I04 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



already said, for the inevitable marriage and the 

 equally inevitable lawsuit. When the tenant falls on 

 evil days, he will advance him rent to save him from 

 ejectment ; he is, in fact, at all times the resource to 

 which the needy agriculturist goes for relief, and the 

 consequence is that a large proportion of the cultivating 

 community is seldom free from the mahajan's influ- 

 ence. When the crops are reaped, the greater portion 

 finds its way to his granary ; the tenant retains a share 

 for his immediate use, but seldom for the consumption 

 of his household and for the following seed-time. 

 Long before next harvest approaches he has, as a rule, 

 to have recourse to the mahajan^ upon whom, in no 

 inconsiderable number of instances, he is at certain 

 seasons of the year — more especially before the ap- 

 proach of each harvest — almost entirely dependent for 

 his daily supply of food. But the system is not with- 

 out its advantages in * hard times '; it is to the interest 

 of the creditor, as well as the debtor, that the latter 

 should live ; there is a community of interest which 

 secures him from starvation.* 



Although statistics do not exist for India which 

 would enable us to compare the rural indebtedness of 

 this country with that of Europe, it is clear that there 

 is no very striking difference in this respect between 

 the East and the West. Such rough estimates as we 

 have for India are of the percentage of cultivators in 

 debt, whereas the European figures have reference to 

 the extent of land upon which debts have been raised ; 

 but the results obtained by either of these methods of 

 calculation are sufficiently similar to justify us in con- 

 cluding that there is no striking disparity between 

 India and Europe. As far as the figures can be held 

 to prove anything, they show that the advantage is at 

 present slightly on the side of the Indian agriculturists. 



* ' An Inquiry into the Economic Condition of the Agricultural 

 and Labouring Classes in the North-West Provinces and Oudh,' 1888, 

 P- 133- 



