page 36

Chapter II.

Ceylon.

Ceylon has historically an important and picturesque past. Its present position is one of interest, but it has lost much of its picturesque element. For reasons whose validness, if at any time demonstrable, have never been made evident, the island has been subjected to a fiscal and economical policy which has not led to that prosperity which should ever distinguish British rule. It would not be difficult to prove how a different fiscal and economical policy would have led to more satisfactory results, and have brought more happiness and more prosperity to the old races who inhabit the island. The position is such that it is doubted whether 1,500 years ago the island was not better off than it is now after some centuries of European dominion, of which about ninety years have been British. It is satisfactory, however, to know that, notwithstanding the policy so long 'followed in the island and which is so opposed to everything that is deemed essential to prosperity by all parties in Great Britain, the colony can yet compare advantageously with the adjacent colonies of other nations. Such complimentary comparisions are often made, and, in consequence, it is to be feared that too low a standard is apt to be accepted by legislators and by governors for their platform. A British Crown colony should compare with no other place; it should stand alone as an example of a sound, enlightened, and generous policy practically exemplified.

When the forced labour—which probably built the tanks, and certainly kept them in repair—and the milder forms of slavery that existed in the island were abolished at the close of the year 1844, no other methods were adopted to keep up the tanks and supply the necessary irrigation for cultivators. Vast districts fell out of cultivation, and had to be abandoned by the population. It is true that before emancipation many of the irrigation works were neglected by the administration, and fell into decay. Some people doubted the wisdom of the abolition of forced labour on account of these results, but it is manifest that this just and statesmanlike act—which was imposed on the local administration by public opinion at home—should have been followed up by the necessary measures to keep established page 37 public works in repair. Any form of forced labour is well known to be at least as expensive to the community as paid labour, and, in fact, it is generally more expensive under modern conditions of society and law, and always unjust and irksome. The measure of emancipation was not in entire accordance with the views of the Government officials in the island, and these gentlemen, and their successors, have often pointed out how unwise were the British public to interfere with the gentle, paternal despotism that operated in their Eastern dominions. Forced labour, redeemable by fine, was kept on for the making and repairing of roads, because powerful interests were brought to bear. But the policy of this forced labour is also essentially bad and unwise. In recent times the fatal system of neglecting the tanks has been reversed, and large numbers have been repaired and put to work at considerable cost; between 1869-73, 3,000,000 rupees are stated to have been spent on them, the people finding the money; but a great deal yet remains to be done before the effects of past neglect can be obliterated. The abandonment of the tanks by the British Administration not only ruined thousands of proprietors and families, and caused large cultivated districts to relapse into jungle, but actually cut off the water supply for the consumption of the people, who were forced, in consequence, to drink from polluted sources, and died in vast numbers of the diseases thereby caused.

Forced labour has been recently revived, in some parts, for tank-repairing and the establishment and maintenance of irrigation works; owners of paddy land and villagers being compelled to give a certain number of days labour in each year, in proportion to their holding or interest, or pay a commutation fee. The system has kept tanks in repair, and has resulted in important local irrigation works, that were much needed, being carried through. The Government evidently also gets considerable advantages from these works, in the increase of its revenue from the taxes on grain; it, in fact, reaps the advantage of the tenants' improvements, albeit they have been obtained by compulsory labour. Besides the tanks, there are the necessary methods for the distribution of the water to be made and maintained, and it seems certain obsolete customs have been revived by local ordinances which practically result in a system of forced labour; the villagers being compelled to labour in the irrigation works for a number page 38 of days each year, sometimes receiving the average wages of the time and place, sometimes cultivators work without remuneration. Although the village communities (elected by universal suffrage) have been entrusted with some jurisdiction in these matters, it is almost certain the most powerful and influential among the villagers will find means to act unfairly to, if not to oppress, the poorer labourers. Such despotic systems of coercive labour always work that way, wherever they are in operation and however well they may be supervised. It seems the Government charges no water rates when the earthworks have been constructed by the enforced, unpaid, labour of the village cultivators, and it then also supplies, at its own cost (from the public taxes), the necessary masonry and ironwork connected with such works.

