CO882-(4-5) — Page 205

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TEC.O. 882

5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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taken over on so extensive a scale 4,002 in number for the whole of the district,” representing tax to the extent of Rs. 17,457 unpaid

In Walapane the rent of seventy-six fields was put up for sale. In sixty-two of these cases no bid at all was received."

I do not, indeed, see how persistence in the plan could have ended otherwise than in the utmost confusion in respect of the collection of the grain revenue. It is improbable that a full fourth of any crop would in any instance have been recovered; to bring whatever was recovered to some centre for sale would have been an expensive pro- ceeding; and it is unlikely-such has been my experience elsewhere in respect of tithe collected in aumani-that whatever paddy was collected would have realised anything like the market price. The account for each of the numerous fields thus treated must have spread over several years, and a costly addition to the establishment would have been necessary to keep such a number of separate petty accounts. In short, apart from the fact that the method temporarily adopted could not be legally carried out, there can hardly be two opinions that Sir John Dickson was quite right in reverting to the only legal method of recovering the commuted grain tax, viz., by the sale outright of the property of defaulters. That the irregular method of collection adopted, which was, however, conceived with the very best intentions, is responsible for a great deal of the hardship which the recovery of the arrears of tax and of the current tax by the sale of fields in 1882 entailed, I entertain no doubt. In the numerous petitions presented just after the earlier sales, the petitioners invariably asked that they might be allowed to pay then, and that the sales might be cancelled. This seems to me to show that these persons could have paid, but would not pay, their dues before or at the time of the sale, believing probably that the Government would buy in the land, and that they would not be deprived of it. I also observe that in his Administration Report for 1883-the year after Sir John Dickson first pressed for the recovery of the outstanding arreare and for the prompt payment of the current tax-Mr. Baumgartner wrote: Very large recoveries were made in December on "account of the current year's tax, about 50 per cent. of it having been got in in this month. This was in anticipation of defaulters' sales, and the readiness with which money was forthcoming to pay the tax leads one to the belief that there is not really the extreme difficulty in raising means that the people represent to exist." This also goes to show that the people probably could have paid in 1882 had they chosen to do so.

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21. Walapane appears to have been always, proverbially, a poor, ill-conditioned district, and, whether justly or not, the population as a rule have been looked upon as an indolent and unthrifty lot of people. Previously to the introduction of coffee. planting they depended largely on the produce of chenas. When the coffee industry spread, native gardens were extensively planted, and as gradually the extent of pro- ductive chena land available was reduced by the sale and by the prohibition of the clearing for chena cultivation of forests, the people came to depend almost entirely upon the produce of their coffee gardens. Paddy cultivation, although maintained, was not appreciably, if at all, extended, notwithstanding that population increased, almost rapidly, under the influence of the prosperous times which characterised the years when the production of coffee was a highly remunerative industry. And the fields were, individually, of such small extent-they had been divided and subdivided into such diminutive shares-that it was quite impossible for the increased population to subsist on the produce of the paddy lands alone." Of the 16,978 fields which I have said were commuted, 9,318, or over 54 per cent., were fields half an acre or less in extent; and although, no doubt, each family owning paddy land usually had shares in several fields, still the trifling area of the majority of the commuted fields indicates that the aggregate of the holdings of each family was small. The rice grown certainly fell far short of the food requirements of the population of the district, and when the failure of the coffee enterprise deprived them of the means of getting money with which to buy food, obviously such failure directly affected all those who had depended on the coffee crop, and reacted on the paddy land owners who, with reduced resources, had increased demands made upon them for charity both by those not owning land and by those become entirely dependent on chena cultivation, when the chens crop failed, which not uncommonly happened. The like was the case in parts of Uda Héwaheta also, chiefly in Gangapaláta.

22. The indigent condition of the people was by no means unknown to, or dis- regarded by, the revenue officers in charge of the district or by Government. Since 1872 certainly if not earlier, numerous suggestions have been made from time to time with the view of improving the means of irrigation, and of thus facilitating the

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extension of rice cultivation. Several small works have been carried out, and within the last few years the construction of irrigation elas has been undertaken on a large scale. It is perfectly true that the straitened condition of the people has, notwith- standing, increased, and seems to be increasing; but obviously a remedy which will alleviate the misery of so many so scattered over a not easily accessible, and in places a decidedly unhealthy, country, brought about by a disaster of such magnitude as that of the almost universal destruction of the coffee tree throughout the particular districts, cannot be devised or applied all at once. Any remedial measures, calculated to be of permanent effect, must take time to carry out, and meanwhile I do not see how the prevalence of distress to a greater or less degree can be avoided.

23. Whether or not it was good policy in 1882 to enforce the payment of arrears as rigorously as was done is hard to say. It is easy to be wise after the event. And although, now, I have no doubt that there was a considerable and increasing poverty generally amongst the people of the districts where these sales were carried out, and although it might seem that, in view of the previous laxity of system, it might have been well, whilst insisting upon prompt payment of current revenue, to have been more forbearing as regards the arrears, still there is nothing to show that, at the time, the officers charged with the duty of collecting the revenue had reason to believe that the defaulters were really unable to pay; they, at any rate, seem to have endeavoured to cause as little hardship as possible.

In a letter* addressed to the Colonial Secretary just after the first series of sales, when several petitions had been presented praying for cancellation of the sales, Sir John Dickson wrote that he had made a special circuit through the Nuwara Eliya district to afford the people an opportunity of making any complaint, and of satisfying bimself that while the rights of the Crown were duly enforced, every reasonable precaution was taken to guard against any harshness or injustice. "I am so satisfied," he stated, "and found no ground for complaint." And when, about that time, the Ratémahatmayá of Uda Héwaheta reported that the recovery of the tax could not be then further pressed without danger of so crippling the resources of the people as to lead to danger of a famine in the following year, distraint proceedings were at once stopped. Moreover, as I have previously shown, there were grounds for believing that some, at any rate, of the defaulters could, but would not, pay what they owed; that there was a combination to prevent recoveries being effected. No one at rate will or can justly charge Sir John Dickson with intentionally taking, or with countenancing, proceedings calculated to injure the Kandyan people. Where there were so many defaulters to be dealt with, and where the immediate steps taken for the recovery of the dues had to be left to subordinate officers, it is not surprising, however much it is to be regretted, that some cases of grievous hardship did, as I believe they did, occur.

any

24. In conclusion, that any villagers were evicted in the ordinary sense of the term is incorrect; that 1,048 villagers whose fields were sold for the recovery of the grain tax died from want in consequence of the sale of their fields has, I think, "been sufficiently shown to be incorrect; that in some isolated cases death was hastened by reason of the sale of the fields, I believe to be true; and that distress was in many cases aggravated by such sales I also believe. But that there was any unusual mortality is not proved; nor do I believe that the condition of the people generally was materially affected by the sales, their impoverished state having been the result of causes much more comprehensive in their effect.

25. I append the following, viz. :—

1. Copy of Mr. Salmon's letter.

II. Copies of correspondence with the editor of the "Ceylon Mail."

III. Copies of correspondence with the Assistant Government Agent, Nuwara

Eliya.

N.B. The lists referred to in the Report No. 779, dated 22nd July, are not sent; they are very voluminous.

IV. Statement of arrears of tax.

V. Abstract of particulars of fields commuted and of fields sold for arrears. VI. Copies of notes of evidence taken.

I am, &c. (Signed)

R. W. D. MOIR,

Government Agent.

• No. 1,848 of 21st November 1882.

* 62048.

C

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