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RELIEF OF INDEBTED AGRICULTURISTS. 



The first object aimed at is to establish precautions against 

 fraud by either debtor or creditor in their original transactions 

 with each other, and so keep them on good terms and out of 

 Court, as far as possible. The Commission thus enumerate the 

 chief frauds which are practised : 



By creditors : (1) forging bonds ; (2) withholding the considera- 

 tion mentioned in bond ; (3) obtaining new bonds 

 in satisfaction of old bonds and of decrees, and 

 nevertheless enforcing the latter ; (4) not giving 

 credit for payments ; (5) refusing to explain or 

 wrongly representing their accounts to debtors. 



By debtors : (6) tendering in evidence false receipts and false 

 evidence of alleged payments ; (7) pleading that 

 bonds are false when they are really genuine. 



The next step contemplated is that, whenever serious 

 misunderstanding unfortunately arises between money-lender and 

 ryot, either party should be able to resort to a friendly non- 

 judicial authority bound to use his best offices to reconcile the 

 two, and that no litigation should be commenced without a certificate 

 from the Conciliator (as the authority constituted by chapter YI 

 will be termed) that his endeavours in this behalf have failed. 

 Such Courts of Conciliation were advocated by SIR JOHN STRACHEY 

 just twenty years ago, and by MR. GUST in 1870 in the Calcutta 

 Review. On the present occasion, their success in France was 

 brought forward last year by SIR ERSKINE PERRY in some Notes 

 which have been published in India ; and the subject is suggested 

 for consideration in the Secretary of State's despatch already 

 referred to. For details of the French system, derived from personal 

 observation during a residence in France, I am much indebted to MR. 

 FITZPATRICK, the Secretary to the Government of India in the Legisla- 

 tive Department. The proposed Conciliators will so far differ from 

 the French Juges de Paiv, that they will not have, in addition to 

 conciliatory functions, a petty judicial jurisdiction (up to 100 francs, 

 equal to Us. 50), nor will they be able to compel the attendance of the 

 defendant before them ; but they will, in consequence, be unable to 

 exercise undue pressure, which in India might perhaps under 

 some circumstances be apprehended. 



