Eastern,
No. 55.
Printed for the use of the Colonial Office.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
mumik
C.O. 882
Ceylon Grain Taxes,
Is a former paper (Eastern No. 50) a sketch was given of the history of the paddy tax, which can be supplemented from the exhaustive report of the Select Committee of the Ceylon Legislative Council.
Some remarks are now submitted on various points connected with the question, which may help to clear up the main issue, and suggestions are made with regard to that issue.
were wi
In the 8th paragraph of his despatch of the 18th The circum of January 1891 the Governor cites, as proof of the of Ceylon oppressiveness of the paddy tax, that "Between the years **the years 1880 and 1888 there were, in six out of abnormand. "the nine provinces of Ceylon in which the Ordi- 2792.
nance No. 11 of 1878 has been brought into operation, 29,899 sales of paddy lands in default
GA
4
of payment of the paddy tax."
This statement hardly seems to be borne out by Report, pa the report of the Select Committee, which states and App. that under the 1878 Ordinance 14,619 acres in all were sold for default in the various, districts, into which the Ordinance had been introduced, from the dates of introduction up to the end of 1888; but, assuming it to be true, it must be repeated again and again that the years in question, which have culminated in the present Inquiry, have been years of the greatest financial trouble, which would have brought distress and suffering upon sny community however taxed. In 1877 the revenue reached seventeen millions of rupees, in 1882 only twelve millions. In other worda, in six years the revenue fell by nearly 30 per cent. Suppose this had happened in England, and suppose the Crown in England exercised landlord rights to the same extent sa in Ceylon, the distress, the arrears, the evictions, and the increase in the death-rate would have been terrible. In Ceylon the crisis was caused by the breakdown of coffee planting, and accord- ingly in the districts bordering on these plantations the greatest distress occurred." Instead of wonder- ing that it was' so great, the wonder should rather be that it was not greater, and the merits or demerits of the paddy tax must be considered without undue reference to wholly abnormal times.
2. It has been charged against this tax by its Taxation opponents that it is a tax on food, and (since the Cugina passing of the 1878 Ordinance) that its recovery has fallen on the land.
The Sinhalese peasants pay-
ind
of
(8.) A grain tax.
(4.) If they drink spirits, a duty on arrack.
$6290. 10—3/91. G m. Wt. 24978. X. à 5.
(1.) A road tax.
(9.) A salt tax.
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-