RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 221 



tribes are threatened under our rule is not, I think, due to any 

 deliberate design or wish to oust them from their possessions, but to 

 the scope allowed to perfectly reasonable commercial instincts from the 

 time when law and order superseded the anarchy and turbulence of 

 former days. And these commercial instincts, even though they do 

 not evoke enthusiastic sympathy, we, who belong to a pre-eminently 

 commercial nation, can regard at least with justice and respect. 



In truth, the contest between the agricultural tribesman and the 

 money-lender for the sources of wealth which have been so enormously 

 developed in the Punjab during the last half century seems to me 

 to have been quite inevitable. It has been suggested that the present 

 legislation is revolutionary in character and unsuited to the social con- 

 ditions which exist in the Punjab. I venture to think that the 

 converse is true. The object of this Bill, as I understand it, is to 

 avert a social revolution, not to create one. The Bill is conservative 

 of the possessions and status of the classes who were dominant before 

 our day and still represent by far the most important political forces 

 which we have to take into account in this part of India. It has 

 been cautiously devised by the co-operation of many authorities to suit 

 the peculiar social conditions which have followed upon the regular 

 working of British Law Courts in what was once the kingdom of 

 Kan jit Singh. 



It would be possible to take this Bill clause by clause and show 



how each is intended to harmonise either with the rural economy of 



the Punjab at large, or with the administrative system which we have 



established there. I do not propose to occupy the time of the 



Council with any such detail ; but we may take as an illustration a 



main principle of the Bill, namely, that as between certain classes 



permanent transfers of agricultural land shall be allowed only with the 



sanction of a llevenue-officer. Restrictions on the transfer of land 



are, as my HON'BLE friend NAWAB MUHAMMAD HAYAT KHAN and the 



HON'BLE MR. FANSHAY^E have pointed out, no novelty in the Punjab. 



There were administrative restrictions dating from 1850, referred to by 



Hts HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR in paragraph 6 of his 



memorandum on the proceedings of the Simla Committee of 1898, of 



which the object was really the same as one object of the present Bill, 



that is, to prevent the transfer of land to strangers unconnected with 



ttie village community. There are still the restrictions, arising out of 



the claims of reversioners under the customary law. There are the 



