CO882-(3-4) — Page 340

CEYLON.

머리의 이익

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

19

Reference:+

C.O. 882

4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

No. I.

GOVERNOR THE RIGHT HONORABLE SIR WILLIAM GREGORY, K.C.M.G., to THE EARL OF CARNARVON.

(No. 15.)

MY LORD,

1

(Received February 20, 1877.)

January 9, 1877.

Queen's House, Colombo, Ceylon,

I HAVE recently received a letter from Mr. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale, intimating

to me that it is his intention to bring before Parliament the subject of taxes on food in Ceylon, and that he was about to convey this intention to your Lordship.

2. I received about the same time a newspaper, I presume from Mr. Potter, in which

there is an account of a speech he made to his constituents on the 11th of October. In that speech I find the following observations:-

<<

In Ceylon free-trade England imposes a heavy tax on the growth of rice and grain,

on the food of the people. England imposes on Ceylon, her dependency, the system of farming the revenue which we know to be so outrageous in Turkey."

3. The subject of taxation in this Colony is one which has for some time engaged my attention. I have been making a series of inquiries into the working of the present system since the beginning of this year, and I take the opportunity of giving your Lordship full information on the subject, and of leaving you to judge of the value of Mr. Potter's strictures.

4. For a long period the system of taxation resorted to in Ceylon has been the subject of communications between the Home Government and the Governors of the Colony. So far back as 1833 Lord Goderich wrote to Sir W. Horton to this effect :-

"The proposal to impose such a tax (on cocoanut trees) connects itself with the consideration of the grain tax, the vexations attending the collection of which, par- ticularly where property is so much subdivided as it is in Ceylon, are inseparable from such a source of revenue, and have already given rise to representations and complaints upon the subject by the people. Such an interference in the management of their land is equally felt in situations where the right of collection is sold to speculators, and a tax thus imposed on the subsistence of the people from which other articles of produce are exempt, or upon which alone a rate of duty is levied, must, by discouraging the natural application of capital, operate as a check on that branch of agriculture which ought on every ground to receive the most encouragement."

28rd March.

November

5. The attention of the late Lord Derby, when Secretary of State for the Colonies, was directed to the same subject of a readjustment of taxation, but he left office after addressing Sir Colin Campbell, the then Governor, on the expediency of an inquiry into Despatch the matter. Mr. Gladstone, who succeeded Lord Derby, reiterated the same opinion No. 485, 11th that a revision of taxation was expedient, and requested that the Governor and Executive 1845. Council should furnish him with a detailed report "upon the various existing branches "of revenue, showing the manner in which they affect the trade and commerce of the country, their actual produce, and the probable effect of their reduction and remission." Reports were sent in by three members of the Executive Council, and among them was an elaborate treatise of Sir Emerson Tennent in which he condemns in the strongest language the tax on paddy and other grain produced in the island, and also disapproves of, though in more modified language, the import duties on rice and paddy. After giving a history of the paddy tax and the manner in which it is farmed, Sir Emerson Tennent thus comments on its working :-

""

"It would be difficult to devise a scheme more pregnant with oppression, extortion, and demoralisation than the apparently simple one here detailed. The cultivator is handed over helplessly to two successive sets of inquisitorial officers, the assessors and the renters and their underlings, who have so direct a control over his interests that abuses are inevitable, and the intercourse of the two parties is characterised by rigour and extortion on the one side, and cunning and subterfuge of every description on the other. Every artifice and disingenuous device is put in practice to deceive the headmen and Government assessors as to the extent and fertility of the land and the actual value of the crop, and they in return resort to the most vexatious and inquisitorial interference A 2

Serial

No.

From or to whom.

Despatch

Date.

No.

1

Governor Sir Wm. Gregory

15

Jany, 9, 1877 (Rec. Feb. 20).

2

Ditto -

16

Jany. 12, 1877 (Rec. Feb. 20).

3

T. B. Potter, Esq., M.P. -

4 To Governor Sir J. Longden

236

Subject.

The intention of Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale, to bring before Parliament the subject of Taxes on Food in Ceylon.

Enclosing copy of a Resolution by the Executive Council of Ceylon respecting Taxes on Grain.

Aug. 17, 1877 Transmitting printed copy of a Paper on the subject of the Taxes on Food in Ceylon.

Sept. 17, 1877 Stating that the question of Food Taxation in Ceylon cannot be considered until the Report of the Commission, appointed to inquire into the matter, has been received; and enclosing a Paper on the subject from Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale.

5

Ditto -

Confl- dential.

Sept. 17, 1877

6

Governor Sir J. Longden

Oct. 23, 1877

7 To Governor Sir J. Longden

+

Requesting to be furnished with any in- formation respecting the result at which the Commission inquiring into the question of Taxes on Food is likely to arrive.

Transmitting, with observations, a draft of a Report of the Grain Tax Com- mission.

Dec. 13, 1877 Acknowledges Governor's confidential Despatch of the 23rd October. Lord Carnarvon will await the conclusion of the labours of the Grain Tax Commis- sion, and observes with satisfaction that this important question is receiving the attentive consideration which it deserves.

Forwarding Report, with Appendices, of the Commissioners appointed in January last to inquire into the taxes on home grown grain, and the Customa duties on imported grain.

8 Governor

Sir J. R.

86

Longden.

Dec. 12, 1877 (Rec. Jan. 21 1878).

9

To Governor Sir J. R.

Longden.

147

July 9, 1878

The opinions of Sir M. E. Hicks Beach on the Grain Tax Commission, and requesting Governor Longden to fur- nish any additional information on the subject which it may be in his power to afford.

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