RELIEF OF INDEBTED AGRICULTURISTS. 139 



Native States of India. I have myself noted it in those of Western 

 India, with many of which I have had considerable official experience. 

 The reply to our enquiry, then, is that, as compared with former 

 times and with Native States, indebtedness now in the Deccan 

 extends to smaller numbers, but is heavier in individual incidence, 

 followed by consequences infinitely more serious, and decidedly 



, abnormal. 







Some may feel inclined to question whether, after all, there is 

 any real harm in the present state of things. The institution of 

 private property in land is essential, it will be said, to the well-being 

 and progress of every civilized community, to the encouragement 

 of industry and the accumulation of capital. But it is indispensable 

 that such property should be in the hands of those who by their 

 capital, intelligence and industry are qualified to turn it to the 

 best account. If this condition be not fulfilled, but the land be 

 held by a class who, through their ignorance, improvidence and 

 want of energy, have burdened their heritage with debt which can 

 never be repaid, and thus have deprived themselves of all incen- 

 tive to labour and all interest in its results, then the only remedy 

 is to promote, rather than to obstruct, a gradual restoration 

 of healthier conditions of society by the bankruptcy and evic- 

 tion of the incapable. True as such principles undoubtedly are 

 in modern European populations, considerable caution is necessary 

 in applying them to the ill-studied and little-understood problems 

 of Oriental life. Assuming hastily a similarity of premises, we are 

 apt to jump to familiar conclusions, and to inaugurate action wholly 

 inapplicable and pernicious. Much of the difficulty in the present 

 instance arises from such inconsiderate interference in the past. 

 When we overturn by an Act of the Legislature institutions which 

 popular consent has maintained for above a score of centuries, we 

 sometimes forget that we are not the bearers of a political revelation 

 from Heaven. 



In the present instance there seem grave reasons for doubting 

 whether the premises upon which a policy of laissez fairs is based 

 are sound. If the present condition- of the Deccan ryots is caused 

 by inherent moral and physical defects, unfitting them for peasant- 

 proprietorship ; if they encumber the land to the exclusion of a class 

 of intelligent, enterprising nnd energetic capitalists, and if the land 

 is such that capital in large single sums ran alone eflVH ifs improve- 



