309 



claims valued at about 4 crores of rupees, 58,000 petty suits 

 are disposed of by the village munsifs and 92,000 small cause 

 suits by the district munsifs. Of the latter, 20,000 suits are 

 for personal claims of value not exceeding Rs. 10 ; 23,000 for 

 claims of values above Rs. 10, and not exceeding Rs. 20 ; and 

 41,000 for claims of values ranging between Rs. 20 and Rs. 

 50 ; the total number of suits for claims of values not exceed- 

 ing Rs. 50 being thus 84,000 or 92 per cent, of the total 

 number of small cause suits instituted in the courts of district 

 munsifs. The cost incurred by both plaintiifs and defendants 

 in suits of this kind is out of all proportion to the value of the 

 claims, and the successful litigant cannot recover under pro- 

 cess of court a considerable portion of the expenses actually 

 incurred by him. I have printed as appendix VI.-E. a state- 

 ment prepared by a judicial officer who has had experience 

 of litigation in the Tanjore, Trichinopoly and Tinnevelly dis- 

 tricts, where the courts are numerous and the distances to 

 be travelled by suitors and witnesses from their homes to get 

 to the courts are not very great. From this statement, it will 

 appear that, at a moderate computation, the cost incurred by 

 a litigant for enforcing a claim of value of Rs. 50 through all 

 its stages in the original court is Rs. 34, out of which he 

 cannot recover Rs. 12. As the value of the claim rises, the 

 cost incurred bears a more reasonable proportion to it, but it 

 is obvious that where the value of the claim is only Rs. 10 

 or Rs. 20, the irrecoverable portion of the costs must 

 often exceed such value, and this is one of the reasons which 

 make it impossible for the poor peasantry to obtain small 

 loans at anything like reasonable rates of interest, even 

 when the security offered is good and sufficient. ™ Lord 

 Kimberley, Secretary of State for India, has in his despatch 

 on the proposals for the establishment of agricultural banks 

 already referred to, remarked that " notwithstanding the 

 immense improvement which has of late years been effected 

 in the efficiency and integrity of the administration of civil 

 justice generally, much remains to be done towards making 

 it cheap and speedy. Everything which adds to the expense, 

 delay and difficulty of recovering just debts increases the price 

 at which the money-lender gives his help to the land-owner." 

 Some steps have already been taken in this presidency in the 

 direction pointed out by Lord Kimberley by the passing of the 

 Madras Village Courts' Act I of 1889, under which the pecu- 



"■' It is in view of the cost of recovei-ing by resort to litigation money lent, it is 

 generally stipulated in bonds that the loan shall hear a higher rate of interest fron\ 

 the date on which default is made in repayment. 



