266 



position somewhat analogous to that of an English farmer, 

 and during the term of the lease is enabled to enjoy the full 

 benefit of the extra labour bestowed by him on the land 

 without having to share it with the land-owner. There is no 

 object in compelling the owner by prohibition of sub-letting 

 to cultivate the lands by means of hired labourers under his 

 own superintendence or that of paid agents, and the measure 

 is likely to have mischievous effects in the case of owners 

 who, because they are minors or women or for other reasons, 

 are unable to look after the lands themselves. It will also 

 injuriously affect labourers who, though they may not have 

 the means to purchase lands themselves, have sufficient means 

 to take lands on lease, and by farming them properly make a 

 profit and gradually raise themselves in the social scale as 

 has happened in several districts. The value of land is so 

 great that it hardly pays 5 per cent, as an investment, and it 

 is clearly more advantageous to a farmer or labourer with 

 small means to take as much land as he can farm on lease, 

 pay 5 per cent, of the value of land to the owner as rent, and 

 make a profit by cultivation, than to hii'e himself out as a 

 day labourer or buy with his slender means a small parcel of 

 land, the cultivation of which will not give him sufficient 

 occupation. 



Other remedies suggested for mitigating the evils of agri- 

 cultural indebtedness are the placing of restrictions on the 

 sale of immoveable property for simple debts and the grant 

 of power to courts to disallow usurious contracts where 

 the creditor is shown to have taken undue advantage of the 

 simplicity and ignorance of the debtor. Sections 320-327 

 of the Civil Procedure Code contain provisions for transfer- 

 ring to the Collector for execution decrees directing that 

 immoveable property shall be sold for debts in tracts of 

 country where the Government deems it expedient that the 

 usual judicial processes should not be allowed full operation ; 

 but in this presidency it has not been found necessary to take 

 action under these provisions. In 1889-90, the area of perma- 

 nently settled estates transferred by court decrees was 36,571 

 acres or 1 in 800 ; of ryotwar holdings 7,409 acres or 1 in 

 3,000 ; and of inam holdings 1,334 acres or 1 in 3,000. The 

 enactment of a usury law, however suitable to a condition of 

 society where almost all transactions are carried on by barter 

 and money payment is the exception, is entirely inapplicable 

 to present conditions in which the old regime of barter has 

 been superseded by one of cash payments and an active 

 internal and external trade has been developed by the exten- 

 sion of communications. As regards manifestly extortionate 



