CO882-(4-5)

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TEC.O. 882

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5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

landowners to the Government Agent and to Government complaining of the sales and asking that they might be set aside and the commutation due be received from the petitioners; but it was usually urged that "for the last several years the coffee crops *have failed," "their high lands, which they usually cultivated with fine grains, have been confiscated and taken as Crown property, and consequently they have been "reduced to extreme poverty, distress, and want,” owing to their extreme poverty "they had made default in the regular payment of their paddy tax," and other such arguments were advanced; but it was never stated, in any instance that I have observed, that the assessment was excessive. The contention seems rather to have been, not that the rate of commutation was in itself excessive, but that the circum- stances represented interfered with the payment of any rate whatever.

It is not until 1885 that I see any allusion to the commutation rate being excessive, when Mr. Baumgartner wrote as quoted in the 9th paragraph of my Assistant's report.

10. After the lapse of so many years it is naturally difficult to arrive at the truth when endeavouring to learn whether the money rate fixed in 1864 was felt to be exorbitant or not. It by no means follows that because no complaints were made, therefore the tax was not felt to be an unfair one. But, however that may have been as regards the seven years' term of commutation which immediately followed the adjustinent of the rates in 1864, even if doubling the tax was not felt at that time to be an oppressive measure, both from the statements which have been made to me in the course of this inquiry and from the tenour of the official reports quoted by Mr. Le Mesurier, there can be no doubt, I think, that the enhanced rate became burdensome in the extreme as soon as the landowners were deprived of the aid in settling their taxes, and, generally, in providing for the support of their families, which the produce of their coffee gardens afforded in 1864, and for some years thereafter. It was not by means of the money rate alone, however, that an increase in the grain tax was brought about in 1884. On the re-assessment of the fields the Government share in kind was also in many cases materially increased, the general effect being to raise the tax from 1,3351. 138. (Rs. 13,356-50), under the settlement in operation from 1857 to 1863, to 3,0397. 178. 10d. (Rs. 30,398-92),--an increase of 128

per cent.

I concur with my Assistant, therefore, in the opinion that one reason why the landowners allowed the grain tax to fall into arrear was that the tax was excessivo.

11. The second cause assigned by the Assistant Agent for the accumulation of arrears is "the injury to the water supply by the clearing of forests for estate or chena ** cultivation." There cannot be a shadow of doubt that the extensive forest clearings made in Walapane and Uda Héwáheta, as elsewhere, within the last 40 years or so, have very materially, and have prejudicially, affected the productiveness of the paddy lands in these divisions, both by reason of the decrease in the regular flow of water in the streams on which the fields used to depend, and also because of the diminution in the supply of fertilising substances carried down into the low-lying rice lands from the adjacent forests during the rains. If on the revision it was necessary to meddle with the assessment as regards the rate of yield at all, it would have been inore natural to expect a reduction rather than an increase in the rate. I believe, therefore, that injury to the water supply of the fields also contributed to swell the

arrears.

12. The third cause assigned is "the sickly nature of the population." Parts of Walapane and Uda Héwáhota are certainly very feverish and unhealthy. I cannot, however, gather from the reports made from time to time that there was any abnormal sickness amongst the people at the time the arrears of tax accumulated, and am unable to confirm the suggestion that sickness contributed to the tax falling into arrear, although the present impoverished condition of the people generally is no doubt more or less owing to this cause.