It is to be remarked, in connection with this subject, that the making of, and the repairs to, these village tanks and the attendant irrigation works, have vastly benefited the occupiers of the neighbouring lands, and the Government has reaped a large and more certain revenue. On the other hand, in those parts where such systems have not yet been enforced (or rather where village irrigation work has not yet been taken in hand), the land is often in a bad condition, and the revenue, of course, suffers in proportion; the paddy crops being uncertain, or there being none.

The argument that has naturally followed is that the system of enforced labour is suited to the island, and should be pursued and kept up, at all events for beneficial schemes of recognised public utility. Now an argument of this nature would be valid in any country on similar grounds. It is said the people are paid in those cases where it is proper they should be. But why should paid labour be forced unless the remuneration be inadequate? Why are not the railways also constructed by the forced labour of those who want them and who benefit by them, if it be the system suitable to the island, and for the construction of important works ? What are wanted in Ceylon, as in all tropical colonies, are good communications and serviceable irrigation works, and as these cannot be made at Ceylon, more than anywhere else, without costing their full value in labour and in material to some one, why not have them constructed, even as other public works are, by contract, and payable, as other public works are, by taxation or by loan? Why pursue a method degrading to the people, page 39 and certain to impede, for years to come, any of that real advance which depends more on an independent self-reliance, and a consciousness of freedom of action and absence of restraint than on anything else ? This revival and copying of Oriental despotic systems, even though they should be always applied with benevolent intelligence, is unworthy of a British administration, and is decidedly unsafe, however well it may be guided, and however ably it may be conducted; and, in fact, by such actions the local administrations are opposing the determination arrived at by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom nearly fifty years ago. The whole island paid for the railways that opened the hill country to British planters and capitalists, but the work required for irrigation purposes by the people themselves in their villages must be accomplished, it appears, by the unwilling, because enforced, labour of the local inhabitants, and be paid for on different principles. The Government profits more largely from these works than from any others. Much has been said about the advantages of these village communities, by which the country people are permitted to manage some of their own concerns, but in this respect they are only taxing machines. The ad-ministration itself must not employ forced labour or similar methods repugnant to the people of the United Kingdom, but it appears to think it may depute the power of doing so to others. Local bodies with real power may be much wanted in all the Crown colonies, but certainly not local bodies with mediaeval powers of coercion only.

It is the opinion of many high authorities that these irrigation works, undertaken and carried through by the village councils, which the administration sets to work, guides, and instructs, have been of great use. It is a misfortune that it should have been deemed requisite to have had recourse to such methods. It is impossible to justify enforced labour, especially in countries where it is so necessary to plant other notions among the people, and the use of such labour makes less favourable the contrast of British rule and authority with the despotic and unjust, as well as impolitic, systems known to be employed in Java, Sumatra, and other neighbouring places. It makes it really impossible for Englishmen to denounce oppression anywhere.

The opinion is not universally held that the cultivation of paddy is a paying concern in Ceylon, and many good judges hold that it would be better to raise other crops and get the page 40 whole of the rice from Burmah or India, where it can be grown much cheaper. Irrigation by tanks is useful and necessary for many other kinds of produce besides rice. The natural irrigation by river overflow in the great rice countries not only conveys moisture but manure. Sir C. P. Layard (a great Ceylon authority) deems rice cultivation in Ceylon the least profitable of pursuits for a native. To unprejudiced lookers-on it will appear as if the administration would not have interested itself so much in the matter were it not for the revenues derivable from grain. Irrigation will be wanted whatever may be the cultivation of the future. It is to be hoped a man's ordinary freedom of action will be allowed him in Ceylon, even should he reside where a village council holds sway.

