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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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the inquiry to be undertaken, that I am sure I shall be pardoned if I quote somewhat fully on that impolitic imposition :—

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Such a state of things was not likely to last long. The time indeed soon arrived when the Sinhalese sought an opportunity to better their condition. That time has reference to the period when the Provisional Government, attempted new taxation taxation, too, of a very distasteful kind. Notwithstanding the great anxiety of the Dutch to make money'-' honestly if they could, but any rate to make money,' and to raise new taxes, they never once dreamt of taxing the cocoanut, or any fruit-bearing trees. This as they knew was a very odious tax on principle, unjust in its effects on individuals, and above all difficult of collection; yet when Andrews, the Provisional Commissioner and Commercial Resident,' saw splendid groves of cocoanut trees in Ceylon, which yielded so plentifully all the year round, and of which no part whatever was thrown away, he unhesitatingly imposed, in 1797, a general tax upon all cocoanut trees throughout the island, exacting a payment in money, and everywhere at a uniform This tax was felt to be very burdensome. The inequality with which it weighed on the proprietors became speedily intolerable. The people remonstrated against it, and in their desperation even offered to pay a reasonable proportion of the income from their trees in kind. But the Commissioner was immoveable. Misrule and oppression have their undoubted result. Moralists and philosophers may differ, and statesmen and lawyers may indicate principles of loyalty, but nothing in the world is proof against oppression. The instincts of the animal supersede, as it now superseded all considerations of prudence; the whole country burst forth into rebellion. It broke out at first in the Western Province, and was extending into other districts, when the Government aban- doned the tax altogether."

rate.

Such is a brief sketch of the history of the food taxes of this country up to the period to which we have arrived, viz., 1798. Since then the British Government were a little more liberal, aud continued to do what the Dutch had doue-recovering one tenth from paraveni lands, which are the absolute property of the people, and a half or one fourth from cultivation of Crown lands. At the same time the English Government introduced the farming system with all its horrors as described by Mons. Remaund, a French officer first in the Dutch, and afterwards in the service of the English Government, I believe the Dutch, though they adopted the renting system during the latter period of their rule, did not carry it out to a very large extent, owing to its effects. Notwithstanding the vast abuses of this system, which are well known, the English have continued it, and until now the farming system has been the rule and not the exception. I will not stay to expose its evils, which have been fully described by historians and public servants, but will make a long stride, to the period of Sir Henry Ward, to show how necessary it is that Government should interfere and do something in the interest alike of agriculture and the natives of this island. Speaking in 1855, Sir Henry said :—

"Another important enactment in the interest of the native population, which I hope to lay before you in the course of the present session, is one for a general commutation of the Government share of the paddy tax. The abuses of the renting system, which at present prevails in many parts of this island, are notorious, and I have long been anxious to see it superseded."

This state of things, which had continued without remedy till Sir Henry Ward, was also allowed to run on without change till the time of Sir Charles MacCarthy. In 1863 he was so much struck with the injustice done to the poor paddy cultivator that he directed the then Queen's Advocate to draw up an enactment to make commutation compulsory, and extend it throughout the land. In that year Sir Charles MacCarthy said :—

"In dealing with a million and a half people, for whom we claim the right to legislate, whose interests are entirely in our hands, whose peaceful and orderly conduct entitles them to the highest consideration-I think we should do wisely to avoid even the appearance of neglect, if even at additional cost we can offer them a proof of sympathy, that will be most grateful to their feelings."

