11 



servative man, who prefers walking in the footsteps 

 of, and following the example set by his ancestors, 

 yet he is not the less fully alive to his own interests, 

 and will be only too eager to adopt any mode of 

 cultivation which would ensure him a larger crop 

 than is obtained by his own method, provided he 

 is personally convinced that such advantages can 

 be secured. 



The Government of India, in its peculiar relative 

 position to the cultivator, has very responsible 

 obligations to discharge. It must be considered as 

 representing an extensive land-owner, holding the 

 acres of the State in trust for future generations. 

 But does not Government betray that trust to the 

 detriment of the resources of the country, and 

 therefore to the prejudice of succeeding generations, 

 by permitting its tenants, the ryots, to carry on 

 Agriculture in the present ruinous method, in suffer- 

 ing them to draw continuously from the resources 

 of the land, without a reasonable return, a per- 

 centage which must ultimately, although gradually, 

 dwindle down to a degree which will be inadequate 

 for their existence ? Besides these cogent reasons 

 for immediate and strenuous action, the present 

 pernicious system will, manifestly, be detrimental to 

 the interests of Government itself in a fiscal point 

 of view, inasmuch as, consequent upon the meagre 

 outturn, the cultivator will ultimately find him- 

 self unable to pay his quota of the revenue, while 

 large tracts of country will be abandoned as barren, 



