CO882-(1-2) — Page 4

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

1

| BE KEPRODUC

COPYRIGHT H

PUBLIC KÉZORD

ALLY WETOKET

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cultivated. Now the proposed minimum tax of ls. per acre is so enormous, that, for the worst land, and the simplest forms of occupation, which, be it observed, often precede the higher, it must amount to a prohibition of improve-

ment.

A degree of impracticability and even danger becomes apparent in the plan of the report, when along with it we proceed to consider the different varieties of land and landholders to which the scheme is to be applied, and the dif- ferent usages and laws which it is to innovate upon or supersede.

In the first place there is the broad distinc- The tion between natives and Europeans.

same theory of taxation, the same law and practice does not apply to both.

Again, the maritime and Kandyan provinces are in revenue matters governed by different Their enactments and a different practice. political position, also, is not the same.

Then there are the multitudinous divisions of land tenures, some all native, some all European, some mixed, into

I. Paddy-cultivation, liable to tax, both in the Kandyan and maritime provinces, in law and practice.

II. Landı regularly cultivated other than paddy-lands, (1) in the maritime provinces, liable by law but not at all in practice, or liable to direct taxation by law, but only to indirect in practice, or exempt by law from direct tax- ation, but liable to indirect; (2) in the Kandyan provinces, all exempt by law from direct taxa- tion, but some subject to indirect in practice.

III. The Chena or irregularly cultivated lands throughout both sets of provinces, regard- ing which the law, like the proprietorship, is doubtful, and the practice various.

IV. Waste and forest lands, some used by

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the natives and claimed by them as property, others sold or granted away, or possessed by the Crown; and lastly

V. Exempt lands, subdivisible into

1. Temple lands, exempt by law and prac- tice.

2. Lands of chiefa friendly to us in the re- bellion of 1818, exempt by law and practice for them and their heirs. (Vide proclamation, 1818.)

3. Lands ex-pfficio exempt during the holders term of office.

4. Landa held on service tenure originally,

for which, since their abolition, an equivalent has been neither enacted or exacted, as in the case of the temple lands and others in Kandyan provinces, or has been enacted but not exacted,

as in the maritime provinces with respect to all lands other than pajidy.

Let us see by the help of such information

as is immediately available in this country, how far the plan of the report, and how

other plan for the improvement and dig

of the land-tax is prmeticable and

in respect of law, nɛaga, aquity,

for each of the principal dirinioan above of land and handliglders.

First, as to patien

The distinction

down, though

olearly staged py

with a general

tion will be

little of an.