[EMracts from the Proceedings of the Governor- General's Council, 

 dated tlie 24th October, 1879.'] 



DECCAN AGRICULTURISTS' RELIEF BILL. 



SIR T. HOPE said : 



Considerable criticism has been directed against section 22, 

 which exempts land from attachment and sile in execution of decrees, 

 unless it has been specifically pledged. In my introductory speech 

 I sketched the position of the land-sale question, and explained the 

 reason for the absence from the Bill of any attempt at a final com- 

 prehensive settlement of it, and for considering the restriction of sale 

 to specifically pledged land to be equitable. In the decision of the 

 question I had taken no part, as this restriction had been proposed 

 by the Bombay Government, and accepted by the Government of 

 India and the Secretary of State, before my connection with the Bill 

 commenced. I ventured, however, to express my views as follows : 



I must confess to some misgivings as to how the exemption may work in practice. 

 The money-lender may everywhere make the execution of a bond, laying on the land 

 all his existing unsecured 'advances, an indispensable condition of further accom- 

 modation. At the same time, the exemption rests as to the past upon a perfectly 

 intelligible and reasonable basis, while as to the future the proposed village registra- 

 tion will at least ensure that every ryot when he pledges his land shall understand 

 what he is doing, and insolvency will open to him a loophole of escape when 

 unreasonably pressed by an extortionate creditor, if he prefers that alternative. 



My doubts have now been more than echoed by MR. JUSTICE 

 MAXWELL MULVILL and MR. JUSTICE WEST, the former of whom predicts 

 that loans excepting on mortage, will soon be unknown ; while the 

 latter, concurring in this, adds that the mortgagee will, by the opera- 

 tion of the Bill, be driven on to become a purchaser, and the ryot 

 will h we no alternative but acquiesce in sale. Here I would only observe 

 that the most demonstrably correct economic calculations are liable 

 to be defeated by moral and sentimental causes, and that it by no 

 means follows that mankind will do what logically they ought to do. 

 It may be that the affection which the ryot bears to his land will 

 lead him to defeat his creditor by insolvency; that the competition 

 amongst money-lenders, which the Deccm Riots Commission report, 

 will check the exaction of landed security ; and, best of all, that 

 the difficulties of borrowing will tend to keep the ryotftf trail- 



