RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 201 



His HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR said : It is unnecessary 

 for me to allude to the history of this important and much pondered 

 measure, as this has beea fully detailed by my Hon'ble friend MR. 

 RIVAZ. I shall confine myself to indicating briefly, what I believe to 

 be the principal object of Government in prosecuting, through infinite 

 varieties of opinion and shades of controversy, the course which has 

 at last landed us in our present position, and to an expression of 

 opinion as to the suitability of the lines on which, as explained by the 

 Hon'ble Member, the Bill has been framed. 



The object, in which all are agreed, is to provide a corrective for 

 the result of our own acts, to mitigate the almost revolutionary effects 

 of British rule as applied to land tenures in the Punjab. In conferring 

 or confirming an almost unlimited proprietary right in land, in sepa- 

 rating the judicial machinery from the executive, in encouraging free 

 resort to the Courts, we have for five decades been pouring new wine 

 into old bottles ; some of the flasks are cracking, some have already 

 burst. The Stale must needs be prepared to undertake some risk in 

 this process, which has been accompanied with many extraordinary 

 and beneficial developments, but if it is too rapid, there is something 

 worse than danger to be faced, and that is positive unfairness. If the 

 processes of law which are incidental to land cases are beyond the com- 

 prehension of the average land-holder ; if they are too drastic to per- 

 mit of the continuance of methods which though halting and 

 imperfect are sanctioned by ingrained habit and long established 

 custom ; if they place the more astute money-lending class in a more 

 advantageous position than the unsophisticated rustic : then the un- 

 fairness becomes marked, and interference becomes necessary. There 

 is now a consensus that this is the case, and the Legislature is being 

 invoked to remedy the evil. As to the limits of such interference 

 there are, as I have already said, infinite varieties of opinion. There are 

 also various methods of interposing : one has passed the stage of dis- 

 cussion and has taken shape in the amendment of the Contract Act, 

 w with the express purpose of placing the money-lender and the agricul- 

 turist on a level in the Courts ; one has been dealt with in the 

 discussions on the present measure, but has been dissevered from it, 

 owing to its complexity, and will probably form the subject of legis- 

 lation hereafter I allude to a proposal to amend the law of pre- 

 emption. Except as regards matters of procedure, the Bill which is 

 now about to be introduced comprises, in all probability, all the 



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