RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 22? 



I now turn for a few moments to the Bill itself. It will not be 

 denied that we have proceeded with the various stages of its growth 

 and enactment with singular care and deliberation. The Bill in its 

 original shape was the outcome of years of patient study. In the 

 form which it has now finally assumed, it also bears the impress of 

 repeated reference, of diligent reconsideration, and of an anxious desire 

 to meet, in no dogmatic frame of mind, the criticisms whether of 

 expert authority or of public opinion. We should, I think, have 

 been very obstinate and unwise had we adhered to every clause, or 

 even to every leading feature of the Bill, as introduced last year. 

 It was emphatically a case in which a reasonable spirit was called for, 

 and in which some concession was required to the arguments of 

 opponents, not for the mere sake of compromise, but in order to 

 bring the measure into closer harmony both with the feelings of the 

 community and with the needs of the case. It is in such a spirit 

 that the Bill has been conducted through Committee by the HON'BLE 

 MR. KIVAZ, on whose behalf it will, I am sure, be admitted by all 

 of his colleagues that if he has been clear as to where to stand firm, 

 he has also known exactly how to conciliate and where to yield. As 

 a result of the labours of the Select Committee, for which I must, 

 on behalf of the Government of India, thank all its members, the 

 Bill now emerges a more efficient, a more elastic, and therefore a 

 more workable, measure. In the old Bill, for instance, the Revenue- 

 officer's authority for every permanent alienation of land was made 

 obligatory even in cases of merely formal sanction to alienation 

 between non-agriculturists. Now this sanction has been wisely dis- 

 pensed with. Next, we have extended the maximum period of 

 mortgage, when made by a member of an agricultural tribe outside 

 his tribe or group of tribes, from fifteen to twenty years ; we have 

 added another form of mortgage which is likely to prove both ser- 

 viceable and popular; and we have given power to the Local Govern- 

 ment to prescribe, in case of necessity, yet other variations. These 

 are only a few among the many changes, and, as I think, improve- 

 ments which have been introduced into the Bill. I do not say that 

 they have converted it into a perfect measure. I have seen enough 

 of agrarian legislation in the British Parliament to know that it never 

 attains perfection, that it often fails in what are thought in advance 

 ttr be its most certain effects, and that strange and unforeseen conse- 

 quences ensue. No doubt our Bill will not differ from English of 



