232 RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 



there is the power to notify them under section 4 of the Act. They 

 frequently petition to be notified, and the facts are examined from time 

 to time, and if it is possible, consistently with the objects the Act, they 

 are notified accordingly. 



The inclusion of the statutory agriculturist has led to great diffi- 

 culties in the working of the Act. The status is a highly technical 

 one, and the people and many Revenue Officers have had great diffi- 

 culty in comprehending the exact position which he occupies under the 

 Act. In some districts the records of the first Regular Settlement, or 

 of the Settlement fixed for the purpose of determining who are agri- 

 culturists, do not contain the names of all the proprietors or occupancy 

 tenants which renders it difficult to determine whether persons claim- 

 ing the status actually possess it. A further difficulty has been 

 caused by the necessity of providing that the Revenue Records shall 

 show details of land purchased by agriculturists from members of 

 agricultural tribes for the purpose of checking subsequent sales of the 

 same land, vide the proviso to section 3 (1) (b) of the Act. These 

 difficulties are not of great moment : the real objections have been 

 stated above. The statutory agriculturist appears to have been the mere 

 creature of the fears with which the working of the Act was re- 

 garded by those who had no real faith in its principles. The experi- 

 ence now gained shows that those fears were not justified. His 

 abolition is proposed not because the working of the Act shows that 

 he is already absorbing the lands of zamindars, but because the Act 

 gives him the opportunity to do so and because it is a flaw in prin- 

 ciple to exclude the bania in a great mass of cases and admit him in 

 a comparatively few on the basis of an accidental circumstance uncon- 

 nected with the structure of rural society in the Punjab, mz. y the 

 date of the first Regular Settlement. 



It is to be noted also that he finds no place in the Act as modified 

 in its application to the North- West Frontier Province by Regulation 

 1 of 1904, and the same omissions as are now contemplated have 

 been made in the Bundelkund Alienation of Land Act ( 2 of 

 11)03). 



In connection with this amendment it is intended to repeal the 

 provision in section 4, requiring the previous sanction of the Governor- 

 General in Council before a tribe is notified as an agricultural tr:!je. 

 The Act is no longer an experiment, and the Local Government may 

 now be well left to decide what tribes shall be notified. The question 



