PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TEC.O. 882
سلسل ليلي
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
| COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TÖ
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Sharing, as they do, therefore, in all the benefits and security of organized Government, and bound · as they are to contribute to its maintenance, I am aware of no means by which an adequate amount of indirect taxes could be raised off the Singhalese in proportion to the rate in which they are bound to contribute to the support of the Government.
Besides, looking individually at the taxes passed in 1847, I think them each unobjectionable.
Those that were merely for purposes of revenue, were not onerous, and the majority were for pur- poses of police and public convenience, conducive to the security and advantages of those contributing to them.
I did not concur in the propriety of their repeal. On the contrary I advised Lord Torrington strongly against such a measure.
It was chiefly urged on him by Mr. Wodehouse, on the ground that the collection of these minor taxes might interfere vexatiously with the working of the Road ordinance, which was of all the most important and threatened at the same time to become the most unpopular.
With the exception of the Shop-tax, I am not aware that Mr. Wodehouse had opposed or had voted against any of these taxes.
He objected to the form in which some of them were originally introduced, or suggested amendments to render these conformable to his own views, and in the shapes so suggested by himself he approved of and voted for them.
He recommended the annual tax upon fire arms, and calculated it to produce 7,5001. per annum. Nevertheless (4540) he says he opposed it! His own minutes, which I shall produce, are distinct proof to the contrary.
He afterwards advised the Governor to make it one registration, and forego the annual licence, and consequently the annual income.
Mr. Wodehouse did not oppose the tax upon dogs
in 1847, and his own minute in 1841 recommends
it.
He unaccountably says (4499) that he opposed it. It was not so.
And I find in the minutes of the Legislative Council, 16th October, 1841, that he voted for a resolution, then unanimously recorded, "that a tax upon dogs was desirable, as a valuable means of police."
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Mr. Anstruther voted on the same occasion in favour of the same proposition, and has supported it frequently since.
These taxes were not, therefore, imposed by new and inexperienced men, but on the suggestion of the oldest and most experienced officers in Ceylon, after many years' deliberation and forethought.
And I am clearly of opinion that they might be collected by the Government officers without trouble, were the latter possessed of that confidence and attachment on the part of the natives, which is the result of cordial and kindly intercourse. I believe much of the unpopularity of the Fire-Arms ordi- nance arose from the fact that the civil servants took no trouble whatsoever to explain it to the people, or to procure their concurrence, but, on the contrary, left the people very much to their own conjectures as to its nature and operation, whence the facility with which they were misled, and their minds abused by the insidious misrepresentations of
the chiefs and headmen.