PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
Reference :-
TELEC.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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iv. Par. 23. "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.”
[6
"The Ratemahatmeya of Uda Hewaheta reported that the recovery of the tax "could not then be pressed without danger of so crippling the resources of "the people as to lead to danger of a "famine in the following year." These two sentences seem to me a little incon- sistent. "Distraint proceedings were at once stopped." But for how long? My impression is that they were almost immediately resumed. What were the dates of sales? Inquire.
2050.
MY LORD,
50
The recovery of the arrears were first pressed about the middle of 1882, and a great many sales were held in July of that year; it was those sales which led to the petitions to which I have already alluded.
The Ratemahatmaya's report quoted was written in November 1882, and, to the best of my recollection, sales were not renewed until after the ensuing paddy and chenai harvests. If thought necessary,
the sale lists can be procured from Nuwara Eliya, and the precise date of sales ascer- tained.
No. 6.
SIR J. F. DICKSON to LORD KNUTSFORD. (Received February 3, 1890.)
Singapore, January 2, 1890. FROM Some printed Ceylon papers (Sessional Papers XXIX., 1889*) I learn that in the Manchester Guardian" and elsewhere publicity has been given to a statement that a large number of deaths had resulted from starvation in the Nuwara Eliya District of Ceylon, and this statement appears to have no other justification than certain state- ments put forward by the Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya, who attributes these alleged deaths, in part, to the sale of certain paddy lands in 1882-5 in default of payment of the paddy tax, as the Crown rent for the fields is erroneously termed in Ceylon.
2. I here subjoin for facility of reference the summary given by Mr. Moir, Govern- ment Agent of the Central Province, of the authority on which Mr. Salmon based his letter to the "Manchester Guardian
44
•
"
→
•
On the alleged authority of the Ceylon Mail' Mr. Salmon asserts that 1,048 villagers, evicted by Government for non-payment of grain tax, died of starvation 'almost within sight of 'Nuwara Eliya. On appealing to the editor of the 'Ceylon Mail' for information as to how these exact figures were arrived at, with the view of ascertaining precisely who the persons were who died of starvation, and their places of residence, I found that that gentleman was not in possession of any original information on the subject, but he referred me to passages in the administration report of the Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya for 1887, wherein it was stated that between 1882 and 1885, 2,889 paddy fields were sold for default of payment of the paddy tax,' and 'that in the case of the fields so sold 1,048 of the late owners bad died'; also to the opening paragraph of an appeal on behalf of the Bodi-ela scheme, the prime mover of which is the Assistant Agent who wrote the administration report above quoted from, which sets forth that during the years from 1882 to 1885 large numbers of Kandyan villagers in the Nuwara Eliya District were ejected from their ancestral holdings by the sale of their paddy lands for default in the payment of the paddy tax, to lead a vagabond life, eke out a miserable existence by pilfering in the villages, to migrate to towns, and swell the 'criminal population of the country, or, as was often the case, to die of sheer starvation in the jungle.' And as at a meeting held in the Nuwara Eliya Kachchéri on the 12th March last, when the Bodi-ela scheme was advocateil, the Amistant Agent is reported to have stated that the paddy lands of which the villagers were dispossessed were 'their only source of existence,' it was perhaps not unreasonable for the editor of the Ceylon Mail' to conclude that the 1,048 deaths specified by the Assistant Agent in his administration report were to be attributed solely to the sale of the fields for the recovery of arrears of grain
+
tax.
"
• Enclosure in No. 4, pages 5 to 38.
51
3. Reading this summary with the Assistant Agent's letter of the 22nd July 1889, I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that it is sought in these sensational statements to attribute death and misery to my action as Government Agent in 1882-5 and to throw discredit on my administration, and these statements come from one whose action I disapproved, whose practice I had to condemn and reverse, and who was one of those mainly responsible, with his then chief, for the terrible state of arrears and general chaos with which I had to deal when placed in charge of the Central Province in 1882. It is on a point of discipline that I venture to address your Lordship in this matter, and to appeal to you to deal as you may think fit with this public servant who, after an interval of two or three years, thus publicly attacks the action of the head of bis province in a report intended for publication. Comments of the kind quoted above are not allowed by the regulations under which these reports are prepared, and they should not have been published; having been published, I submit that the writer must be held responsible for them. This attack certainly would not have been made were I in Ceylon, able there to defend myself on the spot, and had not been transferred to another Colony. I therefore have thus to trouble your Lordship, as I deem this my proper course of defence, rather than through my friends in the Legislative Council of Ceylon.