The Government railways have been made from Colombo to the coffee and mountain districts; the money was raised by debenture loans, repayable by sinking funds. This is an outlay that was primarily almost entirely made in the interest of planters, but it will be of use to the island, although not of such immediate and permanent value as the restoration of the tanks and the spread of irrigation works on which the main agricultural interest of the people must always depend. In course of time railways will probably be extended over the whole island, and not into coffee and planting districts only. There were 178 miles of railway completed, and more under construction, at the close of 1883. There were also about 1,100 miles of telegraph-wires in use. As in all mountainous countries, subjected to a heavy and fitful rainfall, roads are difficult to be kept in effective repair, and this is no doubt one of the causes of that other special forced labour or road tax being continued. It will also be a reason why railways, in such countries, are generally a practical and economical necessity, and pay for their construction fairly well, nearly as well as the tanks.

The population in 1881 was about 2,764,000, the males being in excess by about 180,000; the 160,000 to 200,000 Tamils (Malabars or coolies), who come over from the coast of Coromandel and Southern India every year for several weeks or months to labour for the estates and on the public works, have comparatively few women among them, the more resident coolie labourers the same. The island races are divided into Cingalese, who number about three-fifths of the whole population, Tamils (Malabars) one-fifth, and Moors (Indo Arabs) page 41 nearly one-fifth. The remaining races, mixed and pure, comprise together only about i per cent, of the whole, and include the Europeans, the Burghers and Eurasians (descendants of Portuguese and Dutch settlers and mixed races) Veddahs, Parsees, Javanese, Afghans, and others.

In Ceylon the Government is the landlord. There are about 2,600,000 acres of land under different forms and degrees of cultivation. The amount of land privately held has been variously estimated; there is the Government estimate and there are other estimates from private sources which conflict. Some of the total estimated acreage of the island (15,909,000 acres) will be unavailable and unremunerative for cultivation purposes; deduction will also have to be made for foreshore, water, roads, and railways, but all of these are rendered remunerative for fiscal purposes by the revenue officials; further large deductions will have to be made from the possible cultivated area for forest reserves and other purposes not necessarily unremunerative to the administration. It is evident there is room for a large increase of the various industries connected with land. Of the cultivated land, some is privately held, having been purchased, but some is held on terms of yearly payment to the administration. The land held by planters has been sold to them; land has also been reputedly sold to native cultivators, but the sale is often an apparent one only, for almost all cultivators of grain and paddy have to pay a tithe of their produce, yearly, which practically amounts to a rent charge, from which raisers of other forms of produce are exempted. It has been shown that paddy cultivators are also compelled to make and keep up village tanks and irrigation systems. The land at present unalienated may be said to belong to the Government of Ceylon, in trust for the people of the island; much of it, indeed, consists of jungle and waste occupied and cultivated by the inhabitants in times more or less remote, before cultivation, villages, communities, and towns depreciated and fell away, and the misfortunes that ever attend on war and conquest overtook the Cingalese. The forest lands are said to amount to 2¾ millions of acres.

The 2,600,000 acres in cultivation (including natural pasturage) in the year 1883-4 comprised about 736,000 acres for different grain and rice, 293,000 acres for coffee, 950,000 acres for palms and natural pasturage, 260,000 acres for cocoa-nuts, 36,000 acres for cinnamon, 40,000 acres for cinchona, page 42 about 20,000 acres for tea plants, and 42,000 acres for cotton; 38,000 acres for cardamoms, vanilla, cacao, ginger, spices, and cultivated grass; 185,000 acres for different kinds of fruit and cane (the people make a considerable quantity of jaggery sugar for their own use from certain of their palm trees, and obtain sago from others). It is to be observed that these estimates are open to some variation in detail. A large capital is invested in the higher class of cultivation, commonly called the "planting industry," and more is being continually added. Certain products, such as coffee, sometimes fall off, and others, such as tea, have more ground given to them; but the above figures will give a fair idea of the position for the year 1883-4.

