60 THE COMPETITION FOR LAND 



tenant throughout the province, but because it shows 

 that where Indian landlords seek only their imme- 

 diate pecuniary interest there is no custom or indi- 

 genous institution strong enough to restrain them from 

 using their position of economic advantage to the 

 uttermost, and that the Indian peasant is no more 

 capable of making an equal bargain with his landlord 

 than the Irish cottier tenant. A system of land-tenure 

 based upon unrestricted competition, might be bene- 

 ficial to landlord and tenant where both parties were 

 in a position to negotiate on terms of equality. Under 

 a system of perfect competition no landlord would 

 accept less than the highest rent he could get for his 

 land, and no tenant would take a lease by which his 

 profits would be smaller than he could obtain for a 

 similar investment of labour and capital in another 

 industry. Such perfect competition can only exist 

 where the competitors for land are large farmers with 

 capital, as in England, or where, as in large towns, 

 merchants and business men are able to calculate 

 exactly the pecuniary advantage of a certain site ; but 

 it is obvious that these are not the conditions under 

 which rents are paid by an ignorant peasantry who 

 know little of any other industrial conditions than 

 those of their immediate neighbourhood, and who can 

 follow no other calling than that of husbandry. 



The evil results of this unequal competition are not 

 confined to the immediate sufferers, but are necessarily 

 cumulative, and tend permanently to depress and 

 degrade those classes of tenants, so that it is well- 

 nigh impossible for their children ever to remedy their 

 situation. The low-caste Hindus, whose portion for 

 centuries has been oppression and contempt, are in a 

 particularly disadvantageous position in bargaining 

 with their landlords. Under the Syed landlords 

 described above, ' there is a marked difference in the 

 position of the sturdier Muhammadan tenants (like the 

 Turks in a few villages in the north of Sambhal and 



