1.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TEEN C.O. 882
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
VII.
Reply 1.
Reply 2.----
Reply 3.
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result in an increase in the production of paddy, while the adoption of (same of) the recoinmendations of the Select Committee is calculated to have the desired effect. He next "passes to the question of substitutes for the tax." It is a very important question, and though he "holds it to be quite a separate subject," it is one which a practical statesman must clearly see his way to dealing with satisfactorily before deciding whether the tax should be abolished or not. If the tax or taxes that would
have to be substituted for the paddy tax (and the import duty which would follow it) would worsen the condition of the people, the statesman would presumably decide against abolition. Mr. Wall would have been more correct in saying that he passes by the question of substitutes for the tax than that he passes to it, for. as usual with abolitionists, he is unable to make any useful contribution whatever to the consideration of the question which virtually lies at the root of the whole matter.
In reference to native opinion about a general land tax, he again passes by the circumstance that the present native members of Council are at one with the late Sinhalese member, Mr. Alwis, in his opposition to a general land tax, and in considering it to be a worse evil than the paddy tax.
66
are
His reference to the existing taxation on "curries" is misleading. "Curries" consist not of salt fish and curry stuffs only, but of many other articles also which the villagers produce, such as flesh, eggs, vegetables, bread-fruit, jack fruit, and other common fruits, and the cocoa-nut Chillies and most other condiments known as grown by the villagers in all parts of the country, and the curry stuffa imported
curry-stuffs' are consumed by other classes. (I may here notice, en passant, that the duty on imported salt fish is counterbalanced by the tax on locally produced salt.)
Mr. Wall challenges the statement that the consumers of imported rice include the poorest classes in the country. He would challenge anything! Amongst the con- sumers of imported rice are (not to specify the various occupations of the very poor classes) the blind and other beggars who in the towns contrive to keep themselves alive by begging a few cents from door to door.
Alleged increase of the rate of the paddy tax-see my remarks on Mr. Le Mesurier's Letter IV., para. 6. Though, as I have stated there, I believe the assessments in some parts of Uva to be too high, an opinion which I knew to be shared by Mr. Ashmore, whom on that account I recommended to be appointed to re-assess the district, and who is now engaged in re-assessing it, I was glad recently to receive a letter from him, of which the following is an extract. After saying that he is satisfied that many assessments, especially in the case of less fertile fields are excessive, he adds:-"I am also satisfied, and can prove that, as far as I have gone, the theory that the paddy land here (Uva) is passing out of Kandyan hands (as suggested by Fisher) is mere nonsense. They are clearly gradually recovering what they have parted with." There can be no doubt from the reports of the late Messrs. Dyke and J. Bailey, and those of Messrs. Bragbrooke and Elliott and other Government Agents, that in the early days of the British administration, and for long afterwards, Government was largely defrauded in many parts of the island in respect of the paddy tax.
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Mr. O'Brien should have quoted the reduction on which his denial is based, specifying dates, localities, and areas to which they applied." If Mr. Wall had read the "history of the rent now commonly called the grain tax," in the report of the Select Committes, he would hardly have written this sentence. The British found the tax at one-tenth plus large contributions of service and labour; they fixed it at one- fourth, one-fifth, and one-tenth, according to varying circumstances; they subsequently reduced it to a uniform one-tenth; and by Ordinance 11 of 1878 they gave a general reduction of 10 per cent. in the case of "annual commutation," and total remission, when the crop might be less than three-fold, in the case of “ commutation."
orop-
Once for all," he neglects all arguments that rest on the basis of the alleged " connexion between the tax and the duty on imported grain." In other words, he admits his inability to deal seriously and practically with the subject. The outside period for which the import duty could be maintained after the abolition of the paddy tax would be the period during which the question might happen not to be brought forward in the House of Commons. Bare justice would demand the abolition of the tax on the food of a large portion of the community, including its poorest classes, once the similar food of the remainder of the population had been freed from tax, and the amount of attention that the House of Commons might be expected to pay to any argument based on "inconvenience," may be gathered from the history of the abolition of the import duty on cotton in India, and from the recent resolution of the House in regard to the revenue derived from opium.
