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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :----

TPIPE C.O. 882

السلسا

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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPING COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOTT

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON:

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retained, the right of Government to lay a moderate tax on the lands from which it thus derives neither revenue nor service, would pro- bable not be resisted.

But the faith of the Government is pledged to the maintenance of the first description of tenure entirely intact, both in form and sub- stance, except with the free consent of the parties interested. The extent of the meaning of the words "their heirs," used in the pro- clamation of 1818, ought to ascertained and defined.

3. There are all lands in the Kandyan pro- vinces besides those which have been already noticed. These would be chiefly cocoa-nut and other gardens, belonging to natives in small plots.

These, according to the plan of the Report, would share the fate of their neighbours; but taking into consideration

1. The circumstances of the proclamation of 1818, part of which it would be necessary to annul in such a case;

2. The political position of the Kandyan pro- vinces, conquered but thirty years, densely wooded, and impervious to troops; and

3. The inconsiderable amount of the lands in question, and of the revenues probably derivable therefrom;

One would hardly think it worth while or prudent to attempt any change for some time to come in the footing they rest upon at present.

Whenever the proper time comes for taxing them, perhaps the plea of the necessities of the State would not be so well understood or so soon admitted by the natives, as one founded on the abolition of the service tenures in 1833, without any equivalent being simultaneously or having been since enacted. Even now, or not long hence, it might be well by means of a proclamation, referring to that circumstance in the preamble, to limit the term of exemption of lands under the law of 1818 to a certain period, say ten years, while similar lands laid down in

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cultivation subsequently to such proclamation, might be made by it taxable within a shorter period-say five years. An opportunity would thus be created for actually surveying and marking off the limits of all the lands thus exempted; a measure which it is indispensable to the protection of the revenue should embrace every description of exempt land whatever.

Another necessary exemption not yet noticed

is that of land of which the land-tax has been redeemed.

If then in supercession of the plan of the Report the land-tax of Ceylon be extended and modified on the principles and within the limits brought to light in the course of the foregoing inquiry, what is likely to be the financial result? What amount is such a measure likely to realise and to cost? These are questions which there are no adequate means of answering in this country. All we can do here is to say what points we can clear up ourselves, and what remains to be ascertained, and then decide how and by whom it is to be ascertained.

In the Jaffna province in 1842, Mr. Dyke loosely estimated the entire amount of occupied private land to be nearly double the paddy- land. If thesame rule be taken to hold good for the other maritime districts, the gross quantity of land to which the tax might be extended would be about half a million af merún,

the gross paddy cultivation being known to be somewhere about that figure. The Colombo Road Committee of 1842 estimate the grows quantity of private property in land other than paddy-land, for the whole island, at above one million of acres. A great portion of this pro- perty consists of toddy, cocon-nut, and paltayın trees. Mr. Wright reckons (Appendix to port, page 85) that these plantations, after ducting, as proper to be exempted, those

are subject to the arraël auf tockły-laws; • yield for the Wiiale infand; If dared in Salt fainth of their average prodijón, a not ời M20;166. Á naill deftition should be