APPENDIX it. 9 



for reasons which have not been transmitted to me, the Government 

 of India preferred, instead of one eomprehensive Act, that your 

 Government should pass a law dealing with some minor points 

 relating to interest and to ancestral debts. The bill which I have now 

 before me is the result of the action of the Supreme Government. 



8. I can well understand the difficulties which have deterred the 

 Government of India from dealing with this subject as a whole, and 

 which have induced them to leave minor points to be disposed of by 

 the Local Government ; but if the evils sought to be remedied are 

 capable of being eradicated by legislation, I am clearly of opinion 

 that they should not be dealt with piece-meal. 



9. The very able report of the Commission and the mass of 

 valuable information contained in the Appendices enable us, I think, 

 to draw the conclusion that some of the great causes which lie at the 

 bottom of the poverty of the Deccan are wholly beyond the reach of 

 the legislator, and are inherent in the national character and in the 

 customs which have prevailed for countless generations. The Deccan 

 ryots, like the general mass of the cultivating classes in other parts 

 of India, are entirely without capital, and are driven on the first bad 

 harvest into the hands of the money-lender, not only for the means 

 to till their fields, but for food to keep themselves and their cattle 

 alive till the crops of the next season aro matured. This fact has 

 created the system of borrowing at high interest which prevails so 

 largely amongst the agricultural population, and has made the 

 existence of a money-lender in a Hindu village as essential as that 

 of a ploughman. 



10. The normal condition of a Hindu cultivator is much 

 aggravated by local circumstances in parts of the Deccan. The 

 soil is sterile, the climate is precarious, a good crop being in some 

 parts obtained only once in three years, the fall of rain is scanty, the 

 peasantry, though a sturdy and ordinarily a law-abiding people, are 

 described as " utterly uneducated and with a narrow range of 

 intelligence. ' It is obvious that the causes mentioned in this and 

 the preceding paragraph are not to be easily modified by any 

 legislative act. 



11. The districts in which the riots took place came into Briti>h 

 possessions in 1819, and at that period and for 20 years afterwards 

 diverse causes, such as the ravages of Holkar's army and the dreadful 

 famine which followed his campaign a famine which was repeated 



