54 THE COMPETITION FOR LAND 



people who have constant money dealings with the 

 cultivators of the soil, must fail' 



The inconvenience of the system of batai both to 

 landlord and to tenant was probably the reason of its 

 speedy disappearance as soon as the alternative of 

 money-rents had become practicable. Indian land- 

 lords have explained to me that their objection to the 

 system is that it is impossible to prevent theft on the 

 part of the tenant ; as soon as the crop is ripe the 

 tenant and his family convey part of it away at night. 

 What reasons the tenant has for disliking the system 

 we have already seen. The following extract from 

 Mr. Alexander's report suggests another reason for 

 the transition from grain shares in the produce to 

 cash-rents : 



'The first change probably took place when some 

 more enterprising tenant undertook the cultivation of 

 crops like cotton or sugar-cane, which required a good 

 deal of trouble and expense. It is easy to imagine 

 how the zemindar grudged finding the capital, or how 

 the tenant grudged giving the labour under the system 

 of actual division, and also the further complication 

 which arose from the zemindar in some cases not 

 having any immediate use for his share of the division. 

 At first, at all events, this payment, which is locally 

 known as zabti, does not seem to have been fixed, but 

 to have varied according to the result of the experi- 

 ment. Not improbably it represented the actual value 

 of the zemindar's share, after deducting expenses, and 

 therefore necessarily varied according to the produce. 

 Even where its maximum became fixed, it was prob- 

 ably for long customary to allow a reduction if the 

 crop turned out badly, and this principle is still recog- 

 nised by liberal landlords, unless the zabti (cash) rates 

 are very low. It was most likely some time before 

 the tenant was understood to take the whole risk and 

 pay a fixed amount for certain, whether the crops 

 turned out well or ill.' 



