52 THE COMPETITION FOR LAND 



which I have just quoted, he proceeds to maintain 

 that the batai system ' has very great counter- 

 balancing advantages.' The eight reasons which he 

 gives for his opinion may be thus summarized : 

 i. Batai is the custom of the country. 



2. The rate of division is determined by custom 

 over large tracts of country, so that there is little 

 probability of rents being decided by competition. 



3. The landlord gets a fair profit on improvements. 



4. It is a form of rent self-adjusting to a rise or fall 

 in prices. 



5. Under batai the tenant is not liable to be turned 

 out of his holding with debts to the village money- 

 lender. 



6. Under batai the landlord helps to replace lost 

 cattle. 



7. The tenant under batai usually borrows from the 

 landlord and not from the professional money-lender 

 (bania), and thus is able to get money at a lower rate 

 of interest. 



8. The system of batai creates a tie of self interest 

 between landlord and tenant. 



Mr. E. Alexander, who had seen in the Moradabad 

 district the evil results of batai when worked harshly 

 examines these arguments seriatim. Nos. 1 and 4 he 

 admits to be true ; of No. 2 he says that it is equiva- 

 lent to saying that it is an advantage to be paying so 

 high a rent that no one could possibly pay more and 

 make a living out of the land. In answer to No. 3 

 Mr. Alexander curtly remarks that he has never seen 

 any improvements made by a landlord, and that No. 5 

 is true of batai, but not of amaldari, which is a very 

 common development of the former. With regard to 

 No. 6, all depends upon the state of feeling between 

 the landlord and tenant, and so it does in a village 

 paying cash rents. As to No. 7, Mr. Alexander denies 

 that the landlord is a better creditor than the village 

 money-lender ; he is just as pressing as the bania, and 



