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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

TIT

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-|

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT 19

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In such circumstances no very exact or in- quisitorial requisitions are likely to be pala- table to them, or practicable by Government. Interferences which were welcomed or tolerated by the inhabitants of Upper India, may be repelled with alarm and dislike by the less civil- ized and more jealous Kandyans and Cingalese. The temple-lands for example in Upper India were surveyed in detail with no greater difficulty than the rest, not for purposes of taxation, but merely of judicial demarcation and registra- tion. We can hardly anticipate the same in Ceylon.

So far Mr. Bird's system may be too much. In other respects it may be insufficient. For instance, it is not clear how it meets the case of cocoa-nut-trees (so great a part of the Cey- lon subject) existing as property in different degrees of tangibility. Here an acquaintance with the expedients in use at Madras and Moulmein, where cocoa-nut-trees are assessed in four or five different modes, would be very desirable. It is doubtful in our present im- perfect knowledge of the manner in which properties and rights are distributed in Ceylon, whether even the outline of Mr. Bird's system. could be generally preserved. A very sparse,- in the case of the Veddahs, a migratory popu- lation,--and a moving cultivation, as in the case of Chenas, would obviously require a chinery of assessment totally different from that used so successfully in Upper India. It is true that a somewhat similar descrip- tion of cultivators exist in the Turay under the Himalaya, and were not excluded from the Mouzawar settlement. But their inclusion in

it was more nominal than real.

ma-

Again, it is a part of Mr. Bird's system

to lease out the revenue of all the various lands of every village or fiscal division, for the same period of years, and that a moderate one of about twenty or thirty. Now it may be doubted whether the very dissimilar pro- ducts and much more tardy returns of agri- culture near the Line, will admit of the exten-

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sion of such a rule to Ceylon. In Singapore the agriculturists say that it is not worth while to lay out capital on the usual products of that island, under a lease of less than ninety- years. Twenty years was pronounced by Mr. Young, in 1838, too short a lease for

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pepper by one-half, and both too long and too short for gambier. How then can we reckon on one uniform term of revenue lease for all lands and products, unless it is so long a one

as to involve a serious prospective sacrifice of revenue?

It is unnecessary to add that the expense of Mr. Bird's system in Upper India, can be taken as no criterion of a new survey and assessment

in Ceylon.

The objections above made to Mr. Bird's system are most of them applicable to all foreign systems as such, and are probably less applicable to his than to any. As for

can be judged at present, Ceylon is not ready

for

any uniform system at all. To whatever extent it is, it must have a system of its own.

The practical questions then which have first

to be answered by Her Majesty's Government, are the following--

The improvement and extension of the land- tax in Ceylon appearing practicable and desi- rable within the limits elicited in the cammme of 'this inquiry......

1st. What mode of survey and assonment; how much or how little in detail; how for scientific or superficial, general or partial, uniform or varying, will be best adapted to the peculiarities of the country, and least obnoxious to the prejudices of the people !

2nd. What establishment will be necessary i how much of it Eumpsun and how much natizn -how much must be foreign and how mo

may

Ded. What will be profit of doing all that There is a fourth

omos to difficulties -of-an

stiraly new neat, equally nuocmary to be provided aguinak, win.

4th. What should be the powers of the chief

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