in the different provinces in forms as diverse as the past history and local conditions of each province, long before it was brought under British administration, had combined to make them.  Whereas in the Bombay Presidency, for instance, land is chiefly held by small landlords and peasant proprietors, it was held in Agra and Oudh before they became British by a great landed aristocracy whose rights, like all established rights, it was a principle of British policy to respect, and the talukdars of Oudh and the zemindars of Agra stood for the most part very loyally by the British Raj during the Mutiny, and have continued to stand by Government in many difficult if not equally critical moments since then.

The relationships, varying almost ad infinitum between landlords and tenants and sub-tenants, have created marked differences which still exist very widely in the two divisions of the United Provinces.  In Agra, about half the tenants possess at least occupancy rights, but only a very small percentage in Oudh enjoy even that measure of protection.  There have been successive endeavours to improve the position of the tillers of the soil by benevolent legislation.  But worse even than the precarious nature of the tenures are the many forms of arbitrary exaction to which bad landlords can subject their peasants without any definite breach of the law.  Often landlords who want to build a new house or send a son to England or buy a new motor simply levy an extra anna in the rupee on their rent-rolls which the wretched tenants dare not refuse to pay.  As in many other matters, the ancient institution of caste, which is still the corner-stone of the whole Indian social structure, introduces yet another disturbing factor.  For tenants and sub-tenants who belong to the depressed castes are exposed to much harsher treatment at the hands of their superior landlords than those who are privileged to belong to less down-trodden castes.  Even the best landlords who show some real consideration for their people are actuated rather by a natural kindliness of disposition than by any conscious sense of duty or recognition of the special responsibilities that attach to their high position.  Government has for some time past realised the necessity of dealing with these questions on broader lines, but when the reforms scheme first took substance, legislation was, not unreasonably, postponed until the new Councils met, though the subject is not one of those transferred under the Act to Indian ministers.

Agrarian questions, moreover, are very intimately connected with the larger question of land revenue, in regard to which there are signs of a considerable change in the attitude of the politically-minded classes, or at least of the Moderate section.  For a long time the lawyer element, always very strong in the Indian National Congress, was not particularly keen to see it take up agrarian questions which would have probably estranged a good many fat clients, and some,