DELAYS IN THE DIVISION OF THE CROP 51 



Moens notes that the same loss happened from the 

 same cause in April and May, 1871). 'If the tenant 

 thinks the landlord too hard upon him, he absents 

 himself from the division of the crop, and goes and 

 petitions the collector, being certain thereby of 

 harassing the landlord, and being for the time, at 

 least, reckless whether he involves himself also in 

 loss by the destruction of the produce. 



' I fully acknowledge the truth of every word of the 

 above extract ; I have myself found rice cut in October 

 and still undivided and not even threshed or win- 

 nowed in February. It lay rotting while the wretched 

 cultivators were almost starving on grain borrowed 

 at ruinous interest.' Mr. Alexander declared that such 

 cases were by no means exceptional. ' My own ex- 

 perience over a large part of Hasanpur and Amroha 

 was that in every village which I rode through the 

 cultivators came running up and begged for permission 

 to cut their fields, or for an order directing the land- 

 lord to estimate the crop before it deteriorated. I am 

 quite willing to allow that in most cases the cause 

 was indolence, and in some niggardliness, rather than 

 actual malevolence. The landlords are mostly non- 

 residents, and often grudge the money necessary to 

 maintain a sufficient establishment to complete the 

 estimates in several different villages within the 

 proper time, and before the day the landlord has 

 bestirred himself, or the agent worked round to the 

 village, damage occurs to the crop. But be the 

 cause what it may, the fact of damage and loss to the 

 tenant still remains, nor have I ever known a single 

 case in which the landlord has, without compulsion, 

 made any restitution for loss.' 



Mr. Moens's close observation and his care in 

 recording economic facts has created in me a strong 

 respect for his memory, and I am unwilling alto- 

 gether to disregard what he has to say in favour of 

 the batai system. In spite of the damaging admissions 



4—2 



