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proprietors Magistrates, and on the other, to 

 prevent Magistrates from becoming landed proprie-f 

 tors. The object of such a policy is not very intelligi- 

 ble. True, it is advanced that in a country where 

 litigation between ryots and landlords, is so rife, it 

 would not be safe to permit Magistrates and Collec- 

 tors to acquire property that might involve the 

 necessity of their trying suits, in which they them- 

 selves^ would be interested parties. But surely ifc 

 would be a libel on the high and honorable Civil 

 Service of India, to declare its Members less trust- 

 worthy than their native uncovenanted fellow 

 servants ; and from this point of view, no other 

 conclusion can follow. The fact is, that there i 

 an objection to Civil Servants holding land in the 

 districts in which they may be employed : but it is not 

 this, and has no reference whatever to their integrity, 

 which, as a rule, is undoubted. The objection lies in 

 the moral condition of the people. However high the 

 character of the Collector, Magistrate, Deputy 

 Magistrate, or Assistant, native or European, may 

 be, no native suitor will dream of bringing any 

 suit into Court, in which the presiding authority 

 is supposed to have the slightest personal interest. 

 No amount of argument no number of examples, 

 will convince a native, that a judge, under any 

 circumstances, could decide a case contrary to his 

 bias, much less his personal interest. This certainly 

 serious perhaps a fatal objection to Civil 