This is the Ordinance, the draft of which is given in the papers which my hon. and learned friend (Sir Coomara Swamy) called for. The Ordinance will there be found fully drawn out. It was circulated amongst several gentlemen, amongst them I was privileged to receive a copy. But for some reason or other that Bill has never been before this Council. It is therefore scarcely necessary to say that from 1863 to 1876 the state of things then felt to be a burden has remained without change. It is with a view to obtain redress for this grievance and to procure relief for the people that I now make the motion before the Council. The first question which the motion suggests is,

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Are the food taxes, of which there are two, in themselves vicious, objectionable, or unacceptable to the people ?" As a middle man between the people and this Council, and one who wishes that whatever he says from his seat in this place should be said with all the gravity and correctness which his position requires, and of which he may not be ashamed hereafter, I shall state at once, that I am most decidedly of opinion that the people do not think the tax on paddy is objectionable, and that they do not ask for its removal. When, however, I say this, I am by no means prepared to affirm that the tax should be continued, or that certain modifications may not be made so as to encourage cultivation, and promote agriculture at its present rate. I shall show hereafter in what respects the tax may be modified. In itself I repeat it is not vexatious or unac- ceptable to the people. Those who condemn the food taxes of Ceylon do so on three grounds :-

1. That they are a hardship upon the people, more especially upon the poor; 2. That they are unequal in their pressure upon the people; and,

3. That they are vexatious in the mode in which they are collected. These are the three objections which I gather from my reading on the subject, and from conversation with friends who are strongly opposed to them. With regard to the third reason, which I shall take up first, I quite agree that the proceedings connected with the collection of the tax on paddy are vexatious and bad. Of that there cannot be the slightest doubt. I shall not say one word more on it, but I do not agree with those who allege the two first objections. Those who do so argue that because the thing is bad in its effects it is bad in its cause. I have read nearly all the writers on the subject, and on examination of their reasons I find they pronounce the tax bad because it is followed by a pernicious mode of collection, without noticing the fact that it is possible, as suggested in my motion, to devise a better mode. They argue back from the effect to the cause. They judge of effects, find them bad, and then say that the cause is wrong. This I think is bad reasoning. But, say some, food taxes are bad in them- selves. That is a purely European opinion, an English opinion, which has found fruition only within this present century. Of course I can see the impropriety of food taxes in countries like Englaud, according to ita peculiar circumstances. It does not necessarily follow that they are bad in Ceylon, nor does the same state of things exist here. England the feeling is very strong against food taxes, as they are grievously felt by the poor. There the rich man is very rich; the poor man very poor, and the indigent exceed the opulent. Where the poor man is irretrievably poor, and the rich man is prodigiously rich, I can easily understand how in such a case the food taxes would fall very heavily upon the people. But in Ceylon, there is a more equal distribution of property, and it cannot, with anything like truth, be said of the food taxes here what is said of them in England. This subject was alluded to in a book published some little time ago, written primarily with regard to the law of primogeniture, and how this state of things also affected that matter. It has special reference to the subject in hand. The writer

says:--

In

The case is indeed not different in this island; and it may certainly be affirmed that at the period indicated in the Mihintala inscription, the Sinhalese knew not that extreme destitution which rendered theft necessary, and which by the laws of Holland excused the offender when the thing stolen consisted of the necessaries of life.

It cannot be denied that poverty existed here then as it exists now. But poverty is a relative term; and the difference between the poor here and the poor in many parts of Europe was and is-that, whilst there a great proportion of the poor classes are destitute paupers, the poorest man here is never without the means of subsistence during the day, and without a place of rest at night. In other words, there was scarcely any pauperism in Ceylon. The Attanagaluwansa states this as a fact; and no one who is intimately acquainted with the real Sinhalese of the present day can believe the existence of any real destitution amongst them.

This is clearly the result of the tenure of lands and the laws of succession in Ceylon; and this is also obviously one of the causes of that apathy and indifference for which the inhabitants of cold regions reproach the denizens of the tropics. As regards individuals, the latter result is as much to be deplored, as the former is a matter for exultation. But comparatively, the absence of pauperism is more to be desired than that the want of industrious habits should be deprecated.

Constituted as we are it is simply impossible to say that the food taxes at present existing in Ceylon are vexatious in themselves. As to whether they are distasteful I can only say that I have gone amongst the people, have been in the houses of the poorest amongst them, and have talked to them, but in all my inquiries I have never C 2