DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9551#0235
OVER ANCESTRAL PROPERTY. 223
found proceeding from one authority, and their execution
left to another. Experience shews that unchecked power
often leads the best men wrong, and produces general
mischief.
12. We are unable to reconcile this arbitrary change
with regard for the future prosperity of the country;
because the law now proposed, preventing a father from
the disposal of ancestral property, without the consent
of his son and grandson, would immediately, as I observed
before, subject all past transfers of land to legal contest,
and would at once render this large and fertile province
a scene of confusion and misery. Besides, Bengal has
been always remarkable for her riches, insomuch as to
have been styled by her Mohummudan conquerors
" Junnutoolbelad," or paradise of regions; during the
British occupation of India especially, she has been
manifoldly prosperous. Any one possessed of landed
property, whether self-acquired or ancestral, has been
able, under the long established law of the land, to
procure easily, on the credit of that property, loans of
money to lay out on the improvement of his estate, in
trade or in manufactures, whereby he enriches himself
and his family and benefits the country. Were the
change which it is threatened to introduce into the law of
inheritance to be sanctioned, and the privilege of
disposing of ancestral property (though not entailed)
without the consent of heirs be denied to landholders,
they being incapacitated from a free disposal of the
propertv in their actual possession, would naturally lose
the credit they at present enjoy, and be compelled to
confine their concerns to the extent of their actual savings
from their income; the consequence would be, that a
found proceeding from one authority, and their execution
left to another. Experience shews that unchecked power
often leads the best men wrong, and produces general
mischief.
12. We are unable to reconcile this arbitrary change
with regard for the future prosperity of the country;
because the law now proposed, preventing a father from
the disposal of ancestral property, without the consent
of his son and grandson, would immediately, as I observed
before, subject all past transfers of land to legal contest,
and would at once render this large and fertile province
a scene of confusion and misery. Besides, Bengal has
been always remarkable for her riches, insomuch as to
have been styled by her Mohummudan conquerors
" Junnutoolbelad," or paradise of regions; during the
British occupation of India especially, she has been
manifoldly prosperous. Any one possessed of landed
property, whether self-acquired or ancestral, has been
able, under the long established law of the land, to
procure easily, on the credit of that property, loans of
money to lay out on the improvement of his estate, in
trade or in manufactures, whereby he enriches himself
and his family and benefits the country. Were the
change which it is threatened to introduce into the law of
inheritance to be sanctioned, and the privilege of
disposing of ancestral property (though not entailed)
without the consent of heirs be denied to landholders,
they being incapacitated from a free disposal of the
propertv in their actual possession, would naturally lose
the credit they at present enjoy, and be compelled to
confine their concerns to the extent of their actual savings
from their income; the consequence would be, that a