PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
PIEC.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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31. It is accordingly intended that the Officer administering the Government of Ceylon shall proceed without delay to frame an Ordinance for the consideration of the Legislative Council, embodying the requisite provisions, which may be recapitulated as follows:-
(1.) A sum of 30,000 to be payable from the Colonial Treasury for military works and buildings, upon such plans and estimates, and according to such arrangements with the War Department for executing the constructions for fixed sums, as may be approved from time to time by the Governor and Executive Council.
(2.) A sum of 100,000l. a year to be payable from the same Treasury from the 1st January 1865, as a joint provision for the services enumerated above (paragraph 19), contribution to Imperial services, Colonial pay and allowances of officers and others receiving Imperial pay (excepting Governor's aide-de-camp and orderlies), contin- gencies and travelling or occasional allowances, whether for the Imperial of Colonial branch of the military establishment (with the same exception), native recruiting, arms, and clothing (excepting for orderlies), and expenditure for military works and buildings, including hire of buildings; and this sum further to be payable to the War Department as a fixed commutation, not subject to account between that Department and the Colonial Government, except in the manner specified below (under the fourth of the present heads of Ordinance). It will be unnecessary for the Ordinance to make any distinction between new works and repairs, although it will be understood that the former will be only temporarily paid for out of the commutation, as above explained.
(3.) A further sum, not exceeding 35,000l. a year, to be payable in the same manner to the War Department, after the 1st January 1867, by successive augmentations of the original sum, not exceeding 10,0007. in any one year, for the same joint purposes.
(4.) The total payments under the preceding heads, whether before or after the 1st January 1867, not to exceed by more than 5,000, in any year a computed sum at the rate of 901. for each man of rank and file for European troops, infantry, or artillery, 501. for each man of rank and file of the Ceylon rifle regiment, and 101. for each man of rank and file in the gun lascar corps, on the average of the monthly muster rolls of the force present in the Colony during the year.
(5.) The pay and salaries (but not any travelling or occasional allowances) of the Colonial establishment maintained for military purposes, to be payable from the date of the commutation arrangement, the 1st January 1865, according to the existing Schedule (which should be annexed to the Ordinance), but with power to the Governor to revise such Schedule within the total sum; and also stated sums (the amount of which the Officer administering the Government will settle with the Legislative Council), to be payable from the same date for the colonial allowances of Governor's aide-de-camp, and mounted orderlies, with their contingencies. Annexed to this Memorandum in a state- ment of the particulars which would be included in the proposed Establishment Schedule, as far as can be judged in the Colonial Department from the detailed estimates of the Ceylon Government for the present year. In preparing the Schedule the Officer administering the Government will be guided generally by this statement, of course avoiding any inaccuracies or omissions in it which may be brought to his notice. It appears right that it should include, as it does, the provisional establishment, and the good conduct and additional pay of the gun lascars.
(6.) Pensions to be payable to native troops from the same date, the 1st January 1865, according to the scale and regulations now in force, with such stated sum or other provision to cover gratuities on discharge as the Officer administering the Government may think advisable.
(7.) Loss on the issue of rations to European and rice to native troops (or any usual compensation in money), according to existing regulations, or such others as may be substituted from time to time by the Governor, with the concurrence of the Executive Council, to be payable from the same date. For the purpose of the present provisional measure, it will, perhaps, be the best plan to take this power of paying loss on rations, &c., generally, in respect of any troops stationed in the Colony, but in case the Legislative Council should wish for a specific limit to the power, the Officer administering the Government will consider himself at liberty to assent to a provision, that the number. of Europeans to be supplied should not be more than 1,200 daily on the average of the year (which would cover a somewhat larger force than is likely to be actually maintained), and the number of natives at no time more than the existing authorised establishment.
(8.) A stated annual sum to be payable from the same date, sufficient to cover military services, not included in the above heads, and heretofore charged under the head of "Colonial Commissariat,” (here of course omitting charges for hire of officers' quartaen. or other buildings for military use). It will rest with the Officer administering the Government to settle the sum to be introduced into the Ordinance for this last head.
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The total Commissariat charges which would fall under it amounted for the years 1861 and 1862, according to the returns, to about 6,5007. a year, but it will be advisable that a somewhat larger sur should be taken in the Ordinance than will be absolutely required. There are a few items in these Commissariat returns which should, perhaps, be added to the Establishment Schedule under head 5, such as pay of lamplighters and pioneers, of garrison libraries, and of keepers of Major General's residence, and convalescent officers' quarters at Mount Lavinia.
32. These, then, are the heads of a measure which, if enacted permanently by Ordin- ance, and accompanied as stated by a suitable Railway Appropriation Ordinance, would, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, justify the Crown in relinquishing the discretionary power heretofore exercised of making appropriations from the Ceylon revenues by simple order of the Secretary of State. The effect of such a measure would, no doubt, be to convert into permanent appropriations in some cases what have heretofore been annual votes of the Legislative Council. This, however, is an essential part of the arrangement, which, if confined to permanent appropriations on some heads and not on others, would leave it open to the Council to make nugatory the increase of contribution, though included in the expenditure provided for in the Ordinance, by merely omitting to vote the other charges from time to time, in which case they would fall on the Imperial Government.
33. It should be clearly understood that Her Majesty's Government do not intend, by this proposed Ordinance, to set up any absolute limits of future demand on the Colony. It will entirely depend on the result of the proposed enquiry whether a higher or a lower rate of provision shall be applied for in the more definitive Ordinance, which according to the intention of Her Majesty's Government will follow that inquiry.
34. The above outline of an Ordinance makes no provision for the remission of assess- ment tax and duties on wine and beer, as it seems hardly necessary to make this remission matter of legislation. This point, however, will be considered by the Officer administering the Government.
35. There will probably be ample time between the receipt in Ceylon of Mr. Cardwell's instructions and the close of the year to obtain the required enactments, and bring the estimates of the Ceylon Government for the year 1865 into the new shape which will be necessary. And it has been arranged with the Secretary of State for War, that his Department is to be prepared to take over on the 1st January 1865, as proposed, the military works and buildings, colonial allowances, and other services to be commuted. It is therefore hoped that the Officer administering the Government will be able to bring the measure into operation at that date without further reference to this country.
36. The present statement would not do justice to the views of Her Majesty's Government if it closed without a recognition of the admirable management of the Ceylon finances by Sir C. MacCarthy, whose wise adherence to economy in the expen- diture, at a time when the resources of the Colony were expanding, las created the ample surplus revenue, without which it would have been impossible to issue proposals of the present character, extending on the one hand to the complete relief of the Exchequer, at an early date, from Ceylon military charges, yet not interfering on the other with the usual Civil Expenditure of the Colony for annual services and improve- ments, or with due provision, by contributions of revenue to the railway, for limiting the extent of the colonial debt and insuring its early liquidation.
Colonial Office, September 1864.