12 APPENDIX II. 



national character that contracts were rarely repudiated. And the 

 Commissioners observe that in these*proceedings " honesty was the best 

 policy for the ryot, and caution was a necessity to the moneylender ". 



21. On the establishment of our rule, however, courts of justice 

 were established everywhere. 



22. It is abundantly manifest to me, on the evidence collected 

 by the Commissioners, that no evil has been so loudly, and I must 

 say so justly, complained of by the people as the action of the courts. 

 The extreme severity of the law on debtors has been pointed out by 

 the report. 



23. The Judges are only the instruments for enforcing the law 

 as it is, and no blame is imputable to them. But the extracts from 

 the statements of the Judges themselves, cited by MR. COLVIN, 

 demonstrate completely that, irrespective of the hardness of the law, 

 they are incapable of administering justice between debtor and creditor. 



24. One Judge says " the Subordinate Judges in the district 

 are much overworked, and really have not time to investigate cases 

 properly and weigh the evidence " ; another says, " our Subordinate 

 Judges are too hard-worked to allow, even if they were inclined to do 

 so, of their going into the history of such cases. The court which 

 was inclined to go into the old history of a case would have nothing 

 but the sowkar't books to go upon if he produced them. ' 



25. Another Judge enumerates the frauds perpetrated by the 

 money-lenders, and states that they are practised with impunity. 

 When " the deluded kumbi is dragged 

 into court he is unable to answer the claims, or if he states a defence 

 he is not in a position to prove it ". 



26. The Commission also assign another reason for our courts 

 being mere instruments in the hands of the money-lenders, namely, 

 their great distance from the home of the debtor. A money-lender 

 may easily instruct a pleader to take out process against a debtor in 

 a court 40 or 50 miles distant at little cost to himself, but it is ruin 

 for a cultivator, dependent on his daily labour, to absent himself for 

 days together from his field, even if he has a valid defence. 



27. Here then it is quite clear we have evils produced by thr 

 legislature itself, and which it is within the competence of Government 

 to extirpate. 



28. I am extremely unwilling at any time, but especially now, 

 to suggest any increase to the cost of administration ; but if it is 



