192 RESTRICTIONS OF THE ALIENATION OP LANDS. 



in 1879, by which the ordinary civil law in four of the Bombay 

 Deccan districts was, in many respects, amended in favour of 

 agricultural debtors. 



In 1881, legislation was undertaken for the relief of large 

 land-holders in Sindh and in the Broach and Kaira districts of the 

 Bombay Presidency, and in 1882, for the relief of encumbered 

 estates in the Jhansi division of the North- Western Provinces. 

 A main feature of all these enactments was that, while the estate 

 remained under Government management, the indebted owner was 

 debarred from alienating any portion of it. 



The question of agricultural indebtedness was included by the 

 Famine Commission of 1878 in the scope of their enquiries, and, 

 in their report, they expressed their views on the desirability of 

 protecting agricultural debtors, among other means of relief, by 

 imposing restrictions on land transfers. 



In 1886, MR. THORBURN, now Financial Commissioner of the 

 Punjab, then a District Officer in that Province, wrote a book on 

 the indebtedness of the Mahomedan land-holders of the Western 

 Punjab, entitled Mussulmans and money-lenders in the Punjab, which 

 attracted the notice of the Secretary of State for India, and on 

 which he asked for the views of the Government of India. In this 

 book, MR. THORBURN recommended, among other measures of relief, 

 that it should be made illegal in the west of the Punjab for any 

 person deriving profits from a shop or from money-lending to 

 acquire any interest in land, except (1) in arable or pasture land in 

 the immediate vicinity of a town or large village, or (2) in manured 

 and irrigated land elsewhere. The then Lieutenant- Governor of the 

 Punjab, SIR JAMES LYALL, in expressing his views on 

 MR. THORBURN'S proposals, said, as regards the particular recommen- 

 dation which I have just mentioned, that he was disposed to think 

 that it would probably be necessary to take steps to check the 

 alienation of lands to money-lending classes in the Punjab, but that 

 the remedy suggested by MR. THORBURN, namely, to make it illegal 

 for the moneyed classes to acquire lands, other than those of two 

 highly artificial descriptions, seemed to him to be impracticable. 



In 1891, a Commission was appointed to report on the working 

 of the Deecan Agriculturists' Relief Act of 1879 and on the 

 desirability of extending a similar measure to other Provinces. 



