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ritj. Only death could prevent ninety-nine Hundredths 

 of our rural population paying a debt fairly incurred, 

 on which a reasonable rate of interest was charged, 

 and which they understood that the authorities required 

 them to pay. And in the event of death, in nine 

 cases out of ten, the heirs and representatives of the 

 deceased who take up his land, would be quite as 

 ready to take up the debt as if it were their own, and 

 anyhow whoever took the land would have to take up 

 the debt. In estates under the Court of Wards, not 

 leased out but managed direct by revenue officials, 

 large sums are often given out as advances, and again 

 recovered to the uttermost fraction. Or when some 

 loss is sustained by men dying, or others whose cattle 

 have died, and whose crops have failed absconding,* 

 this under good management is small. 



Nor is it even necessary, though it is desirable, that 

 there should be authority behind to sanction the debt. 

 A gentleman, many years a planter in a district of 

 which the writer had charge for a decade, remarked 

 to him, speaking of cultivators : — 



" Deal with them wisely and fairly, and there is no 

 difficulty. I give out large advances every year. I 

 have never had a suit in any court with any ryot, and 



* As a rule it is bad management when men abscond. It is 

 from fright they do so ; they know they owe money ; they find 

 themselves, by some calamity, beggars ; they do not know what 

 the consequences may be, and they run away. Many a time, in 

 wards' estates, have I sent some relative with a few rupees to re- 

 assure and bring such men back, and many a time have I known 

 others, who could not be traced, come back two, three, four, years 

 later, with their whole debt, earned elsewhere, in their hands. 



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