~Occupations.~--The Panjab is preeminently an agricultural country, and the same is true in an almost greater degree of the N.W.F. Province and Kashmir. The typical holding is that of the small landowner tilling from 3 to 10 acres with his own hands with or without help from village menials. The tenant class is increasing, but there are still three owners to two tenants. Together they make up 50 p.c. of the population of the Panjab, and 5 p.c. is added for farm labourers. 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).]