CO882-(4-5) — Page 230

CEPER

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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between the figures quoted from the lists prepared at the time the events occurred and those obtained by inquiry several years later. Nevertheless, the figures as first stated are sufficiently established, and the evidence adduced at the inquiry is unanimous and conclusive as to the prevailing distress and numerous signs of starvation that existed throughout the district after the year 1881. On this subject the evidence is most impressive, and such as to account fully for the increased mortality over and above the normal mortality of the previous decade. Equally unanimous is the testimony of the witnesses as to the failure of all the people's resources, other than their paddy fields, by which the villagers had in former times made up for any temporary failures of their paddy crops. The evidence upon this point is specially important, in view of the admission made in the concluding part of the second paragraph of the report, to the effect that if their paddy lands had been the only resource of the villagers, it would be reasonable to attribute the mortality solely to the sales for default of grain tax. This fact is abundantly proved. The resources of the people, other than their paddy lands, were their chenas, coffee gardens, and job labour, such as felling forests and procuring firewood for the neighbouring coffee plantations. It is worthy of remark, in connexion with this part of our inquiry, that the policy of distraint for tax had the effect of deterring the people, in many cases, from cultivating even their paddy fields, which was their chief resource. Seeing that the crops would be seized and sold by the Government, they saw that it would therefore not only do them no good, but would ensure their eviction, as the lands were worthless except when in crop. The policy of distraint was therefore suicidal, and caused lands to be thrown out of cultivation, whether they were sold or not.

As regards their chenas, it will be seen by para. 46, page 27, that "as if the sale of "their movables, their paddy crops, and their fields was not enough, their chena

were sold for default of the paddy tax,” and a new (albeit illegal) tax was imposed in crops also 1885 on the chenas. On this subject it is stated in the report that the people complained in 1882, when the sales for default first commenced, that for several years their paddy crops had failed, and that their high lands (chenas) had

46 en confiscated " and taken as Crown property, whereby "they were reduced to extreme poverty, distress, and went.' Chena lands are supposed to be attached to almost all villages, as a resource in times of scarcity; and as this cultivation involves the felling of forest it is extremely laborious. It is also, as a rule, very unremunerative. The imposition of a tax on these lands, by the splendid Revenue Officer who ordained it, has the appearance at least of being a cruel device, especially to impose it when distress and want were prevalent throughout the district. But then it was a "cardinal rule of revenue administration," according to him, in the East, never to remit any land revenue." Albeit even the ancient native kings exempted chenas from tax, expressly because of the laborious nature of the cultivation. And there is no fact of ancient history more completely established than that taxes were always remitted in times of want. So much for chenas as a resource of the villagers in question in the time of their extremity. Their crops were sold, and their lands confiscated in 1882 when distress first began to press severely, and they were taxed in 1885 when adversity had culminated into starvation. No more relief was to be had from chenas.

In

The failure of the coffee gardens forms the subject of remark all through the case as a main cause of the disaster. Though the tax is levied on paddy, it appears by universal testimony to have been always paid by the produce of the coffee gardens and by job Jabour. When, therefore, the coffee crops failed the depression began, and had produced severe distress already in 1881. The paddy tax had already fallen into arrears. 1882, all chance of the recovery of coffee having vanished, the only revenue resource was by distraints; and these were begun in 1882. They were said to have been stopped in November of that year by the report of a threatened famine, but were apparently carried on nevertheless, for we see them reported in 1883, and succeeding years, as long as the lands would command a bid. The sales were not stopped as long as they would realise anything; and be it observed that although the Government upset price of paddy land, as advertised in the Government "Gazette," is Rs. 50 per acre, the lands were ruthlessly knocked down at these sales for sums of three rupees or less. Mr. White- foord, writing to us on the 23rd of July, says: "I have several times attended the paldy land sales, and it has surprised me much that the fields never fetched more "than the amount of the tax in default; in fact there is no competition." The failure of coffie cultivation is a matter of history. The plantations and native gardens through- out the country had been declining steadily siuce 1871, and the latter had alinost entily failed before 1881. The European planters were working their Tamil coolies short time, and had as much as they could do to fulfil their obligations to these

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labourers, Wherefore it was impossible for them to give employment to their Sinhalese neighbours. In fact, the work for which these were mostly employed, namely, the felling and clearing of forests, had ceased altogether, as extensions of the plantations, under the circumstances, were quite out of the question. Hence, this resource, by which the villagers had been accustomed to eke out their living in former times had wholly ceased at the time we are reviewing.

