102 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



he is most undoubtedly an expensive and dangerous 

 necessity. He has been found in India from time 

 immemorial, and Munro and Mountstuart Elphinstone 

 in Bombay give pictures of the rapacious and en- 

 slaving action of the usurer, the misery and bondage 

 of the ryot at the beginning of the century, precisely 

 similar to those of Europe and Southern India at the 

 present day, except that land mortgage was then 

 unusual, since land had little or no value.' So, too, 

 Holt Mackenzie, in 1832, when giving evidence before 

 the Select Committee on the affairs of the East India 

 Company, declared ' that the borrowing of money by 

 cultivators of the land was practised very extensively ; 

 he might almost say it was universal, and he thought 

 that probably three-quarters or seven-eighths were 

 cultivating with capital borrowed in that way.' Holt 

 Mackenzie's experience of India had begun in 1808, 

 and therefore he may be assumed to have been de- 

 scribing the conditions of things that prevailed when 

 British rule began in this part of India. He went on 

 to say * that he supposed three-fourths (of the culti- 

 vators) were cultivating the soil with capital borrowed 

 at the rate of 2 per cent, a month. The length of 

 time during which the advance continued depended a 

 good deal on the crop. In sugar-cane the advance 

 probably ran on for a year ; the grain crops, being 

 produced more rapidly, the cultivators must generally 

 possess the means of repayment in about half a year; 

 but a great majority in Bengal seemed to live from 

 hand to mouth, and to be always in debt. The cul- 

 tivators did not use the money-lenders as commission 

 merchants, but it was very generally a part of the 

 bargain that the produce should be delivered to the 

 money-lenders. The bargain generally was to deliver 

 at a certain price, which was always below the market 

 rate. He had known an instance in which, when 

 the market rate of sugar was 15, the deliveries 

 of the cultivator were at 20, and they generally 



