PREFACE 



This Bulletin contains the substance of a course of public 

 lectures delivered in the University of Allahabad during 

 February, March and April of the present year. It. will be 

 obvious that some of the lectures are not printed in full, but 

 are more or less summarised. A few parts, more especially 

 a review of the history of the land legislation in the United 

 Provinces, which is accessible in other books, have been 

 omitted altogether ; and there has also been some re- 

 arrangement of the order in which the >ubjeot-matter is 

 presented. Otherwise the contents of this volume represent 

 the lectures as delivered. 



It might perhaps have been advantageous if some review 

 of land systems in other foreign countries besides England 

 had been included in the lectures ; but I felt that this would 

 unduly enlarge what was already an extensive subject. I 

 have attempted to remedy this defect in some degree by 

 including in an Appendix to this volume a list of books 

 which give some description of the tenancy systems of other 

 countries, together with occasional extracts therefrom and 

 some comments. 



After reading through the lectures again in proof, the 

 conviction grows on me that the agrarian problem in India 

 is of deeper significance and greater importance than was 

 indicated anywhere in my lectures. I seem to see it now 

 as the great political question which will emerge as soon as 

 the constitutional strife is laid to rest. It is essentially an 

 economic problem ; and one that will affect the very 

 roots of the future prosperity of India. I think the general 

 tendency of unenlightened public opinion will be to favor 

 peasant proprietorship in its broad sense, including tenants 

 with fixity of tenure as well as those holding proprietary 

 rights. The controversy as to the respective merits of large 

 and small holdings as a system of agriculture, will rage here 



