PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 249 



rate of interest on all loans to a maximum of 12 per cent, and to 

 conform, in respect to other matters, to the rules prescribed by the 

 Government. 



12. We have directed the Government of Bombay not to take any 

 further action in the matter until we are acquainted with your Lord- 

 ship's opinion on these proposals. We do not think that any smaller 

 concessions than those mentioned by us will satisfy the promoters of 

 the bank, and we are anxious to give effect to a scheme which we 

 believe to be advocated on purely disinterested grounds, which can, 

 under the experimental conditions proposed, be carefully watched, 

 and which is likely, if successful, to be productive of much benefit 

 to the country. We view it as an experiment, and we think that, 

 even if the results should not equal the expectations of its advocates, 

 they will at least throw considerable light on the causes and extent 

 of the Deccan ryot's indebtedness, and enable us to determine 

 whether his condition is susceptible of improvement by any action 

 which can be taken by the Administration. 



[Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Governor 

 General of India in Council, No. 95 (Revenue), dated 



23rd October, 1884.] 



I have considered, with the attention which their importance 

 demands, the papers which accompanied the letter of your Excellency's 

 Government in the Revenue Department, No. 7, dated 31st May last, 

 regarding the establishment, as an experimental measure, of an 

 agricultural bank in the Poona district. 



2. The relief of the peasantry of the Deccan, and indeed of other 

 parts of India, from their indebtedness, is so desirable and so 

 important an object that I should be disposed to entertain 

 favourably any measures for that purpose placed before me by your 

 Excellency. I have, therefore, given the most careful examination 

 to the principles of the project now submitted to me, and to its 

 details, so far as they can be gathered from the correspondence. 

 Some objections to the proposed measures have, however, suggested 

 themselves to me, and they appeared to me to have such force that 

 I am constrained to request your reconsideration of the question. 



* "8. The first observation which occurs to me is that the scheme is 

 scarcely what it purports to be. It is professedly a private enter- 

 prise, and it is distinctly stated that from private enterprise 



