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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

LUC.O. 882

1 ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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proposal of the report does not go to the aboli- tion of the paddy-tax, but only to a change in the form of it. But supposing it really abo- lished. What then? How could that effect the immunities of the temple corporations? Cer- tainly, if anything, it would give them a stronger and not a weaker claim to exemption from tax. If taxable paddy cultivation be discouraged by the present paddy-tax, untaxable paddy cul- tivation is pro tanto protected. The temple lands are in this latter position; for the report tells us that "one-third of all the paddy-lands in the Kandyan provinces are ostensibly in possession of the temples." How, then, can the removal of the discouragement on class of cultivation be a good reason for im- posing a new tax on the other class, which it is the tendency of that discouragement to pro- tect and foster.

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Nor, again, is the Government entitled in law to make radical changes, suo mero motu, in the fundamental stipulations of what is a poli- tical convention as well as a law not thirty years old. The Report seems to be aware that it is here treading on doubtful ground, but it hits on an ingenious contrivance to get over the difficulty. The temple tenants, it says, render feudal services to the temples. These feudal services are barely recognized by law. Let us compulsorily commute these hardly legal tenures for a fixed quit-rent; and, having thus severed the connexion between the temples and the temple tenants, let us then proceed to impose our acreable land-tax on the temple tenants. Thus we shall at once get our revenue and save our good faith. Now is it conceivable that the priests should fail to see through and resent so transparent an arti- fice for evading a law which it seems to be admitted cannot be openly abrogated? It is obvious that the rent of the temple-lands at present entirely goes to the temples. What- ever the Government may make the temple tenants pay to itself, must of necessity be de- ducted from what they pay to the temples. Or

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else the tax must fall on the tenants' labour. and stock, and the lands would be abandoned for others not subject to that pressure. Will the priests be long in finding this out? and will they pocket the affront when they do? and submit themselves quietly to the tax? and is it right to risk the good name of the Government upon so precarious a chance of realizing a few pounds of revenue? These are the considera- tions which must be decisive of the question raised by the report," whether the Government is not entitled, both in law and strict justice, as well as sound policy, to place the tenants of the temple-lands on an equality with all, and subject them to their share of taxation under the new arrangement." (Report, page 57.)

That the boundaries of the temple-lands should be rigorously investigated and rigidly laid down, is not only just and legal, but evidently most urgently required, and the work should be immediately begun. To such a measure we must look as the proper remedy for the evils of fraud and loss to revenue, with justice complained of by the Colonial Secretary, and not to the impracticable and dangerous plan he suggests.

2. There are the lands of chiefs exempt by law for themselves and their heirs, in reward for services rendered to us in the rebellion of 1818; and lands of chiefs and headmen ex- empt ex-officio, whether in the personal or hereditary tenure. The Report does not dia- tinguish these different kinds of exempt lands, but it is important to do so. None would escape from its uniform plan.

There can be nodoubt that all of them ought to be rigidly defined and marked off. The personal exemption ex-officio can of course be commuted by Government for a money salary, if it sees fit, on the lapse of each tenure by death or change of office. Where the privilege is here- ditary it will be difficult to get rid of it, as long

as the land and the office is held in the same family. Where the official position has been lost, and only the territorial and titular one G