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See my remarks on Mr. Le Mesurier's Letter IV., paras. 17-19. The four years for Reply 5. which I gave the number of sales of lands for private debts in the Central Province are the four years of the alleged " depopulation" of Walapane.
With regard to the exemption of El-wi, ar hill paddy, from taxation see my Replies remarks on Mr. Le Meeurier's Letter, IV., para. 23.
and 7.
That several districts produce more paddy than is required for local consumption, Other and send away their surplus for sale in other parts of the island, is a fact that answers. Mr. Wall is not prepared to deny; he accordingly passes it over and qualifies it as "distribution," and "sale by poor cultivators to pay the tax, or to meet interest claimed in kind." To his qualification of "distribution," I have no objection to offer; but it does not alter the fact that taxed lands produce an available surplus of paddy. What he means by saying that paddy is sold "to meet interest in kind"" I am unable to imagine; and when he says that "poor cultivators" sell paddy to pay the tax, if he means (as it would appear from his argumente on page 4) by "cultivator
" a man who having no paddy land of his own cultivates the land of others for a share of the crop (or more rarely, for money wages), such “cultivators" do not pay the paddy tax at all except indirectly and in so far as they may consume paddy, just as the consumer of imported rice pays the import duty on what he consumes. The tax on a paddy field, that is, the Government share of the crop, is paid by the owner of the field, i.e., by the landlord, where cultivators are employed by him. (I must apologise for so constantly recurring to this point, but it is important, inasmuch as it is persistently obscured in the writings of the abolitionists, and a clear apprehension of it underlies and is essential to the right understanding of the position and the real merits of abolition.) Where the owner happens to be also the cultivator, i.e., where he cultivates his own land himself, in those cases, and in those cases only, does he pay the tax or Govern- ment share of the crop raised, and he of course recoups himself (except in so far as he consumes the paddy) by the enhanced value of the paddy, which enhanced value is pro tanto maintained by the existence of the duty on imported rice.
of Other
I have little to add to what I have already written regarding the "typical case the National Association. Mr. Wall makes no attempt to take any exception to my exposure of its gross errors both of commission and omission, beyond alleging that certain gentlemen have estimated 116, 141, and 153 days labour respectively, as the amount necessary for paddy cultivation. Of these three estimates Mr. Panabokke's (appearing on page 144 of the Appendices to the Report of the Select Committee) is the only one which I have by me for reference. It will be seen that Mr. Panabokke's estimate of 116 days is not for an acre but for the native “
which varies
11 amunam
in different parts of the country from 3 to 24 acres (2 acres is erroneously given in the Appendix as the equivalent). This gives about 39 days, or 46 days labour, as the case may be, as the amount necessary for one acre; yet Mr. Wall with Mr. Panabokke's statement actually before him (for he correctly quotes the number of the page on which it appears) blandly represents Mr. Panabokke as stating tha. 116 days are required for the cultivation of one acre, that being the area in the National Associa- tion's typical case! (I think that I am justified by this in characterising Mr. Wall as an advocate whose statements and calculations, whenever, from lack of leisure or opportunity, they cannot be verified, should be received with the gravest caution.) As against Mr. Panabokke's estimate of 39 to 46 days an acre, according as the amunam may be the equivalent of 3, or of 2 acres (if it were ever the equivalent of 2 acres, which it is not, his estimate would be 58 days per acre), the estimate of the National Association, which is endorsed by Mr. Wall, in its typical case is 180 days per acre ! If this estimate is serious, its having been made can only be accounted for by the framer's having made the extraordinary blunder of confounding the interval between the commencement of the cultivation and the garnering of the crop, with the number of days labour required for the various operations, but even then I fail to understand it. Mr. Wall speaks of 90 days as "Mr. O'Brien's estimate." It is nothing of the sort, it is the estimate of the Select Committee, who had abundant means of determining the fact it was an outside estimate, purposely erring on the side of liberality, and it was an estimate not for one acre, but for so much land as one man can cultivate, i.e., for about 21 acres. The estimate of Mr. Jevers, the Government Agent of Anurajapura, who has the most intimate acquaintance with every detail of paddy cultivation, is 27 days labour per acre in his province; that of Mr. Elliott, the Government Agent of the Eastern Province, an officer of long experience who has made the cultivation a special study, is from 30 to 36 days per acre.
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Answera.