210 RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OP LANDS. 



by the procedure of the Punjab Land-revenue Act. We have also 

 made clear that matters which the Local Government or Revenue- 

 officers are empowered to dispose of under the Bill shall be excluded 

 from the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts, and, in order that all 

 proceedings before Revenue-officers under the Bill may be dealt 

 with promptly and inexpensively, we propose to exclude legal practi- 

 tioners from appearing in such cases, 



The last point which I need mention is that we propose no 

 alteration in respect of the general application of the scheme embodied 

 in the Bill, subject to any territorial or personal exemptions which 

 the Government of India may from time to time make on the 

 recommendation of the Local Government. 



I trust, my Lord, that I have succeeded in showing that, while 

 the Select Committee have not altered the Bill which I introduced 

 last September on any important point of principle, their proposed 

 modifications of, and additions to, some of its provisions will have 

 the effect of placing the scheme under consideration on a broader 

 and more elastic basis. As regards the main object of the Bill, 

 namely, the restriction of permanent and temporary alienations of 

 land by the agricultural classes, the scheme, as it now stands, will, 

 as regards sales and other permanent transfers, while adhering to the 

 principle of limiting the market of unrestricted transfer to within 

 the same village community or agricultural tribe, enable the Local 

 Government to meet the case of any tribes which are too small to 

 provide any real market of sale within the tribe, by grouping them 

 with other cognate tribes within the same district or a group of 

 districts ; and, as regards temporary alienations, the maximum period 

 for which self-redeeming usufructuary mortgages and leases may be 

 made has been extended from fifteen to twenty years, while another 

 form of usufructuary mortgage is proposed under which the mort- 

 gagor may mortgage for any period he pleases, but on condition of 

 retaining a cultivating right of occupancy in the mortgaged land on 

 payment of a fair rent, and preserving his right to redeem the pro- 

 prietary right whenever he may be able to do so. 



