سلسلسا
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
5
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH——NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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Paragraph I have nothing to add to what I have already stated in my report regarding what I understand to be the point here discussed.
Paragraph 9.—I re-assert that proceedings in distraint were stopped at the time referred to. The Assistant Agent reported that fact to the Government Agent, who approved of his abstaining from further distraint then. The date given by Mr. Whitefoord for the resumption of proceedings does not appear in Mr. Le Mesurier's letter; that letter does not give any date on which proceedings for the recovery of the arrears were resumed, and in the absence of the sale-lists, which are in Nuwara Eliya, I cannot here state the date of such resumption of action. As mentioned in my letter of the 19th ultimo, No. 1,094, I believe that the Assistant Agent waited until the next ensuing crop was being harvested.
Touching the questions which Mr. Whitefoord put, I would answer the first in the affirmative, for the reasons given in my report. And to the second I would reply that assuming that Mr. Baumgartner was driven from some place where he was holding distraint sales-the occurrence is not alluded to in any other document which I have scen there is nothing in that to indicate that the people were unable to pay their taxes; it inight prove that they were unwilling to do so.
Paragraph 10.-I do not understand the first part of this paragraph. Particulars regarding the deaths of people where land was bought in for the Government are given in paragraph 15 of my report. And, I may observe, that fields were not bought in until 1885; those bought in were restored in 1887. In regard to the second part of the paragraph, I would refer to paragraph 16 of my report. It is impossible, I believe, to ascertain now in how many cases villagers were reduced to beggary hy the sale of the fields. Mr. Whitefoord, although knowing them intimately, affords no information on the point.
Paragraph 11.-Mr. Whitefoord professes to be quoting from my report, but the words which he places within inverted commas are not in the foot-note to which he refers. I still adhere to what I have written in that note, there being nothing in this letter to satisfy one to the contrary.
Paragraphs 12 and 13.- Here Mr. Whitefoord appears to place on the words laboured criticisms" and "special pleading" meanings which they do not ordinarily bear. My instructions were to report fully on the grounds for the assertion that 1,048 villagers, whose fields had been sold, died of starvation, and I do not even now see in what way
I could have complied therewith otherwise than by classifying the deaths shown in the lists prepared and given to me by the Assistant Agent in the way in which that has been done. That it was a laborious duty, I admit; that there is any special pleading" in connexion with it, I deny. I apprehend that any expression of views not coinciding with those of Mr. Whitefoord would appear to him "special pleading." His own letter is, I presune, free from any such objection.
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The Assistant Agent's lists do include deaths from accident, &c., and Mr. Whitefoord is welcome to see them in my office. He has, it appears to me, misunderstood Mr. Le Mesurier, with whom he has discussed the report. Mr. le Mesurier, I can quite believe, meant that certain deaths were not included in the figures given in the abstract appended to his report. I, however, had no means of knowing what particular cases were included in the abstract, and I could do no more than classify all the deaths shown in the lists handed to me.
Paragraph 13 is obscure. The figures 981 åre not mine at all; it was because I could not arrive at them that I was obliged to give particulars of all the deaths shown in the lists.
Paragraph 14.—The procedure which I followed is correctly described.
What I had
to do was to ascertain whether 1,048 people had died. because their fields had been sold. Being referred by the promulgator of that statement to the Assistant Agent for particulars, I accepted that officer's lists, and only made such inquiries as wou d enable me to report whether the deaths mentioned in the lists were attributable to the cause a-signed or not. If I had attempted to investigate the history of each family whose land was sold, 1 should probably be engaged on the inquiry still.
I see no words "careful scrutiny" in paragraph 16 of my report, and do not know to what portion of the report Mr. Whitefoord refers.
Paragraph 16.-I have nothing to add to what I have already said regarding the sc-called "evictions."
Paragraph 16.--As regards the matters of fact dealt with in this paragraph, in the case of the old woman of Maturats, the circumstances attending her death, as stated by me, are not disputed, and I fail to see how any reasonable person can attribute her death to the sale by Government of property belonging to her or to anyone else.
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As to the extracts quoted, the first is correctly quoted, and I adhere entirely to the opinion expressed. The second passage in inverted conumas will not be found in my report. A passage to somewhat the same effect will be found near the end of paragraph 16 of the report, but this is governed by the words "if there had been exceptional mortality," which words Mr. Whitefoord fails to quote. Elsewhere I have stated that I found no evidence of exceptional mortality.
Paragraph 17.—This reads very like a quotation from the remarks appended to the Colonial Secretary's letter, No. 924, of the 16th ultimo. I would merely refer to my reply to those remarks.
The concluding portion of this paragraph I shall deal with when treating of the letter referred to.
Paragraph 18-I have nothing to add to what I have already written, except that I entirely agree with Mr. Whitefoord that the plan to which he refers would have been most acceptable to the villagers, for as the rent or tax of one-fourth in kind could not have been legally recovered, before very long no grain tax whatever could have been collected.
Paragraph 19.-When I spoke of arrears being "wiped off"--the expression which is used in my Assistant's report-I alluded to arrears actually recovered in money by the sale of shares of grain. From what I still gather from the records, which I have again looked into, I see no reason to change the opinion to which Mr. Whitefoord takes exception. And for this reason: In Mr. Le Mesurier's Administration Report for 1881 (Administration Report for 1881, p. 63 A), writing of “Paddy Commutation," it will be seen that he says that all the arrears had been cleared off with the exception of some R. 70. But the return of arrears for the half year ended 31st December 1881, furnished to this office by the Assistant Agent of Nuwara Eliya, gives the following as then outstanding, viz. :—
For 1878
"+
1879 1880
11
R. 1,731.59
4,397.11
10,398.35
Total R. 16,527-05
Again, in the fourth paragraph or the same portion of his Administration Report, Mr. Le Mesurier, instituting a comparison between the collections during the first half year when Mr. Baumgartner was in charge, and during the second half year, when he was himself in charge, states that he recovered by means of his plan during the second half
year a sum of R. 21,557. The return above quoted gives the collections during the second half year as follows, viz. :--
For 1878
་་
1879 1880
17
R.
1,866.94 1,558-72}
7,342.05
Total R. 9,767.72
Moreover, the figures which that return gives as the collection for the first half year,
set down by Mr. Le Mesurier as R. 7,971, are as follows, viz. :-
For 1878
11
1879 1580
19
R.
321.93 2,567 61 6,766.34
Total R. 9,745-88
It appeared to me, therefore, when I frained my report, and it appears to me still, that the figures given by Mr. Le Mesurier in his Administration Report for 1881 did not represent collections in money; that the difference between the figures in the Return of Arrears, and those in the Administration Report, represented tax which was to be recovered thereafter by the sale of shares of crop if they could be sold. It is still not clear to me that Mr. Le Mesurier had the opportunity of putting his system to a complete test, which is all that I desired to show. If, in his Administration Report, Mr. Le Mesurier had distinguished cash collections from paper collections which were F 3