Macaulay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 139 



be well doubted whether the advantages which the 

 labourer would derive from such a system of guard- 

 ianship would compensate for the journey, the at- 

 tendance, the trouble, and the loss of time. 



" There are contracts which it is very desirable to 

 register ; contracts which are seldom made, which 

 are made for long terms, which are great events in a 

 man's life, which are likely to affect the rights of 

 third parties, and which are of such a nature that 

 they cannot be made without considerable trouble 

 and great formalities. The purchase of an estate is 

 an instance. The security, which registration gives to- 

 all the parties concerned in the transaction, is highly 

 valuable. The trouble of procuring registration is 

 but a trifle in comparison with the trouble which 

 must attend such an event. But to require that all 

 contracts for all terms between all the capitalists and 

 all the working people of great provinces should be 

 registered, and registered with such safeguards as to 

 make it certain that every contract is freely and deli- 

 berately made, would be to dissolve the whole frame 

 of society. The general rule which is followed all 

 over the world is this, that no judicial verification of 

 a contract should take place till it is alleged that the 

 contract has been broken. At present it is probable 

 that not one contract in a thousand is, in any country 

 on earth, the subject of a law-suit. If the immense 



