Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/401

 course of which the relations existing between land-lords and tenants would come under detailed examination, it was thought advisable to await the report of the Settlement Officers before passing final orders on the petitions. The revision settlement was started in the cold weather of 1913. On the 7th April 1915 a resolution was moved in the Local Legislative Council asking for the appointment of a mixed committee of officials and non-officials to enquire into the complaints of the raiyat and to suggest remedies. It was negatived by a large majority including 12 out of the 16 non-official members of Council present on the ground that the appointment of such a committee at that stage was unnecessary, as the settlement offices were engaged in the collection of all the materials required for the decision of the questions at issue, and an additional enquiry of the nature proposed would merely have the effect of further exaggerating the relations of landlord and tenant, which were already feeling the strain of the settlement operations. The settlement operations have now been completed in the northern portion of the district, and are approaching completion in the remainder, and a mass of evidence regarding agricultural conditions and the relations between landlords and tenants has been collected. A preliminary report on the complaints of the tenants in the leased villages in the north of the Bettiah sub-division, in which no