PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference :-
885
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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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the fixed rating of about 3s., which all cultivated lands were to bear alike, according to Sir E. Sir E. Ten- Tennent's plan of a new land tax. nent thought the new fixed rate per acre should be an equivalent to the old tithe, and as about 38. would be such an equivalent, that sum appears to have been fixed by him (in his plan for a new laud tax), for uniform application to all the cul- tivated lands in the colony.
The evils of assessing actual produce were con- sidered by Sir E. Tennent conclusive reasons for adopting the fixed rate by the acre instead.
The colony being supplied from India with about Papers. April 1848, p. 64.
half of the whole of the rice consumed within it.
and rice being the principal food of the people, Sir
E. Tennent considered that the existing import duty of 50 per cent. on the value of this article was most objectionable as a source of revenue, enhancing as it did the cost of the necessaries of life, and should therefore be abandoned as soon as possible.
The equalization of the import duties to a rate Papers. April 1848, p. 79.
of 6 per cent. ad valorem for foreign and British
goods alike, instead of the then existing system of laying 10 per cent. on the former and 5 per cent. on the latter, was also part of Sir E. Ten- nent's plan, and was not only proposed as an act of justice to the local consumers but also as one
of the means of making good the deficiency
which other parts of the plan involved.
Sir E. Tennent intended that his entire plan for Papers. April 1848, pp. 102 and
a better distribution of the burdens of taxation
should be brought into operation by degrees in the order, and that the revenue foregone should
he compensated in the manner to be now de- scribed.
103.
The cinnamon duties were to be immediately Papers. April 1848, p. 102.
abolished, with two minor taxes of no value (chank monopoly and Colombo loaded cart-tax):— loss to revenue about 25,0001.
The immediate compensation would have been the discontinuance of the payment to the military chest of 24,0001,, which looking at other colonies Sir E. Tennent thought could with no pretence
of justice be any longer exacted.
The next step was to be the abolition of the other export duties, consisting chiefly of that on coffee:— loss to revenue about 10,0001. But this measure
Papers. April 1848, p. 103.
Papers. April 1848, p. 103.
Papers. April 1848, p. 56.
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was not to be adopted till the compensating mea- sures had become productive, which were to con- sist in this case, in the gain by the equalization of the import duties, in the levy of import duty on some articles hitherto exempted, and in an addi- tional and special import duty on some one or two articles such as arms and tobacco: estimated produce on the whole 11,0401.
The next step was to be the reduction of the import duty on rice and paddy from 7d. and 3d.. the existing rates, to 4d. and 2d. per bushel: loss to revenue 27,7681 :* but only so soon as there might be in process of realization a new tax on arms (1s. 6d. on each piece), on carriages and horses (10s. on each horse, and the same on each pair of wheels): estimated revenue:-
Arms Carriages
- 7,500 - 2,500
£
10,000
and an increased taxon salt, by charging the wholesale price at 48, instead of 28. 8d., estimated revenue
Total compensation
17,849
- £27,849
The manufacture of salt in Ceylon, be it observed, is a monopoly in the hands of Govern- ment. The cost to Government is about 4d. per bushel. The sale-price realized by them was 28. 4d. till within a few years ago, when it was raised to 28. 8d. Sir E. Tennent considered this as a mode of raising a large revenue, which was quite unobjectionable, and could be very little felt by any individual, being equivalent to the imposition of a very moderate poll-tax, in a society where subsistence was easily and with little labour obtained by all.
The next step in Sir E. Tennent's measure was to be the commutation of the tithe on the produce of rice grounds to a fixed rate per acre of about 38.; this would involve neither loss nor gain. And the last step would then be to extend this fixed rate to all the cultivated lands in the colony, and further to impose a tax of 1s, per acre on all uncultivated lands held as private property. The proceeds of this extension of the land tax would amount, Sir E. Tennent *This loss is stated in somewhat different 6gures in differ- ent parts of Sir E. Tenuent's report.
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