The chief produce raised for exportation is plantation coffee. In 1884 the amount was 13½ millions rupees, of which Great Britain took about £1,082,000. [In 1880 the value of this article exported came to £3,124,000—a small proportion is native grown. In 1881 the value was £2,000,000, and, £1,685,000 in 1882.] In the same year, 1884, cinchona, valued at about 4¼ millions rupees was raised, and nearly 1½ millions rupees in tea. Cacao (a recent introduction) gave 323,000 rupees. The cinnamon cultivation is almost entirely in the hands of the natives, the average yearly export for ten years (1874-83) was nearly £75,000. The areca palm nut is largely consumed in the island; there was an average export of about £93,000 annually during the ten years 1874-83. The produce of the cocoa-nut tree is chiefly exported in the form of oil, and the amount varies considerably every year; for ten years (1874-83) it averaged nearly £248,000 a year, and the local consumption of nuts and oil will be equal to many times the export. The fibre of the cocoa-nut is utilised in various ways. Plumbago is an important item of export on which the Government charges a royalty of 5½d. per cwt. The average yearly export for seven years (1874-80) was £123,000, and for the three years 1881-83 £244,000; the quantity exported in the ten years was 1,710,000 cwt, bringing £39,187 duty. The total produce of the island exported in 1884 is estimated to have been less in value than that of the previous year by 1,882,889 rupees. Ceylon re-exports some imports, but this trade also fell off in 1884 from previous years; it fell off nearly 950,000 rupees in 1884, compared with 1883. page 43 The imports of bullion and specie into Ceylon for the fifteen years 1869-83 amounted to about £11,600,000, largely from India, of which only about £1,341,000 appears as being re-exported. Some of this large balance probably remained in the island (the savings banks have about £200,000), but the greater part certainly has not remained, and much of it was doubtless taken home by the returning Tamil labourers and others leaving the island, and would not figure in any returns.

The total imports into Ceylon for the fifteen years 1869-83 were about 75¼ millions sterling, and the total exports 64 millions, a difference of 11¼ millions; but 10½ millions of this is accounted for in the specie returns above. For the two years 1882-83 the total imports were about £8,900,000, and the total exports £6,740,000. In 1884 the imports were 51,322,142 rupees (£4,811,450), of which 7,837,792 rupees (£734,793) was specie, and the exports were 33,720,134 rupees (£3,161,262), of which only 211,845 rupees (£19,860) was specie. In 1883 the imports of specie were 5,190,669 rupees (£486,625).

In the 8 years, 1869-76, the imports from Australasia amounted to £1,506,000, and the exports to Australasia to £406,000. In the 7 years, 1877-83, the imports from Australasia were only £313,000, and the exports thereto were £504,000; during the first period Australasia sent £1,100,000 more than she received, and in the latter period she received £90,000 more than she sent, with a diminished trade. On the other hand, in the 12 years ending 1883, the United States received £1,983,000, but there are only about £4,000 imports from that country during this period. In the 10 years 1874-83, Austria took nearly £3,000,000, but exported to Ceylon very little in return; in the 5 years 1879-83, the proportions were 18 to 1. During the 10 years ending 1883, France and her possessions sent £2,400,000, and took £1,700,000 in return. There was a balance due to them (£700,000) which was probably paid in bills. There was but a slight trade with Hong Kong, Mauritius, and Suez, and about £30,000 to £40,000 a year imports from the Maldive Islands.

The trade with the United Kingdom shows exports amounting to £28,821,000 for the 10 years, 1866-75; an average of £2,882,000 a year, and £17,331,000 for the 5 years, 1875-80; an average of £3,466,000. The value of page 44 imports from the United Kingdom (including bullion and specie, when given, and foreign and colonial produce and manufactures) for the 10 years, 1866-75, was about £14,070,000, an average of £1,407,000 a year; for the 5 years, 1876-80, it was £7,167,000, an average of £1,433,000 a year. During the 15 years, 1866-80, Ceylon sent to the United Kingdom £46,152,000, and took £21,237,000 (including specie).

