colxxxiii 



them to vakils and Q-overnment officials. Of the four systems of credit 

 here alluded to, the result of lending money, at so much per cent., is 

 very advantageous to the borrower. Grain interest is demandable by 

 small capitalists who have to purchase paddy for their consumption . 

 It is generally favorable to the lender and is not had recourse to, except 

 in an emergency. Vasi or Nanji (the latter means one-fourth share), 

 apparently very disadvantageous to the borrower, is not really so. The 

 grain is advanced in June or July and is repaid in February or March. 

 The duration of the loan is about nine months and the interest, if the 

 value and condition of paddy be the same, is nearly 3 per cent. We 

 have, however, to allow for the difference in the price which itself is 

 sometimes nearly 25 per cent, in favour of the borrower. We have 

 also to allow for the dryage of the paddy at the time of repayment. 

 This comes to nearly 15 to 20 per cent.* The ryots prefer this kind of 

 payment to money payment. The only advantage to the lender is that 

 there is no excuse for putting off the payment when the harvest is 

 realized. 



" Repayment in kind^ at the time of harvest without interest, is 

 apparently advantageous to the ryot and sometimes is really so. He 

 gets as much for his grain as he would otherwise have if he sold the 

 crops when they are gathered. His gain consists in the interest on the 

 money borrowed for the period between the date of the loan and that 

 of the harvest. In consideration of this, he has to abstain from sell- 

 ing his grain to others and from selling it at a time when it would 

 fetch the best price. Taking into account his necessitous condition, the 

 sacrifice is nominal. The lenders can buy paddy at the time of the 

 harvest and pocket the difference if they can. That they are not able 

 to do so indicates the real position. The lenders have to pay simply to 

 purchase a custom and this is no doubt proof that the ryots are able to 

 dictate their own terms and money is easy."t 



{8) Tenant right in Java : extracted from an article from one of the 

 English Newspapers quoted in the ^^ Indian Economist,^' 1870. 



" W^e can very well understand the excitement created in Holland 

 by the passing of the Agrarian Bill for the Dutch Indian possessions ; 

 and there can be little doubt its conservative opponents are right 

 in proclaiming it the precursor of a social revolution. It seems to 

 decide the question, which has been so long and hotly debated in the 

 Parliament at the Hague and signs the death-warrant of the Dutch 

 Colonial System. Independently of the radical changes introduced in 

 that system by the bill, the very fact of foreign witnesses being invited 

 behind the scenes — of the working of Dutch Colonial policy being laid 

 bare to public opinion — seems to make the inevitable revolution in it 

 merely a question of time. That that revolution must have come 

 sooner or later was certain. Its advocates had all the arguments 



* This seems to be too high an estimate. 



t This is somewhat too broadly stated. It is necessity that makes ryots part with 

 their grain soon after harvest and the lenders make a profit out of this. The ryota 

 in general, however, are now better able to hold out for a price than they were before. 



