8o FIXITY OF TENURE 



to a holding may pay whatever rent may be agreed 

 upon between himself and his landlord. Once admitted 

 to the holding, he can only be ejected on certain 

 grounds specified in the Act. The effect is that if the 

 real motive of the landlord in suing to eject the tenant 

 is to get rid of him and resume the land, the court 

 will decree the tenant's ejectment ; if, however, the 

 court finds that the notice has been issued because 

 the tenant has refused to pay a higher rent, the court 

 will give the tenant the option of accepting a 'fair' 

 rent or of vacating his holding. If the tenant agrees 

 to the rent fixed by the court, he will then be entitled 

 to retain his holding for seven years on the rent so 

 determined, and will be deemed to be holding under a 

 lease for such a term, and the period will not count 

 towards the establishment of an occupancy right. 



It is obvious that the intention of this Act is greatly 

 to facilitate the growth of occupancy rights, and that 

 it is framed in imitation of the Bengal Tenancy Law, 

 the acknowledged success of which has been beyond 

 expectation, and under which it is believed that 90 per 

 cent, of the cultivators of Bengal have obtained occu- 

 pancy rights. The result will be, unless the landlords 

 acquire the habit of granting long-term leases (of which 

 at present there is no indication), to establish in the 

 province of Agra a dual proprietorship in the soil. It 

 is an interesting question whether the process will 

 stop here, whether what I have termed the Indian 

 conception of land tenure is, at least in so far as it 

 relates to the tenant, a stable basis of land tenure, or 

 whether it is only a transitional conception leading to 

 full peasant proprietorship, the proprietary rights of 

 the landlord being satisfied by a quit-rent or some 

 other compensation for the loss of his undoubted and 

 legally recognised rights in the land. The example 

 of Ireland seems to suggest that the present form of 

 tenure is transitional. Sir Horace Plunkett's thoughtful 

 book on 'Ireland in the New Century' contains many 



