s. Altogether,
according to the census returns 58 p.c. of the population depends for
its support on the soil, 20.5 on industries, chiefly the handicrafts of
the weaver, potter, leather worker, carpenter, and blacksmith, 9.4 on
trade, 2.5 on professions, and 9.6 on other sources of livelihood.

~Measures taken to protect agriculturists.~--In a country owned so largely
by small farmers, the first task of the Government must be to secure
their welfare and contentment. Before plague laid its grasp on the rich
central districts it was feared that they were becoming congested, and
the canal colonization schemes referred to in a later chapter were
largely designed to relieve them. But there is a much subtler foe to
whose insidious attacks small owners are liable, the temptation to abuse
their credit till their acres are loaded with mortgages and finally
lost. So threatening had this economic disease for years appeared that
at last in 1900 the Panjab Alienation of Land Act was passed, which
forbade sales by people of agricultural tribes to other classes without
the sanction of the district officer, and greatly restricted the power
of mortgaging. The same restrictions are in force in the N.W.F.
Province. The Act is popular with those for whose benefit it was
devised, and has effected its object of checking land alienation and
probably to some extent discouraged extravagance. It has been
supplemented by a still more valuable measure, the Co-operative Credit
Societies Act. The growth of these societies in the Panjab has been very
remarkable, a notable contrast to the very slow advance of the similar
movement in England. In 1913-14 there were 3261 village banks with
155,250 members and a working capital of 133-3/4 _lakhs_ or L885,149,
besides 38 central banks with a capital of 42-3/4 _lakhs_ or about
L285,000. Village banks held deposits amounting to nearly 37 _lakhs_,
more than half of which was received from non-members, and lent out
71-1/2 _lakhs_ in the year to their members.

~Tribal Composition.~--Table I based on the Census returns shows the
percentages of the total population belonging to the chief tribes. The
classification into "land-holding, etc." is a rough one.

[Illustration: Fig. 31. Jat Sikh Officers (father and son).]

~Jats.~--The Panjab is _par excellence_ the home of the Jats. Everywhere
in the plains, except in the extreme north-west corner of the province,
they form a large element in the population. In the