In the 3 years, 1881-83, the exports to the United Kingdom amounted to £5,924,000 (Ceylon valuation), an average of £1,974,000 a year; and the imports from the United Kingdom were £3,676,000, an average of £1,225,000 a year (including bullion, specie, and foreign and colonial produce shipped from Great Britain).

The imports of manufactured cotton and twist averaged £855,200 a year for the 10 years, 1867-76, and £572,400 for the 5 following years, 1877-81. For the 3 years, 1882-84, the average was £490,000 (at 1s. 10½d. a rupee) of which about £247,000 a year was in cotton yarn and piece goods from the United Kingdom. The imports of haberdashery and millinery for the 10 years above mentioned averaged £73,300 a year, and for the 5 years following £89,000 a year, and for 1882-83 £73,000 a year (of which under £19,000 a year was from the United Kingdom). The imports of coal and coke averaged £172,000 a year for the 10 years, 1867-76, and £187,000 for the 5 years, 1877-81. In the 3 years, 1882-84, 556,645 tons were imported (in 1883, the United Kingdom sent 55 per cent.). The imports of cutlery and hardware from all countries averaged £36,000 a year for the 18 years ending 1883, but has been declining of late.

Ceylon, during the 18 years ending 1883, has imported from the United Kingdom £24,913,000, nearly no per cent, less in value than she sent to it (£52,056,000). During the same period of 18 years her total imports (including bullion and specie) amounted in value to about 89 millions sterling, and her total exports to about 74¾ millions. The United Kingdom, therefore, sent something over 27½ per cent, of total imports and took about 69½ per cent of total exports, during that period.

The Board of Trade returns, for the whole 18 years, show the exports to Ceylon from the United Kingdom to be about £7,750,000 (or 45? per cent.) less than the colonial valuations, page 45 and the imports from Ceylon to be about £10,000,000 (or 19¼ percent.) more than the colonial valuations for the same period.

In the year 1882-3 Ceylon imported from India rough and clean rice, grain, wheat, pulse and seeds, weighing 3,278,330 cwt., and in 1883-4 she imported 3,241,190 cwt. In the former year she also imported from India 2,729,034 lb. flour, and 2,938,296 lb. in the latter year. In the 2 years she took from India 8,120,737 lb. salt fish. The imports from India for the 18 years 1866-83 were valued at 55½ millions sterling, being 62 per cent, of total imports. The exports to India for the same period were valued at Ceylon at less than 12 millions sterling.

Next to rice and grains, the most important imports from India consist of cotton goods. In the 9 years ending 1884 their export value was estimated in India at £1,326,251, an average of £147,361 a year. India also sends over £8,000 a year in gunny-bags to pack produce for export. An item of import into Ceylon one would not expect to find is about £17,000 a year from India in vegetables and fruit, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables (some of which are re-exported). Ceylon takes nearly £25,000 a year in sugar from India, and £20,000 a year in special woods.

In the 3 years 1881-3 the duties of customs paid in Ceylon on grain, dried fish, curry stuffs, and sugar alone, all articles chiefly imported from India, were £769,413 (at 1s. 10½d. the rupee).

The total value of grain and paddy imported into Ceylon in the 17 years 1867-83 was over £2,300,000, and of cleaned rice nearly 295 millions sterling; during the same period the imported salt and dried fish was valued at over 1½ million, and curry stuffs were valued at about £880,000. Live stock, cattle, &c., were valued at £1,085,000, and poonac (to feed cattle and poultry and for other purposes) at £1,020,000. Most of these imports were from India and Burmah, and amounted to £36,285,000. In the 3 years 1882-4, the value of the above articles imported, amounted to 44 per cent, of the total imports of the colony. The quantity of rice alone was 16,764,400 bushels, valued at £5,110,000, being 37¼ per cent, of total imports during those years. The import duties levied on this rice at 29 cents a bushel was £455,782 (at is. 10¼d. the rupee), about 9 per cent, on its declared value. During the same 3 years paddy and other grain was imported page 46 into Ceylon, the duty on which at 29 cents a bushel for grain, and 13 cents a bushel on paddy, came to about £45,000.

