Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/229

 money be not realized, the witnesses are not held responsible. If, however, the money has been lent by the Government, by certain monasteries, or lamas, or by the paymaster of the army, the amount is realised from the relatives, witnesses, and neighbours of the debtor. At every military station, a certain amount of money is generally lent out by Government, on the interest of which the militia is paid by the quartermaster, who is one of the chief Government money-lenders. Usually when the person soliciting a loan is not known, or if doubts about his honesty are entertained, securities are required. Not so in Tibet, where the lenders have been known to use their power to collect debts from the heirs of debtors to the third generation. The more the debtor exceeds the fixed term for the payment of his debt the more urgent is the creditor in his demands. The court, when it sees that the creditor has extracted compound interest for many years from the debtor, can put a stop to the accumulation of further compound interest; but there is no fixed period mentioned in the law after which compound interest must cease to accumulate.

In Tibet such articles as household utensils, implements of husbandry or war, drinking cups, borrowed articles, articles held in trust, landed estates of which the revenue is paid to the State, and images of gold, are never given in loan or mortgaged.

When a man has a single pony, one milch cow or jo, one plough, one span of bullocks or yaks, or one suit of clothing, nobody can ask for a loan of any of these articles without committing the offence of "impudence," for which he may be severely rebuked. Creditors, whether the Government or private persons, cannot seize upon any of these properties for debt. This is the Grand Charter of the Tibetans. Nor can any creditor by force seize the property of his debtor. If without the debtor's permission he removes one srang, he forfeits his entire claim on a loan of a hundred srang; if he remove two, on two hundred srang, and so on in the same proportion. Nobody, be he a public officer, landlord, master, or creditor, can, for any kind of pecuniary claim, exercise violence on the people. If, while being in possession of means to do so, a man of the people refuses to pay off his liabilities or debts, his creditors may employ mediators, or institute proceedings against him in a court of justice; but if, without