USURY IN INDIA 103 



delivered all their produce at a price below the 

 market figure.* 



Much of the above remains true at the present day. 

 That most competent observer Mr. William Crooke 

 estimated in 1888 that in the Etah district 44 per cent, 

 of the families in a selected area ' habitually pro- 

 vided their own seed-grain ; the remaining 56 per cent, 

 borrowed it. Nor is this result abnormal or indicative 

 of any degree of poverty peculiar to this district. 

 Inquiries made at Agra showed that 78 per cent, of the 

 tenantry were in debt. Mr. Moens, in Bareli, found 

 that ' 66 per cent, of the tenants about whom he made 

 inquiries borrowed their seed-grain.' Similarly Mr. E. 

 Rose wrote from Ghazipur, 'as a rule, a very large 

 proportion of the agriculturists in a village are in debt. 

 Sometimes the debt is one which has descended from 

 father to son, sometimes it is one which has recently 

 been contracted for a marriage ceremony or a lawsuit, 

 but almost always, as far as the debtor is concerned, 

 an indeterminate quantity ; he has seldom an account 

 of it, and only knows what he paid off at the last 

 harvest, or when the last payment was made. Great 

 numbers of the agriculturist community appear to 

 have a kind of running account with the mahajan 

 (banker) ; he advances them seed, giving one seer less 

 than the market price, an investment of which, barring 

 the accident of drought and a deficient outturn, when, 

 in kindness and compassion, the village Shylock would 

 let the debt run on to a more convenient time, it may 

 fairly be said, ' This is the way to thrive, and he is 

 blest, and thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.' In 

 other instances the advance is made at seed-time on 

 the Sawai principle, which means a return at harvest 

 of one-fourth more than the quantity borrowed at 

 seed-time. He lends money, moreover, as I have 



* ' Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on 

 the Affairs of the East India Company ' — II., Finance and Accounts : 

 Trade, p. 17, 1832. 



