LECTURE 

 CONTROL OF RENTS 



The conditions in India are so different from those of 

 England that any proposal to adopt the English system of 

 landlord and tenant as it stands would be absurd. Nor is 

 it to be supposed that the English system is itself perfect. 

 Yet its main features have been developed in accordance 

 with the requirements of progressive agriculture, and it 

 stands as the result of long continued experience of what 

 is practicable in working. In India, however, we have a 

 system already established which has created not only 

 proprietary rights in the soil, but also various sub- 

 proprietary rights. These cannot be ignored ; and however 

 unfortunate it may be, it is clear that, as they were allowed 

 to be created their existence has to be recognized ; and 

 equity demands that they be allowed to continue, or that 

 compensation be paid for their extinction. Another differ- 

 ence is that in India over 95 per cent of the cultivators are 

 illiterate ; they are ignorant of the ideas and methods of 

 improved agriculture, and for the most part hopelessly in 

 debt : whereas the English farmer is literate, though often 

 badly educated. He is acquainted with a more advanced 

 system of cultivation ; and when in debt, this has usually 

 been incurred in purchase of stock for his farm and for 

 other productive purposes. Yet the Indian cultivator is 

 intelligent and alive to his own interests. The cultivating 

 castes, such as Kurmis, are industrious, and have a wide 

 knowledge of crops and the existing practices of cultivation, 

 and the necessary judgment to do the right thing at the 



