CO882-(1-2) — Page 77

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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A pause of three weeks ensued, and in the inter- val, the chiefs abandoning the topic of the taxes, boldly adopted the open cry of nationality and independence, and sent their emissaries in all direc- tions to arouse the people, with orders to flock to the standard of the Pretender at Matelle, or hold themselves in readiness to unite with him on his march to lay siege to Kandy.

I speak not unadvisedly, or without extensive personal observation, when I state that further than this, the taxes were not the cause of the late insur- rection.

They were intended by the chiefs to have been used as a percussion cap to explode the mine which had been already laid extensively throughout the country, but even for this purpose they failed, in consequence of the minds of the people being dis- abused, by their interview with the authorities at Kandy. But though they did not occasion the ex- plosion, it is obvious that they hastened it.

I had the most extensive opportunities for ob- Agitation against the Taxes aban- servation and experience in the matter as to the doned.

state of the public feeling in relation to the taxes. There is hardly a station in the Island that I did not visit in order to ascertain it, and to afford just explanations to the people in relation to the mea- sures of the Government.

That the idea of any tax was distasteful it re-

· and it is unques- quired no effort to admit tionable that the people would have much preferred no payment whatsoever, but I found universally that their alarms and aversion had been aroused, not by the taxes as they really were, but by the misrepresentation of the chiefs and their falsehoods as to what they were intended to be; and I com- municated to Lord Torrington (Blue Book, page 161,) that, once disabused of these misrepresenta- tions, the people had expressed their contentment with the law as it stood, and avowed their readiness

pay

the taxes imposed.

to

Mr. Morris, the resident public officer at Korne- galle, one of the scenes of the rebellion, thus de- scribes the reception of the taxes by the people of this district, as it fell under his own observation.

"The Road Ordinance had been promulgated at the end of April, and was apparently very popular amongst the headmen, who looked to it to restore

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some of the power of which they had been deprived, by the abolition of Raja Karia. The people did not seem to dislike it, and had no factious influence been used, not a syllable would have been breathed against it.

"The Annual Gun licence was thought very heavy, but

"The Dog Tax was not then known to have been applied to the villages, and would have been little cared for if it had.

"None of the other tax ordinances applied to the Kandyans, except the Stamp Tax, which they never gave a thought about.”—(Letter, page 173.)

In fact so contented were the people to pay, that the assistant agent had to apply for additional clerks on the 1st of July, to write out licences, so numerously were they called for, “yet two days later," says Mr. Morris, "he, Mr. Templer, informed me in a private note that the people had almost ceased to apply! waiting the result of a deputation

that had gone to Colombo."

“It was known that the deputation referred to, consisting of 100 persons, had gone direct to the office of the 'Observer' newspaper, and as met one of the individuals composing it, could read or speak English, there could be no doubt that agents had been employed to induce them to go there. And in an Editorial article it was stated that they had consulted the Editor, and 'that he had given them advice which they promised to take.”””

A short time after the riots commenced, I was in the heart of the Kandyan country when the rebellion broke ont. I traversed it from south to north, from Dambool to Anarajahpoora, from the borders of Trincomalee westward to the Gulf of Mannar; I saw the people daily collected in assembinges of the whole population of from three to thirty vil- lages at a time. I found very little complaint of the Gun tax, and none that was not readily ap- peased; and I did not leave a single distrłoś without saenzances fraca the people that they had been gromly mirled as to the Road Ordinance, and were quite willing to conform to it; and I wrote to tho Governor my conviction that in that portion of the Kandyan country the population would not be induced on any such grounds to join in an insa- rection against the Government; and my Worda

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