The Government of India is making another desperate attempt to
deal with a great evil in India,—the mortgaged condition of the freeholding peasants. They borrow money, usually for their children's marriages, mortgage their little estates, are evicted, and thenceforward become rack-rented
tenants and potential rebels. The evil has reached such a height in the Punjab that the Government on October 12th passed an Act limiting the peasant's power of sale to other peasants, and his power of pledging his land to twenty years. The measure is warmly opposed by some great native land- lords and warmly supported by others, and the balance of argument is about equal. No doubt the measure diminishes the peasant's right in his own holding, but so does every entail, and the moneylender can still recoup himself by exacting heavy interest. The Act is thoroughly well in- tentioned, though we scarcely understand why the simpler scheme of lending the people State money at 10 per cent, was not tried first. The State must not be landlord But the State in India is landlord already.
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