nd take
an advance from another, and which will make it a comparatively easy
matter to trace a defaulter? Now, after conferring with experienced
planters and some leading native officials, I came to the conclusion that
a system of registration could alone mitigate the serious evils of the
advance system, and in conjunction with them I drew up a draft of a
proposed Act which I laid on the table for the consideration of the Mysore
Government when I attended the Representative Assembly in 1891, and I may
mention that the draft in question has been printed in the Government
Report of the Proceedings. It would be tedious to give an account of the
provisions in the Bill, and it is sufficient to say that its two chief
features were the registration of advances and the limitation of their
amount. The registration was to be effected by its being made compulsory
that when an advance was given three tickets on a Government form should
be issued, one of which was to be held by the employer, the second by the
labourer, and the third by the registrar of the talook. On each ticket was
to be entered the name and address of the advancee, and the sum advanced,
and as this was paid off the amounts so discharged were to be entered by
the employer on the ticket retained by the labourer. When the whole amount
was repaid, the ticket retained by the employer was to be handed to the
registrar, who was then to erase the name of the labourer from the
register of coolies under advances, and before any advance was handed to
the labourer the registry was of course to be effected. The amount of
advance was to be limited to ten rupees, and this was to be worked off in
five months unless in the case of sickness. The object of limiting
advances is as much in the interest of the labourer as of the employer, as
it has been found that native employers of labour often give large
advances to labourers and charge heavy interest on them when the coolie
does not come to work, and thus so effectually get him into debt that he
is reduced to the position of a slave. This system of registration would
no doubt be troublesome, but it is the only way of checking the present
evil system of giving advances which, now that labour is so well paid, is
not really necessary, and that it is not so is evidenced by the fact that
the large bodies of labourers employed in the gold mines receive no
advances whatever. I may here mention that a private system of
registration with refe