PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
PEC.O. 882
5
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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22. The most important and most serious admission in Mr. Moir's report occurs in the 21st paragraph. He says,
"the fields were of such a small extent that it was quite "impossible for the increased population to subsist on the produce of the paddy lands "alone," and again "the rice grown certainly fell far short of the food requirements of the population of the district," and yet in the face of this he defends the policy which sold up everything the people had, and then their "last source of existence," the fields too, and yet in the face of this the Government of Ceylon continues to levy a tax of one-tenth of the food of the people; food that is insufficient for their requirements and a tax that cannot be paid unless they had coffee or some other product besides paddy wherewith to meet it.
23. My Lord, I have no interest in this discussion except to see the people righted. I only entered the lists because I cannot endure to see the misery the policy of the Government has produced without soine attempt to have that policy altered, and I only address you because I wished to lay the case of the villagers before you from an outside, European, unofficial standpoint, and because I think a disinterested criticism by an outsider might not be without some weight with you.
I am, &c.
SIR,
(Signed)
The Editor, "Ceylon Observer."
JOHN WHITEFoord,
Maha Uva, October 14, 1889,
I MUST ask you to be good enough to give publication in your paper to another short letter about the distress in Walapane.
In justice to myself, I cannot allow the Honourable Mr. Moir's "Report on the alleged Deaths from Starvation" to go without some remark.
must explain that when Mr. Moir came down to Nildandahinna as Commissioner, I went down there to see him and Mr. Le Mesurier with a view, if possible, of gaining some official information upon a subject in which I was particularly interested. I asked to be allowed to be present at the inquiry, which was permitted. I then asked to see the report of the Assistant Government Agent, but was told by the Honourable Com- missioner that as he had not received the report at that time himself, he could not show it me.
I further asked if any information could be given me about the " alleged deaths," but, as the inquiry was then pending, this also could not be granted. Then without any preparation or notice I was examined by Mr. Moir as to what I knew of the matter. Without any memoranda whatever with me, and no notice that I should be examined, it was impossible for me to give data such as it appears the Commissioner would accept. My letter to the "Observer" of 17th June was quoted, and I was asked to name the people, or some of the
"1 scores of people, who had died of want
and destitution. Now, sir, it takes a cleverer man than I am to remember 50 or 60 names, of which the following is an example: Panchi Hata, son of Ecakelande Rangi, of Kalaganwatte." I told the Commissioner that I could produce the names, many of which I then had in my bungalow, but in his report, he does not give me credit for the truth of my assertions, and is unable to view my letter "otherwise than a serious exaggeration."
مسی
I afterwards sent a list of the names of over 60 persons, whom I had very good reason to know had died as alleged above. I also wrote Mr. Moir about certain small paddy fields which I considered over-taxed, the rate of tax upon the produce of the fields mentioned being respectively 25 per cent., 17 per cent., 22 per cent., and 22 per cent. Because I could not mention these particulars, and give names of persons and fields, on the spur of the moment, before the Commissioner, my evidence was not believed.
Mr. Moir further says that I "depend on practically the same sources, or perhaps on less accurate or less trustworthy sources, than those from which the information furnished by the Assistant Government Agent has been derived." Now I beg respectfully to inform the Honourable Mr. Moir that my sources of information are not practically the same as those of the Assistant Government Agent. I am intimately acquainted with the country and the people in this neighbourhood, from Maturatta on the west to the bound try of the Uva Province on the east, and from Fort MacDonald on the south to Hangurankettia on the north. My chief amusement, sir, is hunting, and this takes me right into villages and chenas, and I frequently go to places where an Assistant Government Agent never goes. I think, therefore, that after living close to these Walapana people for over 11 years, knowing most of then by sight and frequently
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talking to them, the information I am able to gather is as likely to be reliable as that gained by the Honourable Commissioner, who is new to the Province, has, to the best of my knowledge and belief, but once visited the Walapana district, and during that visit never left a district bridle road.
I believe in the appendices to the Honourable Mr. Moir's report my letters quoted above are included, so it is not necessary for me to send you copies of the same.
One word more. During the last two years, the number of houses in this neighbour- hood that have become tenantless and abandoned is astonishing. Where are the people? No doubt many of the healthy and able-bodied have found employment on estates and on the railway-but where, sir, are the sick, the aged and infirm, the children and the starving, who used to inhabit these houses? say that the majority of them are dead!
Yours, &c.
(Signed)
JOHN WHITEFOORD.
P.S.-The Honourable Commissioner's report goes to prove that when the villagers had coffee gardens which gave them a crop they were able to pay their paddy tax from the proceeds of their coffee. When the coffee crop failed they were not able to pay the paddy tax; ergo, the paddy tax must have been excessive, and the people could not afford to pay it upon the returns of those fields upon which the tax was levied.
J. W.
Enclosure 2 in No. 5.
REMARKS ON Mr. WHITEFOORD'S LETTER to the Right Honourable the SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIRA, dated 26th October 1889.
Paragraphs 2 and 3.-Mr. Whitefoord here correctly states what I wrote. When Mr. Wall was asked for information relative to the 1,048 villagers said, on his authority, to have died of starvation owing to their eviction from their lands, he referred me to reports made by the Assistant Government Agent, published by Government, and neither gave nor suggested any other sources of information. I concluded, therefore, and I still think it a right conclusion, that Mr. Wall was not in possession of any original information on the subject. Mr. Whitefoord was not mentioned to me at all by Mr. Wall, and when he speaks of Mr. Wall and himself being "eye-witnesses " of something, I do not understand of what be alleges that they were eye-witnesses. He cannot mean that they witnessed the death from starvation of persons who had been deprived of their land, because they would certainly have mentioned the fact, even if they could not have given details, when appealed to, and would surely have made some stir about the matter at the time they witnessed the deaths, had they done so.
Paragraph 4.-What I have really written was that the Assistant Agent was reported to have made this statement, and I referred to it merely to show that, coupling the different published accounts relative to those deaths, the editor of the "Ceylon Mail might not unreasonably have concluded that the 1,048 dispossessed villagers had died of starvation because of their having been dispossessed of their fields.
Paragraph 5.-I do not understand the Assistant Agent to mean that the procedure which he explains was invariably followed; it was certainly not invariably followed. I have referred more than once to petitions which were presented both to the Govern- ment and to the Government Agent shortly after the recery of the arrears began to be rigorously enforced, in which the petitioners asked that the money which they owed might be taken from them and the sales cancelled; these persons could not possibly have had means to pay had they been dealt with in the manner described. Moreover, in a large number of cases, only a portion of the field on which arrears of tax were due was sold. The procedure mentioned was, however, followed in many cases.
But if it is understood that the owner in every such case died of want, that is an erroneous conclusion; many remained, and still are in their villages in poor circumstances, whilst many left to search for employment.
The people of Walapane depend always, to a greater or less degree, on chenai culti vation, and it is entirely a mistake to suppose, and wrong to convey the idea, that they depended solely on their paddy fields.
Paragraphs 6 and 7.—I do not gather to what Mr. Whitefoord takes exception in these paragraphs.
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