PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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TPEPEC.O. 882
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5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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It will be seen, by reference to my printed letter to his Excellency, how grossly mis- leading (apart from the question of the average size of paddy land holdings) is the
typical case put forward by the National Association.
I am quite in earnest in "speaking of paddy as a permanent cultivation." It is the most permanent of any in the world. Of course it has its bad years as well as its good years, but paddy has continued to be produced on the same land year by year certainly for hundreds, and probably in some cases for thousands, of years.
See my remarks on IV., paragraph 2, above. To which I would add that the quota- tion of Rs. 5 a bushel as the cost of island-grown rice is preposterous.
As to the rents obtained for paddy fields by landlords, see my note at the end of your printed minute on the paddy tax. I may here, however, repeat that where a landlord supplies seed and cattle for ploughing and thrashing, the tenant, by way of remuneration for his labour in cultivating, gets only a share of the nett produce, the landlord taking the whole of the remainder of the gross crop less the Government share. The mode of arriving at the nett crop is shown in Appendix XII. to the report of the Select Committee, page 145, a reference to which will show that in such cases the tenant gets from a crop of 60 bushels, six, eight, or nine bushels only (according to the varying degrees of fertility of the land cultivated), as his remuneration for his labour in cultivating! the landlord getting the whole of the remainder less the Government tax! The appendix in question was prepared by Mr. Dawson, who has had wide experience as a revenue officer and also as a grain commissioner. His calculations are corroborated by Mr. Wifesinke Mahandiram, of the Galle Kachcherri, who, on page 144 of the appendices to the same report, gives a little over eight bushels as the tenant's share (in the case supposed) of a crop of 60 bushels produced on land of fair fertility (10-fold land).
From the fact of the possibility of the exaction of such stupendous rents by the landlords, it surely may be fairly inferred that the cultivation by the owner himself of a fairly fertile paddy field of his own for his own benefit must be a very profitable undertaking. That it can have been otherwise represented by the abolitionists is conceivable only in view of their having either overlooked or concealed the circum- stance that the cultivation of paddy occupies but a small portion of the cultivator's year's labour.
Mr. Le Mesurier might easily be better informed. The Select Committee had to con- sider the case of several thousands of lots of Crown land let at rents of one-half share of the crop. The great grievance (which the Select Committee found to be well grounded, and on which mainly they based their recommendation, that facilities of redemption should be afforded on very easy terms), alleged in the case of these lands, was that the rent was too heavy in view of the fact that the tenants had largely increased the value and the productiveness of their holdings by the use of manure, and other expenditure on them, and that it was not fair that Government should profit by this "unearned increment.'
Mr. Le Mesurier's doubts can be removed by application to the Government Agent, Anuragapura, who will doubtless show him, as he showed me, a list of the lots of uncleared Crown land recently purchased there by Moormen and cleared and converted by them, at considerable expense, into paddy fields.
I may note hero, as I may not have another opportunity of supplementing my previous remarks on the subject, that I made personal enquiry when at Anuragapura at the beginning of this year, and ascertained from the mouths of several landlords themselves (not Moormen as it happens) that the terms on which their tenants held from them wore as follows:-The tenants found seed, cattle, and every requisite for cultivation, raised, reaped, and garnored the crop, and were allowed in return to keep half the gross crop; the landlords did nothing whatever for the tenants beyond giving them the use of the land, and received from them the other half of the gross crop, and paid therefrom the Government share of one-tenth.
Can it be seriously contended, in the face of such facts as these, that the owner of a paddy field, who has had nothing to pay for it but has inherited it, and who cultivates it himself, cannot easily afford (except in very bad seasons, for which the recommendations of the Select Committee make provision) to pay the Government share of one- tonth? Yet these are the men (if I understand him rightly-as I imagine I do, although I am left in some doubt, owing to his paper not being wholly free from the defect, common to abolitionists, of the use of ambiguous terms) on whose behalf Mr. Le Mesurier urges that the paddy tax should be abolished. As regards the romainder of
the "
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poor agricultural classes," i.e., those who own no paddy land of their own but cultivate the paddy lands of others for a share of the crop, the abolition of the paddy tax would, as I have already observed, profit them nothing, but would simply swell the revenues of their very exacting landlords.
G. T. M. O'BRIEN,
9835.
No. 25.
G. T. M. O'BRIEN, Esq., to COLONIAL OFFICE.
CEYLON PADdy Tax.
MR. LUCAS,
81, Chester Square, May 18, 1891. I APPEND some remarks on Mr. Wall's letter of April 15th, 1891, to Sir Arthur Havelock. The references in the margin indicate the passages in his letter to which my remarks apply.
Mr. Wall maintains that the abolition of the paddy tax has not been advocated by Personal. landlords and usurers. It is the obvious interest of landlords to obtain for themselves the share now paid to the Government, and of usurers to improve the security on which they lend their money. I am surprised at Mr. Wall's ignorance of the advocacy to which I have referred, and am especially at a loss to understand how he can fail to be aware that some of the advocates of abolition in the Ceylon National Association are landlords, and some mortgagees of paddy lands, and also that a prominent advocate of abolition in his own paper is a landlord.
As regards his failure in business, I share the inability of those acquainted with the circumstances to accept Mr. Wall's account of that disaster; nor is it by any means the only incident in his career that should make the Government of Ceylon hesitate to follow his advice, particularly in financial questions.
Of his "fairness as a controversialist," I gave two instances (out of many) in my letter to Sir A. Havelock. In his reply he is perforce silent about the one; as to the other, the horns of my dilemma remain, viz.: "Had he certain personal knowledge about which he said nothing at the time!" or, "Not having any such personal know- ledge, did he try to induce his readers to believe that he had?
The opinions of Commissioner Colebrooke, Sir E. Tennent, and Lord Grey have no bearing on a practical question which depends for its right solution on a consideration of the present circumstances of Ceylon and, inter alia, of her financial liabilities which have accrued since their time.
of the no
Since he left the Legislative Council of Ceylon, after his failure to upset the III. Constitution of the Colony, Mr. Wall has persistently maintained that the control of Per the Secretary of State has been the ruin of the country. To the same malign influence abolitio he apparently now attributes the fact that four successive Governors of Ceylon, when they had become acquainted with the circumstances of the country and the real bearings of the paddy tax, saw reason to change the opinion which they entertained before they came to the Colony, that the tax should be abolished, He assumes that they abandoned. their convictions in obedience to the orders of the Secretary of State. I hardly think this likely-but in any case, I know that Sir W. Gregory and Sir A, Gordon, who are no longer subject to the authority of the Secretary of State, are both strongly opposed to the abolition of the tax; and I gather from Sir H. Robinson's answer to the Cobden Club, that he also is opposed to abolition. (Of Sir J. Longden's opinions I have no knowledge.)
Mr. Wall omits to notice the opinions of the Government agents and the members of the Executive Council; they have the most intimate knowledge of the subject, and they have no conceivable interest in the matter, except the welfare of the people. There can be no doubt that they are competent to express an opinion, and as little that the opinion which they have expressed is unbiassed, for it was well known that the present Governor, to whom they reported, was in favour of abolition.
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Mr. Wall observes that I have not met the arguments arising from the "inci- IV. "dence of taxation, and the insufficiency of food." The incidence of taxation was fully
Argum considered in the report of the Select Committee. The insufficiency of food is a subject abolition upon which the abolitionists have made the wildest mis-statements, which have from time to time been effectively answered by the Ceylon "Observer." The paddy growers grow other articles of food besides paddy; but while it is, of course, desirable that more paddy should be grown in the island, the abolition of the paddy tax would not
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