THE DECLINE OF METAYER RENTS 53 



has a firmer grip. As for the supposed advantage 

 contained in Mr, Moens's eighth argument, Mr, 

 Alexander denies it emphatically, and states it as his 

 experience that ^ batai' villages are much worse off 

 than * cash ' villages. 



Although I have devoted considerable space to the 

 consideration of the Indian Metayer tenure, the reader 

 should understand that the system is falling into desue- 

 tude. In 1830 Mr. Boulderson wrote that rents over 

 four-fifths of the district of Moradabad, or 80 per cent, 

 of the cultivated area, were taken in kind. At the 

 revision of the settlement by Mr, Alexander in 1881, 

 he found 64'3 per cent, of the land cultivated by 

 tenants paying money-rents, instead of only 20 per 

 cent., and this does not take into account commuta- 

 tions affected by him. In 1863 the Government had 

 enacted by law that either tenant or landlord could 

 claim a forced commutation of rents from kind to 

 money ; and this provision was so largely made use of 

 that nowadays it may be said generally that batai on\y 

 survives upon tracts of land where the crop is excep- 

 tionally precarious. 



Among the many causes which helped to bring- 

 about this change there is one which is worth calling 

 attention to, because we are likely to overlook it now- 

 adays. Cash-rents were rare at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century, because money and specie were 

 rare ; it was the enormous importation of silver and 

 the diffusion of coined money over the country during 

 the second half of the nineteenth century which made 

 money-rents possible. The Board of Revenue very 

 acutely remarked in 1834 : * Where batai rents prevail, 

 the cause is usually to be found in the actual state of 

 wealth and commerce of a district, and the Board 

 believe that any attempt to effect a conversion to 

 money-rates, before the state of things in a district 

 admits of the payment of rent, generally through the 

 wholesale grain merchants, bankers, or that class of 