In the same period the tax levied on grain grown in the island itself was about £276,000. This makes a total grain tax of £776,782 in 3 years, or the same proportion as if the United Kingdom paid about £3,400,000 each year on corn imported and grown at home. For a rich country like England this would be thought serious, but Ceylon is a poor country, where the wages of common manual labour are only a fraction of the like wages in England, and the tax is levied almost entirely on rice, the food of the poor. But these are not the only charges; home-grown grain has further burdens to bear. The Government tax (or rent) on lands under grain or paddy cultivation varies; it is sometimes more than one-tenth on paddy lands, but the tenants may redeem the annual extra charge, when more than the tenth, by effecting a commutation of it on the basis of a twenty years' assessment, and paying this amount in four instalments. From lands under fine grain, and not adapted for paddy cultivation, a tenth of the yearly produce only is exacted; Kandyan territories are exempted. The excise tax on grain has this much to be said in its favour, that it causes the Administration to be directly interested in the production of rice and grain, and consequently in the maintenance and spread of irrigation works. But the Administration could perform this essential duty for the people and obtain the necessary revenue more equitably. It is for statesmen and administrators to devise the best methods, and to abolish those which are bad. The taxes have no doubt fallen on uncomplaining shoulders. In fact, the cultivators of grain and paddy may not themselves object to the tax; it raises the cost of an article they produce, but which it should be the interest of every one else to make cheaper. No sound reasons can be advanced for continuing to impose a tax of this nature on a special industry when so many other sources from which revenue could be obtained are comparatively untouched. It is as well, also, to candidly acknowledge that taxes of this class-character lower the prestige of British administration; it is so evident that the same standard is not applied to the people who have a voice in these matters, and those who are administered patriarchially by an intelligent and benevolent despotism.

The Administration is composed of a Governor, an page 47 Executive Council of five officials, and a Legislative Council of nine officials and six non-officials, the latter being all nominees of the Governor.

If all cultivated lands were to be taxed alike, instead of those only under a particular produce raised exclusively by natives, and the most useful and essential one of all, and the least remunerative to cultivate, the Administration would come in contact with classes of cultivators of a very different type from the docile and submissive Cingalese. But no British Administration need fear doing right. A tax when spread over a larger area could be much lower in proportion for all. There is a point also of some moment to be thought of in these questions, and that is, who consumes, or would consume if they could, the most British merchandise, the absentee planter or the people ? After nearly a century of British rule, Ceylon takes yearly less of British produce and manufactures; the people are too poor to pay for more. The great prosperity so often talked of was simply the raising of produce for export, which planters sent to London because it happened to be the best market for its sale, and will probably continue to be so more and more. If the industrial and economical history of the Crown colonies proves anything, it is that this form of progress, when forced beyond its natural growth, is not of much permanent use to a colony or to its inhabitants, and it confers but little benefit on British industries. Except the planters, who are mostly absentees, the only people who profit at all are the merchants who deal in the produce, and the carriers of it. The money spent in wages gets distributed no doubt among the people, but these wages are terribly low, and it is seen the people have to spend most of them in buying Indian rice and paying the heavy taxes levied on it, and on their home-grown grain. Mr. John Fergusson, a most distinguished authority, in his work, "Ceylon in 1883," says:—"We have no reserve fund of past profits to fall back upon. . . . Money has been sent here to fell our forests and plant them with coffee, and it has been returned in the shape of copious harvests to the home capitalist, leaving us in some cases the bare hill-sides from whence these rich harvests were drawn." The speculation was undoubtedly a good one; Mr. Fergusson calculates (in 1883) that 18,000,000 cwt. of coffee were raised on 320,000 acres of plantations since 1849, the cost was 42s. per cwt., and it sold at 60s. per cwt., a profit of page 48 £17,000,000 in the aggregate. He laments lands now lying waste that for years enriched the owners. He might have added, the absentee owners who paid no taxes.