13. The fourth cause assigned, which is stated to be also the principal cause, is " the "failure of the coffee crops." There can be no question that the people of this district did depend in a very great measure on the produce of their coffee gardens and on the earnings derived from employment on wood-felling and other jobs on neighbouring coffee extates. When, therefore, coffee ceased to be productive under the attacks of "leaf disease," they fell gradually into more and more straitened circumstances, correspondingly with the diminution in the crops gathered from their gardens and as the opportunities of finding employment on estates failed. In his Administration Report for 1883 Mr. Baumgartner, writing on the subject of "food supply," quoted report from the Ratémahatmaya of Uda Héwáheta, who stated: "In the whole district there is not a single village where more paddy is grown than is necessary

"for the wants of the people, and almost all the villagers are reduced to poverty by "the annual sales of their crops for default of taxes and owing to the failure of "coffee for the last seven years." And the general tenour of the statements made to

me by witnesses whom I examined in the course of my inquiry was, as will be seen on reference to the annexures, that distress amongst the people began to manifest itself when the coffee crops failed, on which they chiefly depended. I believe that it was the destruction of the coffee plant, both in native gardens and on estates, which was the origin of the poverty-stricken condition in which so many of the people of Walapane and Uda Héwáheta now are, and that but for the failure of coffee crops there need have been no arrears and no forced sales.

14. Touching the sales of paddy fields, from the memorandum annexed to the Assistant Agent's report, 2,780 fields appear to have been sold. But I imagine that this total includes fields redeemed by the owners soon after the sales, as well as lands bought in for the Crown and restored in 1887, on the celebration of the jubilee of the Queen's accession. The fields absolutely alienated and now held by others than the original owners number, according to the lists furnished to me, 1,689, in extent 479 amunams 2 pelas 4 kurunies. The total number of commuted fields appears to have been 16,978, and their extent 5,668 amunams 3 pelas 6 kurunies. The number of fields sold absolutely was, therefore, a little short of 10 per cent. of the total number commuted, and almost 8 per cent. of the commuted area. Besides, of the fields thus alienated several had not been cultivated for some time before being sold, either because the supply of water for their proper irrigation had failed, or because the water-course had been interrupted by landslips, or in some instances, as is alleged, because the tax being excessive it was not worth while cultivating the land.* Say that 8 per cent. of the cultivated area has been alionated, it is not reasonable to attribute all the poverty which prevails to the sale of so much of the land, bearing in mind that most of the cultivated land sold is still cultivated.

15. The most serious question which has been raised the one to which my attention was specially directed-is that relating to the mortality amongst the landowners whose fields were sold for the recovery of the grain tax, whose death has been attri- buted to those sales. In the statement appended to Mr. Le Mesurier's report dated July 22nd last, "the number of deaths of those who died of want and destitution, and the diseases consequent thereon after the sale of their fields" is said to be 981. I have carefully examined the lists from which this statement was, I understand, compiled, but the result is not precisely the same. Taking each kóralé separately, the particulars are as follows:-

WALAPANE.

Udapaláta.—The statement shows 141 deaths. From the list I make out—

1. Deaths previously to the sales

2. Deaths of children who were born after the sales

3. Persons who died after redeeming their fields

202 ∞ 8EJ

In the case of land bought in for the Crown

Deaths before the land was

bought in Deaths after the land was

bought in

161

6. Deaths in the year of sale 7. Deaths after sale

The deaths included under the first four of these headings can clearly not be attri- buted to the sales; they number 50. Of those under the fifth heading, the land had been left uncultivated in 17 cases, it had been restored by Government in two cases, the deceased died in child-bed and from want of food in two cases. In these also, the deaths cannot, I think, be attributed to the sales.

*In paragraph 55 of his report Mr. Le Mesurier gives a statement of fields asid to have gone out of cultivation since 1877 cwing to the severity of the tax. I understand this to include land which has not been sold as well as fields which have been sold, and I am not in a position to offer any remarks touching these figures, my inquiries having been directed to the discovery of facts relating only to fields which were sold. But, so far back as 1872, Mr. Hartshorne reported that the loss of cattle by disease, particularly in Uda Héwaheta, had seriously interfered with agricultural operations, and I am inclined to believe that in the Nuwara Eliya District, as was undoubtedly the case in parts of Kandy District, people were prevented from cultivating by the loss of cattle and want of means of cultivation generally, rather than merely because the tax was high.

62068.

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