254 PROVISION OP BORROWING FACILITIES. 



towards making it cheap and speedy. Everything which adds to the 

 expense, delay, and difficulty of recovering just debts increases the 

 price at which the money-lender gives his help to the landowner, 



14. It is possible that the adoption of an improved system of regis- 

 tration of titles to land might tend to give such further security and 

 greater facility to the business of agricultural banking as would render 

 it practicable for private capitalists to embark therein with a fair 

 prospect of success, on terms which should not be so onerous to the 

 cultivating classes as those to which the latter are now compelled to 

 submit when borrowing from the village sow/cars. It is, I am 

 informed, in reliance on an effectual registry of titles that the land 

 banks of Europe and the British colonies have been carried on, and 

 although I am conscious of the very different conditions under which 

 an Indian agricultural community exists, yet I recommend this 

 suggestion to the consideration of your Excellency's Government, as 

 possibly affording some opening in the desired direction. 



15. With regard to indirect assistance which Government might 

 give to agricultural banking enterprise, I desire to make one suggestion 

 with reference to the question of the ryots' market, alluded to in 

 paragraph 8 above. I understand that in the Central Provinces, and 

 other parts of India, great benefit has followed the establishment of 

 public marts or corn exchanges, where the cultivators can sell their 

 produce for the best price in open market, and thus avoid the necessity 

 of handing it over to a money-lender on account. That sale in open 

 market should be the general practice is, I think, essential to the 

 success of an agricultural bank, and the general establishment of 

 public marts seems to me an object which your Excellency's 

 Government should encourage, and one on which local bodies may with 

 great advantage expend their funds. 



16. While I have been compelled to state my conviction that the 

 proposals contained in your letter of the 31st May are not capable 

 of practical application, I hope that your Excellency will understand 

 that I am prepared to give the most careful attention to any scheme 

 for the promotion of the objects you have in view, which your 

 government may suggest after consideration of the objections stated in 

 the present despatch. 



