CO885(1-2) — Page 159

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But how much of these votes was actually expended in each year it is impossible to ascer- ta In 1845, for which year alone detailed rtuins have been received, the actual expeudi- ture was 99,2521. We may assume, therefore, that the actual expenditure during the five years on Public Works did not on an average much exceed 50,000%. a-year.

Such having been the relative state of revenue and expenditure in 1845, and the statistics of former years exhibiting a similar or more favour-

able aspect, Sir E. Tennent assumed that there Papers. April 1848, p. 36, &c.

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was neither a surplus nor a deficiency to be taken into calculation, and that the existing even balance of account would be preserved, if he took care, that whatever revenue he gave up was replaced in equal amount by revenue of some other kind.

Sir E. Tennent's plan embraced no alterations of moment in the scale of expenditure, except one which would have been made at the expense

of Great Britain, viz., the discontinuance of the Papers. April 1848, p. 87.

military contribution of 24,0001 a-year towards the pay of the military force. His plan was otherwise confined to a change in the form of the What he revenue, but not in its gross amount. took off in one shape was to be put on in another. The burdens of taxation were on the whole to be not smaller, but were to be more fairly and rea- sonably distributed and adjusted than before.

The first object and basis of Sir E. Tennent's plan, as is also true of the plan of the Committee and of that actually carried out by Lord Torring- ton, was the abolition of the whole of the export duties.

Sir E. Tennent considered these as unsound in principle, injurious in effect, and impossible to be retained now that European capital had flowed so largely into Ceylon, and that along with this circumstance a numerous and intelligent local body had grown up of European merchants and duties consisted in Ceylon export planters. The of Cinnamon duty 18., per lb., producing 25,0001. a-year, and of Coffee duty 24 per cent. ad valorem producing nearly 10,000l., total 35,000l.; the

minor articles upon which an export duty was

realised being of no importance.

The Cinnamon duty Sir E. Tennent thouglit Papers. April 1848, p. 70, &c.

Papers. April 1848, p. 91, &c.

Papers. April 1848, p. 78, &c.

had evils of its own which specially called for its immediate abolition. The competition of Cassia- an inferior kind of Cinnamon grown in many parts of the East had become year by year more formid- able. The successive reductions of the duty from 38. a lb. which it was before 1837, to 2s. 6d. in that year, to 2s. in 1841, and to 18. in 1843, had failed to revive the Cinnamon trade, which was now threatened, Sir E. Tennent thought, as well as the revenue derived from it, with permanent extinc- tion. The Cinnamon revenue in short was now past recovery: by a timely abandonment of what remained of it the Cinnamon trade might yet be saved.

A small portion of the abandoned Cinna mon revenue would re-appear in the shape of a land tax, which Sir E. Tennent proposed as part of his plan, to apply to all the lands of the colony, no lauds but rice lands up to this time being by law or custom subject to a direct tax. As this land tax was to be fixed at about 38. the acre for cultivated lands it would bear no comparison as a burden with the export duty, which represented

a tax on each acre of cinnamon land of no less than 708.

The

prospects of the coffee trade at the time Sir E. Tennent proposed his plan did not appear gloomy. The export duty on coffee should be abandoned, however, he thought, as unsound in principle and inapplicable to a trade in which the competitors were daily becoming more numerous. Papers. April 1848, pp. 93 and 94. The land-tax on coffee estates would replace the burden on the coffee trade to a certain extent,

Papers. April 1848, p. 64.

Papers. April 1848, p. 99.

but the imposition and amount of this new tax was not treated by Sir E. Tennent on the footing of an equivalent for the export duties, but was suggested with reference to the general recommendations of a land tax, as a source of revenue, and to the right of the Government to impose such a tax if it thought proper. The uniform rate which he proposed of about 3s. the acre for coffee as for other lands would be equivalent to perhaps one-half of the export duty of 24 per cent. ad valorem.

The other objects of Sir E. Tennent's plan were the reduction and eventual abolition of the import duty on rice and paddy, and the con- version of the tithe hitherto levied for Govern- ment by immemorial custom from rice-lands, into

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