The only other employment available was upon the paddy fields of their neighbours, who, however, being all in nearly the same need, had as much as they could do to help themselves. It follows, therefore, and is abundantly proved in the evidence on which the report is based, that the chenas, the coffee gardens, and employment as labourers, the only resources available to the villagers on the failure of the paddy crops, were all swept away.

Even when the plantations began to revive, by means of the introduction of tea to take the place of coffee, the Sinhalese could not obtain work on the estates. They were strange to the work, were encumbered with families who could not be housed on the estates, and, above all, were so emaciated by the poverty and distress of several years past, that very few them could work. Moreover, these could not travel more than three or four miles from their villages to daily work. We have seen by Mr. White- foord's evidence (p. 33) that out of 73 candidates who applied to him for employment only seven were "fit to work." Surely this shows plainly enough that inability to work or to obtain employment, and not indolence, was the reason why they were unemployed. It may be mentioned that there exists an objection on the part of planters to employing Sinhalese, as a rule, for ordinary estate work, because they rush back to their villages when the season or weather requires them to cultivate their fields. Hence the preference shown for Tamils, who are too distant from their homes to desert the estates and flee thither. Under all these circumstances, it is not altogether surprising that out of 67 planters addressed by circular by the Assistant Agent of Nuwara Eliya in 1866, only 37 replied. Of these, 30 declined, five would employ Sinhalese condi- tionally, and two only were willing to accept the offer simply. Such then was the difficulty of getting work for the destitutes. Mr. C. H. de Soya has employed large numbers on his estates at Kuruwiti (page 17, para. 29), and Mr. Juwanis Soyza says that whole families came and settled on his estates at Hanguranketa latterly, although the villagers in his neighbourhood had previously been quite independent of labour for hire whilst their coffee gardens were productive.

Seeing that the Appendix abounds with unimpeachable testimony of the distressed, destitute, and starving condition of the people from 1881 onwards, illustrated by particular cases of persons in a dying state owing to want of food, and the evidence of witnesses who state of their own personal knowledge, as did Mr. Juwanis Soyzn, that Inany died from that cause, we can see no reason whatever for doubting the official statement that 1,048 of the evicted persons died of starvation and the diseases consequent thereon, by reason of the sales of their goods, cattle, crops, and, these failing, of their lands also. The statistics of population also confirm that view, and we leave to our readers to reconcile, if they can, the following conclusion of the Honourable Mr. Moir's report, where he says: that any unusual mortality in the district is not proved. Sec page 9, para. 24. We regard the whole of the concluding paragraph of his report as inconsistent, not only with the evidence, but with the part of it which he ostensibly admits.

Since the foregoing article was in type we have received a letter, which we insert on another page

from Mr. Whitefoord, who, in a letter to ourselves, says: "Am I not likely "to get more correct information from the people direct than the Government Agent, who gets his very official information at second or third hand!" We have already pointed this out with regard to our own personal testimony, as well as Commissioner's treatment of Mr. Whitefoord's.

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The Policy of the Government.

to the

We must not be understood in the following remarks as framing an indictment against any particular Governor or officer of the Government. Our object is to direct attention

to the general principles on which the paddy tax has been administered for some years paat, and the results of the practice as illustrated by the facts in evidence in the present case. And whilst availing ourselves of the impressive illustratious afforded by the particular case under review, we wish it to be borne in mind by our readers, more particularly by those influential ones who have a voice in the House of Commons, that I

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