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the establislimeiit of agricultural banks. The question has 

 already been taken up by the Madras Government which has 

 appointed Mr. F. A. Nicholson, C.S., to investigate the subject 

 and to report upon it. Mr. Nicholson is peculiarly qualified 

 for the task both by his study of the working of agricultural 

 credit institutions in European countries and by his intimate 

 knowledge of agricultural practice and the conditions of rural 

 life in this country, and his report is being awaited with 

 interest. Believing, as I do, that Government has in its 

 power, by the establishment of these banks, to accelerate 

 the prosperity of the agricultural classes in a marked degree, 

 I wish to make in this place a few general remarks on 

 the subject, more especially with a view to show that the 

 objections urged by the Secretary of State against certain 

 proposals made in 1883 for starting agricultural banks in 

 Bombay ought not to be allowed to prejudice the considera- 

 tion of the question at the present time, and that it is possible 

 to work these institutions successfully in this presidency 

 under conditions which will render the objections inapplicable. 

 In connection with the Bombay proposals Lord Kimberley 

 admitted that it was a serious misfortune that the land- 

 holders in India, even when comparatively prosperous and 

 able to give good security, were usually unable to obtain the 

 temporary accommodation they required except at a ruinous 

 rate of interest, and that it would be of the greatest possible 

 benefi.t to the agricultural community if the place of the 

 present greedy and extortionate money-lenders were supplied 

 by banks, and other institutions possessing sufficient capital 

 and honestly managed. The two chief objections urged by 

 him to the scheme proposed in Bombay were : 1st, that it 

 was doubtful whether any ingenuity could provide an effec- 

 tual substitute for the operation of the ordinary laws of 

 trading between the ryots and those, whether sowkars or 

 banks, from whom they obtain advances ; whether without 

 the stimulus of risk of loss as a result of neglect and want 

 of proper precaution on its partj any bank could carry on 

 its business with success ; and whether Government could do 

 directly much more for the relief of agricultural debtors 

 than enact laws enabling the courts to see that their poverty 

 or ignorance was not taken undue advantage of, and that they 

 were not oppressed or defrauded by their creditors ; secondly, 

 that the sowkars were not merely money-lenders, but also 

 purchased the ryots' produce and thus supplied them with a 

 market, and as the banks established under the auspices of 

 Government could hardly be expected to undertake this 

 function, it followed that the sowkars' assistance could not 



