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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference:

C.O. 882

4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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38. The new system of repairing the village tanks adopted by me, on the principle of the villagers doing the earth work and the Government giving the sluice and masonry gratuitously, is proceeding admirably. Work is now going on vigorously upon hundreds of tanks in the north-central province, where the experiment was begun on the sugges- tion of Mr. Dickson, and now applications for similar assistance are coming in from the western, north-western, and northern provinces. I am convinced that in a few years this system will largely spread throughout the island, and be the means of increasing the supply of food and rendering us more independent of our neighbours.

39. Were I, however, to remain here, I should ask your permission to embark on larger undertakings. I have in a former despatch set forward my views to your Lordship as to the policy of the early kings of Kandy, who constructed gigantic tanks, which have often been described as monuments of overweening folly. I believe on the contrary, and have recently acquired proofs, if proofs were needed, that these under- takings were the result of a wise and beneficent policy. The main object of these kings, as it should be of the present rulers of Ceylon, was to afford a permanent supply of water. They accordingly dammed up rivers which flowing from the hills invariably filled the huge tank constructed to receive them. From this large store tank other smaller store tanks were supplied by channels, and they in their turn filled all the village tanks below them annually. These great store-tanks being breached and the channels filled up, the cultivators have now to take their chance of a very precarious rainfall, which often fails them. I have recently completed the restoration of one of these great tanks, that of Kanthalay, at the trifling expense of a little over 6,000l. It now holds up water to irrigate 23,000 acres of land all belonging to Government, and all of which I trust before very long will be under grain. Another and a far greater undertaking is the restoration of the great Kaloo Wewa tank, which if once repaired would fill the minor store tanks in the south of the north-central province, and from them the village tanks, besides bringing gradually into cultivation enormous tracts of Crown land now in jungle. The rough estimates for this great work are not more than from 30,000l. to 40,000%, but as yet no sufficient surveys have been made.

40. A permanent supply of water, which undertakings such as these will maintain, is the best inducement to wean the natives to abandon the renting system; perhaps the Committee about to sit shortly may devise ineans to make commutation more palatable than at present, and if so, no one will more rejoice than myself to hear that the renting system has been finally, or at all events in a great measure, abandoned.

41. In considering this subject, I request your Lordship's attention to the very able confidential memorandum on the land revenue of Ceylon, signed April 29, 1847, W. S.

I have, &c. (Signed) W. H. GREGORY.

The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon,

SIR,

&c.

&c.

&c.

Enclosure in No. 1.

From SURVEYOR GENERAL to COLONIAL SECRETARY. Surveyor General's Office, Colombo,

August 21, 1869.

I BELIEVE it is generally admitted that the taxes on the food of the people in this island are evils, and that if a substitute can be found for them they ought to be done away with.

In Ceylon rice is the chief food of the native population, that is for those who can afford it, but in some parts of the island which I bave visited it is considered a luxury and only occasionally obtained as a treat. When I visited the Demala Pattuwa in 1869, the inhabitants of most of the villages had not been able to grow paddy for want of water for seven, eight, and in some cases for 10 years, and they were too poor to purchase rice. Their food consisted almost entirely of Kurakkau, dried, ground to a powder, and made into cakes, seasoned with chillies. For those who can afford it, or who have a sufficient supply of water to cultivate paddy, rice is the staple food. Now of all the kinds of agricultural pursuits followed by the people, the produce of the paddy field (and in some districts fine grain cultivation) only is taxed.

The owner of a cocoanut garden, who has scarcely any labour or toil to undergo, and who can rest in comparative idleness under his trees and derive a fair profit from them, has no tax to pay either for his produce or his ground. The coffee planter at present pays an export duty as a temporary measure for a special purpose, but he has no other tax on his produce, or on the land owned by him; even tobacco, which certainly is not a necessary and can only be looked upon as a luxury, is not taxed.

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Those in authority have always been considered by the inhabitants of this island as having a power over lands of every description.

Sir Emerson Tennent in his valuable Report on the revenue of the island says: "Under the Kandyan kings the right in fee was never alienated from the Crown unless by a deliberate grant in favour of the temples; and lands even under an hereditary tenure were held only on condition of feudal service, to be rendered for life or by the male descendants of the families on whom they were conferred, or on payment of certain fixed portions of the produce. These services tenures were as numerous as the nature of the duties in return for which they were conveyed, but without a single exception the ultimate reversion or failure of male issue or due performance was vested in the Crown."

"The Portuguese and Dutch recognised these feudal services."

"The East India Company in 1796-97 abolished all services and substituted a tax of one tenth of the produce of all lands. It was found, however, impossible to levy these

taxes, and paddy lands alone after a time paid the tithe of their produce."

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By a Proclamation in 1818 the payment of other taxes except that upon paddy was abolished, and in 1824, Sir Edward Barnes specially confirmed the unwise distinction

by exempting all lande producing coffee, cotton, or pepper, from the operation of the

law."

His

The paddy cultivator has thus become the only contributor to the revenue. success does not depend on his own exertions alone. He has to purchase cattle, which frequently suffer considerably from murrain. In many localities he has no means what- ever of irrigation, and a dry season ruins his prospects, and he loses not only his crop, but the chance of obtaining for nothing seed paddy for the next harvest. Even when there are irrigation works they are generally defective in construction, and as they are in most cases supplied by drainage from the neighbouring high land, they invariably fail in dry seasons, Even after the ground has been tilled and the plants have grown to a considerable height, they are liable to be destroyed by caterpillars. Last December, in parts of the Mátara district I saw whole fields covered with caterpillars; they were in such numbers that the plants appeared black instead of green. Again, unexpected floods sometimes submerge hundreds of acres on the banks of rivers, and entirely destroy what had promised to yield a handsome crop. I witnessed the destruction of whole fields of paddy on the banks of the Kalu Ganga in the Kalutara District in 1867.

I have mentioned some of the contingencies to which paddy cultivation is liable, to show how very uncertain it is, and how frequently the prospects of a good crop are lost by circumstances over which the cultivator has no control.

There is no doubt whatever that the labour of preparing the fields for seed is very great, and that a considerable amount of trouble and anxiety are entailed from the time of sowing until threshing is over and the crop collected. It would I am sure be a great boon to the bulk of the people if the tax on paddy could be done away

with.

The system of farming the tax is also in my opinion very objectionable, and there is no doubt that in the majority of cases the renter receives more than the tenth of the produce.

Those who assess the value of the crop do not always act in a fair and honest manner, and there is frequently collusion between the renter and those who ought to protect the interests of the people. I consider the renting system most pernicious.

The commutation system, which is being introduced in some districts, is far preferable, and should be made general.

The cultivator in the latter case knows exactly what he has to pay; he possesses land of a certain number of amunams sowing extent, and he pays a fixed rate per amunam, whether his crop be ten-fold or forty-fold.

As I have already said there can be no two opinions respecting the evil of one description of produce only being taxed, and that the chief food of the people.

But in addition to the tax on island-grown paddy, there is an import duty of 7d. on every bushel of rice, and of 3d. for every bushel of paddy imported into the island, and during the five years ending with the year 1868, there were imported into the island 21,570,769 bushels of rice, and 3,918,422 bushels of paddy (equal to 1,959,211 bushels Vido A. of rice), or an average per annum of 4,705,998 bushels of rice, the import duty on which gave an average per annum of 135,6251. During the same period the revenue derived from the paddy and fine grain tax came to an average of 95,4981. per annum, making average revenue derived from import duty on paddy and rice, and from taxes on paddy and fine grain, 231,1237.

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There is no doubt that this sum is required, and that the Colony could not dispense

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