224 RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 



at any time temporarily interrupted ? The permanent transfer of the 

 ancestral lands of the agricultural tribes to the trading classes does 

 no good whatever so far as I can see, not even economic good, for 

 the agricultural tribes are the better agriculturists : and on the 

 historical and administrative grounds which I have explained I 

 heartily rejoice that Government has determined as far as possible 

 to put a stop to it. 



His EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT said : 



When the Government of India utilises its legislative power 

 to pass what is certainly a drastic, and has been described in the 

 course of these debates as a revolutionary, measure, affecting any 

 subject, but more particularly affecting the land, there are two 

 questions as to which it should, in my opinion, satisfy itself. 

 The first is has the existence of an evil, calling for legisla- 

 tive interference, been established ? The second is is the 

 particular legislation proposed the right remedy ? 



The first of these questions we had answered to our own satis- 

 faction a year ago. A careful study of the reports and returns, 

 extending over a period of more than thirty years, had convinced 

 the Government of India that the alienation of land in the Punjab, 

 practically initiated by the British Power after annexation, is 

 progressing with increased and alarming rapidity ; that in conse- 

 quence of this progress land is passing away from the hands of the 

 agricultural classes whom it is our policy to maintain upon it, and 

 into the hands of classes or persons who, whatever the part that 

 they may play in the economy of agrarian life, are not, in our 

 judgment, either necessary or desirable as land-holders ; and that 

 consequently a grave political as well as economic danger threatens 

 the province, which it is the bounden duty of Government to avert. 

 Nothing that has occurred in the interim has tended to shake our 

 confidence in the substantial justice of this conviction. On the 

 contrary, I think that it has been strengthened by the evidence 

 that has since poured in. We have been told, it is true, that there 

 can be no political danger in leaving things as they are, because 

 the discontent of the Punjab peasantry is never likely to take the 

 form of active rebellion. I should be sorry to think that our 

 political objections to a continuance of the status quo were swp- 

 posed to be based upon such fears as these. It is not a disloyal 



