BELIEF OF INDEBTED AGRICULTURISTS. 



and cattle necessary for cultivation, cooking utensils and clothes indis- 

 pensable for daily use, * the ornaments which a married woman must 

 have on her person as long as her husband is alive* (even if not hers, 

 but her husband's), and two months' corn for the ryot and his 

 family are all exempt. In Bhaunagar only agricultural stock and 

 implemants in excess of what is necessary for cultivation, as also 

 the produce, may be sold ; and in Morvi the rule seems much the 

 same. In Hyderabad the reservations embrace cattle and implements 

 necessary for agriculture, seed-grain for the next season, grain for 

 subsistence for six months, and necessary apparel and cooking 

 utensils. In all the States the fixing of instalments is common, and, 

 whatever may be the standard rules promulgated through a desire to 

 imitate our judicial institutions and to obtain credit for well-organized 

 government, a summary inquiry into the facts of the case, with 

 scrutiny of accounts, and a more or less rough-and-ready adaptation 

 of the creditor's demands to the debtor's means, appear to be the 

 practice. This practice, being supported by popular opinion, is 

 probably less affected in individual cases by corruption, partiality or 

 oppression than might on general grounds be expected. Having 

 held for many years intimate relations, official and otherwise, with 

 Native States, which in Bombay form one-third of the Presidency, 

 I can say with confidence that, making due allowance for the growing 

 mischievous tendency to copy the British system blindly, the picture 

 just presented is, on the whole, fairly typical of them all. 



This picture may, at first sight, seem to exhibit conditions under 

 which either the ryot can get no credit or the money-lender no 

 returns. As a matter of fact, however, neither result occurs, because 

 all the parties concerned debtors, creditors and rulers thoroughly 

 understand the limits to their several action which are essential to 

 their several ends. No doubt the ryot has a hand-to-mouth sort of 

 existence ; but even this is endurable, combined with immunity from 

 eviction. I have come upon a passage in SIR T. MADHAVA RAO'S 

 Administration Report of the Baroda State for 1875-76 so ably 

 describing the position that I must ask leave to quote it at 

 length : 



Sales must not be made so rigorous as to crush or impair industrial energy or to 

 induce its emigration. The Civil Cou ts have to be specially careful in regard to the 

 last mentioned point, which mainly concerns the ryots. These have frequent dealings 

 with he sowkars whose exacting tendencies are well known. The Civil Court should 

 take up such a position between the ryot and the sowkar ns freely to allow benefits to 



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