[Extracts from the Proceedings of the Governor General's Council, 

 dated the 10th August, 1900.] 



PUNJAB ALIENATION OF LAND BILL. 



THE HON'BLE MR. RIVAZ said : 



I think it will be convenient if, in presenting the Report of 

 the Select Committee on the Punjab Alienation of Land Bill, I 

 explain somewhat fully the alterations which we propose to make 

 in its main provisions. 



The Bill which I introduced in this Council last September 

 imposed restrictions on permanent and temporary alienations of land 

 in the following manner. In the first place, as regards permanent 

 alienations, that is, by sale, gift or exchange, the proposal in 

 this respect of the Committee of Punjab Revenue officers which, was 

 convened by His Honour the Lieu tenant- Governor in July, 1898, was 

 that any permanent alienation of agricultural or pastoral land, as 

 defined in the Punjab Tenancy Act, to a non -agriculturist, if made 

 without the sanction of the Deputy Commissioner of the district, 

 should be void, but that otherwise there should be no restriction 

 on sales or other permanent transfers. I explained, when intro- 

 ducing the Bill, that the Government of India were unable to 

 accept this proposal in its entirety, because it seemed to them 

 that to allow permanent alienations, free from all restrictions, 

 between so-called agriculturists was open to objection on two 

 grounds. Firstly, because the definition of 'agriculturist' as 

 framed by the Punjab Committee, that is, f any person, who either in 

 his own name, or in the name of his agnate ancestor, was recorded 

 as an owner of land, or as a hereditary tenant in any estate at the 

 first regular settlement/ or any other practicable definition of 

 the term, must necessarily include numerous classes of persons 

 who, although landholders since the early years of British rule 

 or even prior thereto, are primarily traders and money-lenders by 

 nature and profession, and not true agriculturists in any proper 

 sense of the term ; and, secondly, because even the dona fide agri- 

 culturist is frequently also a money-lender, and it was desirable 

 to retain power to prevent such men from buying up land in a 

 village where they would come in as outsiders and constitute a foreign 



