64
not materially jeopardize the interests of the country, while the results of the inquiry, whichever way it tends, will be of great benefit in the solution of this important and difficult question.
(Signed)
"
P. RAMA-NÁTHAN. ALBERT L. D'ALWIS.
65
7. And your Memorialists that
pray your Lordship may take and read this repre- sentation in connexion with such despatches as it may please his Excellency the Governor to write to your Lordship on the subject, and they pray that your Lordship may arrive at a decision most favourable to the general interests of the island.
And your Memorialists, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.
Colombo, 15th January 1886.
(Signed) JNO. M. SALGADO,
Hon. Secretary.
Colombo, February 27, 1886.
(Signed)
C. H. DE SOYSA,
Chairman.
Enclosure 4 in No. 4.
To the Right HOD. EARL GRANVILLE, K.G., Secretary of State for the Colonies,
&c., &c., &c.
The MEMORIAL of the CEYLon AgrigultuRAL ASSOCIATION.
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHEWETH,
THAT the Association beg leave to bring to your Lordship's notice a few facts in connexion with the Ordinance No. 2 of 1886, which was passed by the Legislative Council of Ceylon early this month, authorising the raising of a loan of 550,0001. for the purpose of extending the railway to Haputalé and to Bent >ta.
2. That your Memorialists have every reason to believe that the extension of the railway from Kalutara to Bentota will be a profitable undertaking, but they are by no means certain that the extension from Nánu-oya to Haputalé will, in the present state of the planting enterprise, yield a nett return sufficient to cover the interest and sinking fund of the required loan.
3. At the second reading of the Bill in the Legislative Council the Hon. P. Rama Nathan dwelt on the vast changes which less than a decade had wrought in the agricultural and commercial enterprise of the island, and he strongly urged the necessity of revising the estimates of traffic and produce on which the Council in 1879, and his Excellency the Governor in 1885, thought the extension justifiable. This opinion was Their action is in perfect barimony with shared by the Hon. the Sinhalese Member. the feelings of your Memorialists, of the Native Press, and of all other right-thinking natives in the island.
4. Last year the Government hoped that a falling revenue would be resuscitated by increasing the duties payable on legal proceedings, letters and spirits, but the proceeds of this taxation have scarcely improved the Colonial exchequer. The end of every year since 1878 has belied the expectations formed at its opening, and depression in trade and agriculture continues to be felt with increasing severity. It is encouraging, however, to feel that tea cultivation is making great progress and relieves in certain spheres the withering influence of an excessively dull circulation of capital, but as official inquiry has yet to determine many facts in support of the hope that the tea enterprise will be stable and profitable, the question of the paying capacities of the extension to Haputalé depends mainly on the coffee enterprise. Your Memorialists would observe that estimates founded on a product which has declined in the course of a few years from 11 cwts. to the acre to less than 4 cwts., must be admitted with a great deal of reserve and caution, especially as in other coffee districts the fall has reached 14 cwts. to
the acre.
5. It has been argued that it was never expected that the Nánu-oya section would pay without the Haputalé section being completed. Your Memorialists cannot help tact, the Railway Commissioners remarking that this contention is wholly unfounded
per cent., having expressly reported that the former section would yield a nett profit of 6 and the latter section 4:13 per cent. Now that the Nánu-oya section is found to be a failure, its advocates say that the Haputalé section should be constructed at once, in order to realise a profit. It would not be surprising if, in the event of the Haputalé section also proving a failure, the Colony should be told that, without an extension to Badulla, it was never believed that the line to Haputalé would pay.
6. Your Memorialists beg to annex hereto copies of the speeches of the Hon. P. Rama Nathan and Hon. A. L. De Alwis delivered in the Legislative Council, the proceedings of the Ceylon Agricultural Association, and extracts or translations from Native newspapers," in order to show to your Lordship the remarkable consensus of opinion which prevails at the present day amongst Natives on the subject of the proposed
extension.
• Not printed.
No. 5.
GOVERNOR THE HON. SIR A. H. GORDON, G.C.M.G., to the RIGHT HON. THE EARL GRANVILLE, K.G. (Received July 26, 1886.)
(No. 259.)
MY LORD,
The Pavilion, Kandy, June 23, 1886.
I HAVE the honour to enclose for your Lordship's information, the copy of a letter addressed to the Director of Public Works by Mr. Prestage, Engineer to the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway, and containing an offer to construct a line from Nánu-oya to Uva, of a similar description to the Darjeeling Railway, at a moderate
cost.
2. I have also the honour to enclose a memorandum prepared by Mr. Waring, Chief Resident Engineer to the Nanu-oya Railway, which, though not exactly a report upon Mr. Prestage's offer (which had not been made when Mr. Waring's paper was written) contains a comparison of the statistics of Darjeeling and Ceylon lines, practically affording a reply to Mr. Prestage's proposals.
3. I must at once confess that an examination of the facts carefully brought out by Mr. Waring leaves no doubt on my mind of the innpplicability of a railway like the Darjeeling line for the purpose of the proposed extension to Uva. It would fail to satisfy the wants of the district it was meant to serve; nor could it be constructed so cheaply as may be, at first sight, imagined.
4. Mr. Waring shows clearly that the amount of goods traffic anticipated on the Nanu-oya-Haputalé Line, even according to the modest estimates of the recent Com. mission, framed on the actual transactions of the last few years, which were years of extraordinary depression, is more than three times greater than that existing on the Darjeeling Line, and that the number of passengers on the Haputalé extension will, on a low estimate, probably annually amount to eight times the number carried by the Darjeeling railway. To accommodate such an amount of traffic would require six goods trains and eight passenger trains per diem, of the character run on the Darjeeling Line, each way, a number which, to say nothing of its necessary accompaniment of high working expenses, is about three times as great as is consistent with the safe and efficient working of a single line of such a description. It should be remembered also that the bulk of tea and cinchona bears a much larger proportion to their tonnage than that of coal or grain, articles of which the amount carried on the Darjeeling Line, is, relatively to tea and cinchona, in excess of what wili be carried on the Haputalé Line. A larger amount of train accommodation per ton will consequently be needed on
the latter.
5. Mr. Waring also, I think, plainly demonstrates that the cost of construction would be very considerably greater than has been supposed.
The Darjeeling Railway runs throughout nearly its whole length over a road previously constructed at great expense (it is said to have cost Rs. 60,000 per mile), and Mr. Prestage's offer is based on the assumption that such a road, whereon to lay down his line, will be furnished to him by the Colony. No such road at present exists. It would therefore have to be constructed; and perhaps we may assume that it will cost a third less than the Himalayan road did, or say Rs. 40,000 per mile. It is unnecessary to comment on the great addition which would be thus made to the cost of construction, but I may point out, what is perhaps not so obvious, that such a road would necessarily be some miles longer than the present railway trace, which is nearly straight; while it is essential, on the principle of the Darjeeling Line, to take advantage of the natural formation of the ground, and make numerous curves. If, K 3
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