[62] 



soil, almost throughout the empire, will need no other 

 or direct relief. 



Wherever we turn we find agriculturists burdened 

 with debts running on at enormous rates of interest. 

 In some districts, even provinces, the evil is all- 

 absorbing — a whole population of paupers, hopelessly 

 meshed in the webs of usurers. 



No one probably needs to be told that no farmer or 

 cultivator, hopelessly in debt, can ever do any justice 

 to himself or his land. 



If only on account of our own direct and vital in- 

 terest in the land, some action is necessary on our 

 parts to limit the progress of and gradually wholly 

 eradicate this plague of indebtedness ; certainly next 

 to the manure question, there is no other that will 

 earlier demand the attention of the Agricultural De- 

 partment. 



The subject is so large and complicated, its difficul- 

 ties so protean, and the remedies required necessarily 

 so liable to vary in relation to each of the almost 

 innumerable combinations of circumstances under 

 which the evil will have to be dealt with, that it is im- 

 possible to discuss it at all exhaustively in a sketch 

 like this. Still some indication may be given of the 

 manner in which this indebtedness has come about 

 and of the direction in which a remedy for it should 

 be sought. 



A theory is at times gravely maintained, even in 

 India, that the ryot is a thriftless, reckless fellow ; that 

 no matter what he gets, he will always spend more 

 than his income ; that it matters nothing whether the 

 rent he has to pay is high or low ; that he rather likes 



