168 RELIEF OF INDEBTED AGRICULTURISTS. 



Rs. 1,139! That these results are actually enforced in practice 

 is amply proved by the evidence taken by the Commission, from 

 which MR. PEDDER (in an interesting article in The Nineteenth Century 

 for September 1877) gives a few illustrations. In short, the debtor 

 thus suffers the cost of writing and stamping a new bond ; is charged 

 compound interest instead of simple ; often has to bear the expenses 

 of a suit ; and, finally, is frequently obliged also to submit to a 

 large nominal increase of the principal, as the price of the creditor's 

 forbearing to sell him entirely up, or to have him arrested and 

 imprisoned. It is perhaps unnecessary for me to quote numerous 

 authorities at length to prove these general results. The collective 

 opinion of the Commission has been stated. MR. AUCKLAND COLVIN 

 summarizes the evils, and favours a change. MR. SAMBHUPRASAD has 

 treated the subject with much minuteness, and strongly urges 

 the restoration of the old Bombay law. Revenue and Judicial 

 Officers, both Native and European, take the same view in their 

 letters to the Commission. MR. PEDDER has been quoted already. 

 MR. WEDDERBURN, in a report specially called for by the Bombay 

 Government, advocates a twelve and six years' limit; and it 

 has, I observe, been adopted as desirable at a public meeting of the 

 inhabitants of Poona held not long ago. The Collector of Poona gave 

 evidence to the same effect before the Famine Commission. 



The only plea which has, as far as I am aware, been advanced 

 in favour of the three-years' period is that, it obliges the making up 

 of accounts at short intervals, thus enabling the ryot to know how 

 he stands, and preventing his being deeply involved without his know- 

 ledge. This objection had, undoubtedly, very considerable weight 

 at the time it was made. Whether the benefit of a short account, 

 thus secured by a three-years' limitation, outweighed the evils of 

 a new bond, compound interest, &c., which it entailed, is a point 

 upon which there may well be difference of opinion. But the whole 

 aspect of the question seems to be changed by the provisions in 

 Chapter 9 of the Bill regarding receipts and statements of account. 

 Taken in connection with section 17, which enables any agriculturist 

 to sue for an account, and to get a declaration of the amount 

 really due to him under all the new and searching provisions of the 

 Act, it would appear that the object of short accounts will now be 

 attained, and perhaps more efficiently than it ever could have 

 been by the indirect expedient of a limitation-law. Under these 