As Mr. R. Giffen stated at the Statistical Society's meeting, on the 21st February, 1882, "It is quite conceivable that a country may be very prosperous without foreign trade at all, or with very little foreign trade, or that for special reasons the foreign trade of the least prosperous country, as a whole, may be making greater progress than the foreign trade of a more progressing country. The progress of the foreign trade of different countries is thus no index at all as to their relative progress materially." Another important authority, Mr. Bourne, said: "Russia exports £50,000,000 of corn a year, but her people are worse fed, housed, and clothed than perhaps any other nation in Europe." The conclusion that must be arrived at is, that the raising of produce for export is a considerable factor in the progress of a colony, if the people inhabiting the colony are those who profit by the industry; but it is not necessarily the most important one when they do not do so; and no administration will be doing its duty if it confers on an absentee planters' industry special facilities at the expense of the general population.

It is not easy to describe the system so as to bring it home to Englishmen, and make it understood by them, this system of looking at a colony chiefly as a produce exporter; it has been so often praised, and taken as a standard of the highest administrative ability. But supposing at their own Norman conquest the conquerors, instead of becoming Englishmen, had remained strangers, and had likewise brought over foreign serfs for a term of years from the Continent to cultivate the land, but not permanently to dwell on it, and had paid these serfs out of the proceeds of cultivation just enough for them to live on while they remained, and then exported the whole of the crops so raised to the Continent, and pocketed the value, the English people (the Saxon serfs) having nothing to do in the matter, and having no concern in the industry that was exhausting the best selected soil of their country. They must also imagine the Saxon serfs had to get the food they could not raise on the plots of land they were allowed to occupy from abroad, and pay high duties on its entry, paying a like duty on the grain they raised for themselves. It is said, of course, the people in the colonies prefer this system, because they will not work page 49 themselves, and, in fact, do not wish to do so. The Tamils in Ceylon, and the coolies in the West Indies, may be thought by some to be as the Irish coming across to assist in the English harvest, but the conditions are not by any means the same. The results of the system speak for it, and prove it to be one by which no country can permanently advance in wealth, and no home of a people can ever be made happy and prosperous. The cultivation of a country is never on a secure basis except it be in the hands of the permanent inhabitants, and indissolubly bound up with their family life, their interests, and their hopes. It must not depend only, or even chiefly, for its support and its existence on foreign capital and foreign enterprise. This foreign capital and this enterprise may fail, or they may seek other lands, or, having made the profits sought after, they may retire on the fruits. But a people cannot retire from business; with them the struggle must be eternal and ever to be renewed; the richest and the poorest, the oldest and the newest countries have to struggle and to work; the moment they cease to do this they die.

It is to be remarked that the duty on rice in the husk is 13 cents, and on cleaned rice it is 29 cents a bushel; as it takes rather over 2 bushels of rice in the husk to make 1 bushel of clean rice, this makes the duty on rice in the husk about the same. The export duty from India is the same on rice in the husk as on clean rice (3 annas a maund, about 61/8d. per cwt.), the consequence is that the importation of rice in the husk into Ceylon is very limited indeed, because, on the whole, it thus pays a higher duty (including Indian and Ceylon duties) than clean rice. In tropical countries rice in the husk will keep a long while, and may be stored up; but cleaned rice is perishable, and rapidly deteriorates. It is obvious that the system pursued, even were duties on grain an unobjectionable form of taxation, is the worst possible; it makes it difficult for the people to take due advantage of a cheap and abundant harvest and low prices to store up grain, and constrains them to live, as it were, from hand to mouth on a perishable and deteriorating commodity. It is well known that people often prefer to purchase the article that is ready for immediate use, even if the quality be somewhat inferior to that which might be had by more trouble; but on the score of cheapness and health, it must often be better could the people obtain sound rice in the husk, which they can clean themselves by manual labour, to page 50 rice cleaned in India and full of dust and weevils. In order to equalise the price of rice in the husk and clean rice to the people of Ceylon, the former, at all events, should enter the island free. It takes much labour to unhusk a bushel of rice.

