Mr. Maine, the legislative member of the India Council, has
-devised a sensible plan for preventing breaches of contract. He proposes to set up a number of courts on the principle of county courts, with power up to 501. to order specific fulfilment of con- tract, and to impose heavy damages if the order is not obeyed. The courts are to be without appeal, except on law points, and the proceedings are to be oral and summary. This law removes the great objection to 'all former plans, which placed the peasantry under the gangs of public plunderers known as police ; but the difficulties are not all at an end. Government has to find fitting judges,—civilians are useless, as they are promoted too fast,—and has then to devise some means by which the ryot shall be prevented from conveying away all his property the day before the trial. That latter practice is the difficulty of all Indian laws for -executing decrees.
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