PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TELEC.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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claim to consideration. The sales, where such justification existed, were postponed to January to enable the defaulters to gather their crop.
"The promises of payment, however, which were made in consideration of time being given, were by no means always kept to, and the result has convinced me that it is impolitic to show hesitation in insisting on payment within the year, however hard
it may seem.
"The preparation of lists of irrecoverable items of tax has involved very heavy work and minute inquiries. Some headmen, through carelessness, were found to have omitted many items which should have been included. A larger number showed a tendency to include fields the recovery of the tax on which was by no means impracticable. Thus, although it had been decided in September that Government should be applied to for the necessary authority for purchasing on behalf of the Crown the fields for which the tax was irrecoverable, owing to the defaulters not having other property and to the want of other bids for the fields themselves, yet the difficulties in framing correct lists prevented their completion by the end of the year, the mistakes generally not being brought to light till the defaulters' sales in December necessitated the consideration of every field in default and elicited the reasons why tax had not been paid.
It was at first hoped that the fields to be taken over by the Crown would be confined to those which had not been cultivated at all during the present commutation period, which began with the year 1878, but it has been found that, were the operation to be so limited, there would still remain a number of fields the tax on which is not recoverable by any means from the owners, though the fields may have been cultivated one or twice since 1878.
"There is no doubt that the assessment of many fields in Walapane was excessive, and that the register of commutation was signed by the owners rather for the sake of the collateral advantages as securing a record of ownership, than because they accepted the agreement as to amount of tax as a fair one. Indeed, complaints as to the excessiveness of the assessinent were submitted by the Ratémahatmayá immediately after it was made, but as the assessment was being carried out ou the principle of making as little change as possible, and as the Assistant Government Agent at that time, Mr. C. A. Murray, was called away to do special assessment duty at Kandy, very little, if anything, was done to rectify errors and over-assessments,
In these circumstances, no doubt, is to be found the origin of a great part of the arrears, or at all events of the older ones extending back to 1878. The owners of over-assessed fields saw at once that there would be no profit in continuing to cultivate them, and therefore abandoned them.
"Fields burdened with irrecoverable tax will be struck off the register for the year 1855, except in cases, should there be any, which is not likely, where the defaulter is able and willing to buy back his field from the Crown.
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(1885.) The collection of arrears showed an increase from Rs. 6,400 to Rs. 10,436. All arrears, with exceptions that will be noticed "under paddy commuted rid of, and the inevitable arrears of the police tax for the fourth quarter of the year were got were reduced within very stnall limits.
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Paddy fields and chenas gave satisfactory crops, except in a few localities, where they suffered from drought. This was more especially the case in the villages below Maturata and in Gangapaláta. There was great destitution and real want of food among the greater part of the people of these villages, and rice had to be distributed in addition to the granting of relief works on minor roads,
Many of the people of Walapano remain in what may be called a state of destitution, their only food being kurakkan in scanty quantity.
*
Owing to the abandonment of fields and the impossibility of recovering the tax due for them, fields paying a yearly tax of upwards of Rs. 1,200 had in 1885 to be taken over by the Crown. The time will, I believe, arrive when further fields will succumb to the same process, unless some remedy can be found."
How much distress actually prevailed in Walapane and Uda Héwaheta during the period to which these extracts relate was not, it seems, known to the authorities, certainly not in 1882, when Sir J. F. Dickson wrote: "In Nuwara Eliya the collections were 119 per cent. of a year's revenue, as much as could be raised from the people in the present state of the country without undue pressure and hardship."
But it was known that there were many who, trading upon the impoverished condition of the people generally, refused to pay their share of arrears, though they were well able to do so, in the hope that at last remission would be granted; and this fact alone would have led the officer responsible for the collection of the revenue to be more severe, perhaps, than he otherwise might have been. That Sir J. F. Dickson's policy
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was sound, especially in dealing with people notoriously indolent and thriftless, there can be no doubt, but that, looking at all the circumstances of the case, as they are now presented, it was wise to give that policy so rigid an application is open to question, little though its application added to the existing misery of the defaulters. For, the reasons recorded in 1884 why the tax had not been paid point to the conclusion that had there been no arrears at all, and no recoveries, the people would, on the whole, have been in just as much distress as they were found to be after distraint and sales had ceased. They were ruined, but their paddy lands were through various causes, principally the failure of water supply and a want of means to cultivate, ruined too, and worthless, and could add nothing, in consequence, to their supply of food or to their means of procuring food.
(ii) The Grain Tax Ordinance, its origin, and the effects of its operation in those districts where it has been introduced are points which engage at present the attention of a Committee of the Legislative Council, composed of able and experienced official and unofficial members, the results of whose inquiries and deliberations will in due time be made known,
(iii.) As to the policy of the Government in respect of the grain tax generally, it may be admitted that it has not always been as generous as it might have been, although of late years few, if any, instances of a too rigorous exaction of dues can be given.
The Government of the day, indeed, while fully recognising the duty of requiring the prompt and punctual payment of grain tax, wherever such is fairly due, is prepared to make such remissions as circumstances and incidents of season and health render necessary and just, having a proper regard for the financial interests of the Colony generally, and by a carefully determined expenditure upon artificial means of water supply, giving due care to the improvement of the condition of those who are engaged in the cultivation of the fields upon which the tax is levied.
(4.) The results of the Policy as shown by the evidence in the case under review, and its application to the country generally.
It was not "the recent policy of the Government" that has thrown out of cultivation either lands situated in the village Manikola of the districts affected " or elsewhere, nor is it proved that it was the effect of the recovery of grain tax.
The population of Uda Héwaheta had not greatly decreased when the Ratémahatınayá wrote his reply to Mr. Le Mesurier's questions, as the figures of the Registrar-General prove, and it is no evidence to the contrary to instance one small village populated by 106 souls in 1882, out of whom, in 1886, 20 it is said had gone elsewhere; no one of whom, however, is alleged to have died of starvation.
The statements of the Ratémahatmaya were made, moreover, in reply to leading questions, and are not corroborated by evidence from other sources.
Upon what authority the editor states that the area of land actually under paddy cultivation in the Island has declined from 605,757 acres in 1883 to 562,016 acres in 1887 is not shown, but whatever the authority may be, the statement is incorrect.
That a considerable acreage that was supposed to be under cultivation because it was registered as liable for tax, but which was really waste land, which claimants had, with the connivance of the headmen, managed to get placed on the registers in order to strengthen and defend their claims to its ownership, has, owing to the impoverishment of the people in certain districts and their inability to continue to pay the tax, been disclaimed, and excluded, in consequence, from recent official records, there is no doubt; but the extent of land actually under cultivation has, on the contrary, increased con- siderably, and will continue to do so as loug as additional facilities for irrigation continue to be provided.
Nor is it the case that since 1883 assessments generally have been increased; or the contrary, they have been decreased, while remissions from payment of the tax have been liberally granted by the Government.
ways, in
The amount of revenue from grain tax, collected as it is in a variety of districts of uncertain climates, and inhabited by people of widely differing habits and sources of income, is subject to considerable variations, the most effective of which is probably water supply. A dry season throughout Ceylon causes a large decrease in revenue derived from cultivation, and so does au unusually wet one.
One of the principal causes, however, of the grain revenue of 1887 showing a decrease on that of 1883, is the reduction in the tax effected by the Grain Tax Ordinance.
It is easy to sit down and write that an "effect of the policy in review was to convert a large number of peaceable inhabitants into destitutes, vagabonds, and criminals,"
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