80 PROPOSED TENANCY REFORMS 



would be consulted as to the policy of improving the 

 management of his estate ; (3) in still more serious cases, 

 where it appeared hopeless to expect the owner of the estate 

 ever to become an efficient manager, the control would be 

 permanently removed to the Department, and the owner 

 would simply receive the income, which might be paid to 

 him by the managing department after deduction o the 

 expenses of management and of a tax imposed by way of 

 penalty. 



In the latter case the law might give Government the 

 option of deciding to sell the estate, and the sale would be 

 made to the highest bidder amongst the purchasers approved 

 by Government as likely to be good landlords the obligation 

 for residence for the greater part of the year being one of 

 the conditious imposed on the purchaser, The decision as 

 to whether an estate should be pot under any of these 

 forms of administrative control would be most advantageously 

 decided by an arbitration court of five members, composed 

 of two representatives of the landlord class or their agents, 

 two representatives of tenants on other estates and an inde- 

 pendent chairman, who should be either a Government officer 

 of the status of a district magistrate, or perhaps an honorary 

 magistrate who was not himself a landowner. In Oudh it 

 might be possible to have the landlord members nominated 

 by the British Indian Association and the tenant repre- 

 sentatives by a kisan sabha. It is undesirable that the four 

 non-official members of the arbitration court should be 

 nominated by Government. 



It may be supposed that the management of estates 

 decided to be put under administrative control would 

 naturally be handed over to the Court of Wards. I do not 

 think, however, that this would be the best course. The 

 Court of Wards generally still manages according to the old 

 fashioned traditional methods : only a very few of its 