4. The report of Mr. Moir, to which I have before referred, shows conclusively that several of the alleged deaths took place before the sale of the fields, there is not therefore the excuse of the fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc; but I will go further and assert that no deaths were consequent on the sale of the fields, and this the Assistant Agent must know perfectly well. The fields sold were (if not all, almost all), exceedingly small in extent, and were, as a rule, outlying borders of ranges of fields which, from the circumstances of the people, were not worth retaining, as they could not be cultivated with profit, and only cumbered the rent roll when the people lost the resources which the coffee
crops had given them, and from which they had bitherto paid the dues on their fields, the title to which they wished to preserve by the payment of "tax;" they were, in fact, abandoned lands or lands become worthless for some reason.
5. With reference to the authority of Indian practice quoted by me as set out in the printed papers, I may perhaps be allowed to state that in 1873 I made an extended tour in India with a view to studying the principles of administration as practised in our Indian Empire, and that I specially studied the reports and writings of Sir George Camp. bell and Sir Richard Temple as being more applicable to the circumstances of Ceylon than reports from, e.g., the Punjab.
6. I will not go at length into an account of the attempts at combination to resist payment of taxes which were the result of long accumulation of arrears, but I find them frequently referred to in my letters at the time. I constantly pressed the Government to recognise the cruelty and hardship inflicted upon the people by neglecting to enforce the punctual collection of all revenue within the year for which it was due, and in 1884 I made some suggestions to the Government which were adopted (as will be seen on reference to the enclosed correspondence) with the result that arrears such as I had po deal with are now unknown, and even the Nuwara Eliya District is now, I am inforined, no exception to the rule I laid down for observance.
7. In the distressing and hateful duty I had to discharge in closing the arrears which had been allowed to accumulate, not only under the Grain Ordinances, but in the municipalities, in the towns, and under the Road Ordinance, I gave my personal attention to every detail and travelled everywhere throughout the province to see for myself what was going on; that I showed all possible consideration for the people will be seen froth the accompanying letter written by me when the work was approaching completion after more than two years of constant and harassing labour, and that this was fully recognised will be seen from the reply of the local Government which I attach.
8. Lastly, I attach copy of correspondence showing in some degree the nature of the misrepresentations which are made in Ceylon when the law for fecovery of arrears is enforced, That these misrepresentations should be made by native agricultural societies is sufficiently matter for regret; that this evil example should be followed by anyone in the public service is to me a matter of extreme surprise, calling, I subunit, for some notice at your Lordship's hands.
9. I would ask your Lordship to order that this letter with its enclosures be printed and laid before the Legislative Council of Ceylon, in order that the same publicity may be given to it as has been given to Sessional Paper XXIX. of 1889.
The Right Hon. Lord Knutsford, G.C.M.G.,
&c.
&c.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
&c. P.S.-I have sent a copy of this to the Governor of Ceylon.
• See Administration Report, Central Province, 1884.
J. F. DICKSON,
G 2
SIR,
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Enclosure 1 in No. 6.
Kandy Kachcheri, April 10, 1884.
I HATE the honour to submit the following statements and report in obedience to your letter, No. 8, of the 5th January last. The statements comprise the figures for the years 1871-82, se I find it impossible to get accurate figures for an earlier period.
2. The statements attached hereto are as follows:-
(i.) Land revenue of the Central Province collected in each year 1871-1882,
distinguishing the collections of arrears and current revenue.
(ii.) Land revenue of each district of the Central Province in each year 1871-1882,
collected as arrears and current revenue.
(iii.) Assessed taxes for police collected in each district of the Central Province in
each year 1871-1882 as arrears and current revenue.
3. The totals show the following results :~~~
(i.) Of the total land revenue of the province in the 12 years amounting to Rs. 2,436,149, a sum of Rs. 1,119,523 was collected as arrears, equal to 45 per cent. of the whole collections.
(ii) of the total land revenue of each district in the 12 years the collections in arrears
were as follows:—
Kandy Badalla
N. Eliya Matale
District.
Total-
Total Collections.
Collected me Arrears.
Percentage to
Total Collections.
848,978
230,686
852,120
619,277
878,101
182,917
361,950
2,436,149
86,643
1,119,528
27
72
52989
48
4.5
(iii.) Of the total assessed taxes of each district in the 12 years the collections in
arrear were as follows:-
District.
Kandy Badulla N.Eliya Matalo
Total
C
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