their creditors. The Collector was of opinion that, through- 

 out the whole district, three-fifths of the people were so involved 

 that, in ordinary course, it was impossible for them ever to get free. 

 Upon this and much other evidence, I must confess myself unable 

 to share optimist views of the condition of the people. Supposing 

 only one-third of the proprietors to be irretrievably involved, is a 

 ruined, despairing and embittered population of above a million souls 



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