PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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TIC.O. 882
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5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
*
16,697.
(No. 259.)
MY LORD,
96
No. 17.
SIR A. E. HAVELOCK to LORD KNUTSFORD.
(Received August 25, 1890.)
The Pavilion, Kandy, Ceylon, July 26, 1890.
Ar the conclusion of paragraph 12 of your Lordship's despatch, No. 49, of the 28th February last,* you observe that you fail to see that a further investigation of the matter of the Nuwara-Eliya distress would serve any useful purpose.
2. Mr. Le Mesurier, who was Acting Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya in 1881, and who now holds that office permanently, having, however, taken exception to the statements made concerning him in paragraph 3 of Sir J. F. Dickson's despatch of 2nd January,† referred to in paragraph 2 of your Lordship's despatch, placed before my predecessor a letter addressed to your Lordship with the object of rebutting those statements. I think it is to be regretted that Mr. Le Mesurier should have thought it necessary to prolong the correspondence. But it is my duty to forward his letter, and I therefore do so. It will be seen that Mr. Le Mesurier calls attention to certain entries made in the cash and deposit books of the Central Province during the period of Sir J. F. Dickson's tenure of the office of Government Agent of that province. That the manner in which these entries were made would seem to have been irregular is shown by a report from the Auditor-General, a copy of which I enclose.
3. I also attach a copy of a letter dated 27th June, addressed to the Colonial Secretary by Mr. Le Mesurier, which he desires may be read as an annexure to his letter to your Lordship.
4. As it seemed right that Sir J. F. Dickson should have as early an opportunity as possible of seeing and commenting on the statements made by Mr. Le Mesurier, I have sent him a copy of the letter addressed to your Lordship by the latter gentleman, and also a copy of the Auditor-General's report.
I have, &c. (Signed)
The Right Hon. Lord Knutsford, G.C.M.G.,
&c.
MY LORD,
&c.
&c.
Enclosure 1 in No. 17.
A. E. HAVELOCK.
Nuwara Eliya, May 7, 1890. In reference to the letter of Sir J. F. Dickson to your Lordship, dated Singapore, 2nd January 1890, and to the following statement in the third paragraph thereof. "These statements come from one
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," I have the honour most respectfully to draw your attention to the following facts :--
2. Mr. Dickson in his letter No. 378/697, dated 10th April 1884, published with the above charge on the 15th of last month, in order, it would appear, to support his state- ment that the province was in a state of general chaos and terrible arrears, and to show how he had improved on this condition since he assumed charge in 1882, gives certain tables of arrears and recoveries in 1882 and 1883; and these would go to show that under his regime at the end of 1882, there were Rs. 2,645 less arrears in the Kandy district than at the end of 1881, when Mr. Templer was Government Agent.
3. Now these figures are arrived at thus:-Instead of taking all sums paid in after 31st December 1882 on 1882 tax account as arrears recovered, as should have been lone, the cash books and ledger for January and February 1883, and in part the collector's books for 1882, have been altered, and sums that should have been credited to the revenue of 1883 have been credited to the revenue of 1882; that is, all commuta tion monies paid in to the Kacceri during January and February 1883 have beer "back" entered as cross entry receipts on the 29th December 1882, and made to appeal as though they had been paid in on the 29th December 1882; that is, they appear as having been brought to account within the year for which the tax was due, and not as collected and paid in after the year had closed, as was really the case. These items in
No. 10.
† No. 6.
97
all amount to Rs. 8030.49, and if they are added, as they should be, to the arrears admitted by Mr. Dickson (namely, Re. 5,192) to have been outstanding on 31st December 1882, would increase these arrears to Rs. 18,222.43; that is, would more than double them, and show the arrears existing on the 31st December 1882 as nearly double the arrears at the end of 1881, when Mr. Templer was Government Agent.
4. The same system has been adopted in connexion with the item of police taxes. 5. In order to balance the cash book for December 1882, an advance equal to the sum total of these items, namely, Rs. 8,788.12, was made to the Government Agent from the road committes funds; and this appears as a cross entry payment on the same date, namely, 29th December 1882, a most irregular proceeding."
6. Again, in the cash books for January and February 1883, the head of service of the receipts under the original head of "land revenue has been struck out and altered to "deposits"; whether this alteration was also made in the copy of the cash book sent to the Auditor General for January and February 1888 I cannot say, but no equivalent entries appear in the deposit ledger and deposit cash book of the several dates, as should have been the case, but one lump sum of Rs. 8,857.87 appears as credited to the road committee funds on the 28th February 1888 as "road collections" from "Dekinda Arachchi and others," of which only Rs. 69.75 was "road collections from "the Dekinda Arachchi," or road collections at all, the balance being in reality the sum advanced on the 29th December 1882 to the Government Agent to balance the post-dated entries under the head of commutation and taxes on that date as cross entries.
7. If the same system had been adopted by Mr. Temple, in connexion with the arrears for 1881, that is, if all sums paid in during January and February 1882 had been credited to 1881, these arrears would have been reduced by Rs. 5,137.10, that is, they would have stood at Rs. 2,500 instead of Rs. 7,837, the amount stated by Mr. Dickson, and the commutation collections within the year 1881 would have been increased by the like sum, that is, the arrears in the Kandy District would have been far less, as indeed they were, the year before Mr. Dickson assumed duties, and the collec- tions far more than the year after his boasted system of "closing the large outstanding
ATTBATH had been in force.
39
8. Is this fair, I ask, to Mr. Templer and myself? We are publicly branded as responsible for "general chaos and terrible arrears ; and the gentleman making the charge supports it by altered accounts and incorrect entries in the cash books of his kacceri.
9. Again, as regards myself, I was office assistant at Kandy until the middle of June 1881; and how I, as such, could be said to be responsible for arrears in Badulla and Nuwara Eliya before that date-for the arrears had all accumulated before that date I leave Sir J. F. Dickson to explain.
10. After I had assumed duties at Nuwara Eliya in June 1881 I collected far more in actual cash, without any sale of lands, than had been collected during the previous six months, or the similar period the previous year; and since my re-appointment to the district in 1886 I have had no commutation arrears, I have closed my accounts sooner, I believe, than in any other district of the Central Province, and I have not sold a single field during the last three years.
11. When I left Kandy to assume duties at Nuwara Eliya in June 1881, that is, nearly a year before Mr. Dickson was appointed to the Central Province, the only commutation arrears in the Kandy district, where as office assistant I had most to do with the commutation and police tax collections in the kome district, and might be said to have been responsible for them, were in-
Outstanding on 31st May 1881
and recovered afterwards.
and police tax, Rs. 283.51.
Upper Dumbara Udapalata Uda Bulatgama
Rs.
778.36
652.56
52.35
In all Rs. 1,478,27
12. At the same date in 1883, that is, two years after I had left Kandy, and when Mr. Dickson was Government Agent of the Central Province, the commutation arrears in the Kandy district were as follows:-
1 62048.
N
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