RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OP LANDS. 



His HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR remarked, in his speech in 

 this Council on the introduction of this Bill a year ago, 'there is 

 nothing absolute about the restrictive provisions. The person 

 who lies under the greatest disability under the proposed Bill 

 can obtain a dispensation from its provisions, if due cause be 

 shown.' 



Moreover, it must be remembered that, although our scheme 

 imposes material restrictions on sales, it provides large facilities, 

 larger, perhaps, in my own opinion as the Bill now stands, than is 

 altogether desirable, for raising money on mortgage. In short, 

 the key-note of our scheme is to discourage sales but to provide 

 ample reasonable facilities for temporary alienation. 

 THE HGN'BLE MR. TUPPER said : 



As I have been closely connected with the progress of the present 

 measure in its different stages during the past four years, I am 

 anxious, with YOUR EXCELLENCY'S permission, to take this opportunity 

 of explaining why it has my hearty support. 



The reasons for adding to the already existing restrictions on the 

 transfer of agricultural land in the Punjab are both political and 

 economic. While I admit the force of the economic reasons, which 

 have been fully explained to-day by the Hon'ble Member in charge of 

 the Bill and by the HON'BLE NAWAB MUHAMMAD HAYAT KHAN, I wish to 

 say that it is the political reasons which have most strongly influenced 

 my judgment in this important matter. 



Here, as often happens in India, the political argument is in a 

 measure an historical argument. It is what I have gathered during 

 the course of my service concerning the political and administrative 

 history of the Punjab that has convinced me of the political necessity 

 of some measure of the present kind. 



The written history, the traditions, the existing tenures and the 

 social institutions of the Province combine to suggest the probability 

 that before any authentic and continuous narrative becomes possible 

 the plains of the greater part of the Punjab were peopled by fairly 

 compact emigrant tribes who either occupied the waste or drove out 

 or subjugated previous inhabitants and possessed themselves of the 

 land, practically as its masters, much in the same way as, within his- 

 torical times, the Bannuchis, the Marwats and the Darwesh Khel 

 Waziris possessed themselves of most of the Bannu district, and the 



