DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31218#0269
THE ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CASTE
vince out of every fifteen years, three are bad and one
indifferent.
(4) On the other hand, during the last 30 years and
more ‘the maintenance of law and order, the defining and
recording of rights in land, the continuous reduction in
the proportion borne by the land revenue demand to the
produce, the rise in the value of that produce and the
growth of transferable rights in land have all contributed
to enhance the credit of the landholder’.1 And the causes
which have enhanced the cultivator’s credit have also
enhanced his material prosperity, a fact to which the
quinquennial cattle census returns bear evidence. There
has been a progressive increase in the number and value
of the peasant’s possessions, such as cattle and other
animals, ploughs and carts. Another proof lies in the
spread of moneylending as a subsidiary occupation
amongst cultivators; nearly 40 per cent of the agricul-
tural debt of the province was financed by landlords and
nearly 14 per cent by tenants.2
(5) But whilst his credit has been increasing, the
cultivator remains not only illiterate but in the broadest
sense uneducated. Not only is he unable to keep
accounts, but he does not understand the advantage of
keeping them. He does not realize the importance of
equating expenditure to income; especially he allows
social custom to dictate the measure of his expenditure in
many directions.
Such is the economic situation of the cultivator in
the United Provinces, a situation which
3. Agricuiturai makes indebtedness inevitable. It is no
indebtedness doubt true that in no country in the world
can agriculture entirely dispense with
credit, or entirely avoid debt. Agriculture is an industry :
like any otber industrialist, the farmer who wants
to increase his assets—to acquire additional land or
live stock, to erect a farm building, to make a
1 Report of the Royal Cornmission on Agriculture, p. 432. The
word ‘landholder’ as here used includes both cultivating landlord and
tenant.
2 B.E.C.’s report, Vol. I, p. 105, par. 200.
255
vince out of every fifteen years, three are bad and one
indifferent.
(4) On the other hand, during the last 30 years and
more ‘the maintenance of law and order, the defining and
recording of rights in land, the continuous reduction in
the proportion borne by the land revenue demand to the
produce, the rise in the value of that produce and the
growth of transferable rights in land have all contributed
to enhance the credit of the landholder’.1 And the causes
which have enhanced the cultivator’s credit have also
enhanced his material prosperity, a fact to which the
quinquennial cattle census returns bear evidence. There
has been a progressive increase in the number and value
of the peasant’s possessions, such as cattle and other
animals, ploughs and carts. Another proof lies in the
spread of moneylending as a subsidiary occupation
amongst cultivators; nearly 40 per cent of the agricul-
tural debt of the province was financed by landlords and
nearly 14 per cent by tenants.2
(5) But whilst his credit has been increasing, the
cultivator remains not only illiterate but in the broadest
sense uneducated. Not only is he unable to keep
accounts, but he does not understand the advantage of
keeping them. He does not realize the importance of
equating expenditure to income; especially he allows
social custom to dictate the measure of his expenditure in
many directions.
Such is the economic situation of the cultivator in
the United Provinces, a situation which
3. Agricuiturai makes indebtedness inevitable. It is no
indebtedness doubt true that in no country in the world
can agriculture entirely dispense with
credit, or entirely avoid debt. Agriculture is an industry :
like any otber industrialist, the farmer who wants
to increase his assets—to acquire additional land or
live stock, to erect a farm building, to make a
1 Report of the Royal Cornmission on Agriculture, p. 432. The
word ‘landholder’ as here used includes both cultivating landlord and
tenant.
2 B.E.C.’s report, Vol. I, p. 105, par. 200.
255