VARIOUS PROPOSALS 35 



right time. A very great difference is that the practice 

 of estate management as an art of running estates on 

 proper business lines and developing their productiveness is 

 hardly comprehended in India ; whilst in England such 

 knowledge and practice is widespread. It will be my 

 object in the next lecture to indicate the extent and the 

 direction in which the English law of tenancy and practice 

 of estate management may be applied in the existing Indian 

 conditions with the object of commencing a continuous 

 policy of development in that direction. 



You may not be convinced, however, that I am at 

 liberty summarily to dismiss as fallacious or impracticable 

 the various proposals for improving the tenancy system of 

 these Provinces which have recently been put forward. I 

 propose, therefore, to examine briefly and critically some of 

 those which have come to my notice. The solution of the 

 Ondh tenancy trouble most frequently offered is the adoption 

 of the system of occupancy tenancy as it prevails in 

 the Provinces of Agra or Bengal, or any similar system. 

 It is generally conceded that the right of sub-letting should 

 be strictly limited ; and some would go so far as to limit 

 the right of succession to the widow and the immediate heirs 

 of the deceased, excluding collateral relatives. A somewhat 

 similar, but less drastic, proposal for Oudh is the conversion 

 of the existing seven years' leases automatically into long 

 leases of ten, twenty or even twenty-five years, the rent 

 being subject to the statutory enhancement of one anna in 

 the rupee every five or seven years. The first proposal is 

 practically that of a lease for an indefinite period to a 

 family so long as succession continues in the direct line 

 and so long as some member of the family remains the 

 cultivator of the holding, but subject to moderate enhance- 

 ments of rent by order of the court on the basis of equality 

 with the general level of occupancy rentals. 