The salt-tax is not much felt by the bulk of the population, but it is said to act injuriously on the health of the people who inhabit remote places; it undoubtedly hinders agricultural improvement in well-known directions.

The revenue for the seven years, 1867-73 (at 2s. the rupee), was £7,464,831; for the seven years, 1874-80, it was £9,792,138; for the three years, 1881-83, it was £3,585,434 (at 1s. 10½d. the rupee). For the first seven years the duties of customs amounted to 25 per cent, of the revenue, for the subsequent seven years they amounted to over 20 per cent, of it, and for the three years, 1881-83, they were about 22 per cent, of it. Besides the ordinary revenues, there are local revenues for local purposes, amounting to about £200,000 a year. Municipal bodies are elected in Ceylon by a high and therefore limited franchise.

There is an item of revenue which exists in this colony (and, indeed, in too many other of the Crown colonies) which compels every male between the ages of 18 and 55 to give six days' work a year on the roads, or pay 1 rupee 50 cents (2 rupees in Colombo). If, as with a conscription, every man physically capable were compelled to work the six days, the law would be absurd, but it would be just in the abstract. At present it amounts to an unjust tax; the revenue from it in 1883 was 704,294 rupees, in 1878 it came to 928,793 rupees. [Indian coolies employed as agricultural labourers are exempted, also those seeking employment as such; this is an exemption entirely in favour of the planters, who are the only employers of this foreign labour.] This Ceylon law is generally regarded as a remnant of the "Raja-caria," the forced labour of bygone days. But the fact is that colonial officials, when they proceed from one colony to another, are apt to take with them their old established views with regard to systems they find operating in some backward settlement they have been administering, and many colonies thus get inoculated with views that have been condemned by every politician and statesman in Europe. This tax of 1½ rupee is paid equally by the labourer, who only uses the road by walking on it barefooted as a passenger, and the pro page 51 prietor who uses it to have brought to his door in waggons and carts every commodity of a well-to-do household. [Of course he pays also for his waggons and carts.] The local price of good able-bodied labour averages 35 cents of a rupee a day, but it is doubtful whether a man between 45 and 55 years of age could earn more than two-thirds of this amount; the 1½ rupee represents 4½ days' work to the average good labourer, and to the middle class man an hour's work. The revenue for general purposes of government amounts to about 8s. 6¼d. per head of population; compared with Mauritius this is very low, not quite 4½ rupees per head (the rupee at 1s. 10½d.), against 24¼ rupees at Mauritius. But it represents over 13 days' labour to every able-bodied working man in Ceylon (at 35 cents a day), and the same for his wife and each child (because the average of taxation is based on the entire population); together with road labour, and after allowing for certain deductions for family earnings, the taxes the Cingalee adult has to pay represent two months' labour of 26 days each to the working man a year (who has a wife and three children), at the Ceylon rate of wages—35 cents a day = 9 rupees 10 cents a month of 26 days; this at 1s. 10½d. a rupee = 17s. 0¾d. For a family of five = 1 per day each (30 days to one month).

There is no objection to the amount paid in taxation in Ceylon, if it be raised by safe and sound methods, and wisely expended. Wages, it is seen, are very low, and there is no reason why they should not continue to be so. But in order to increase the quantity and efficiency of this cheap labour it will be necessary to make the food of the people abundant and low-priced. Ricardo laid it down that the natural price of labour was regulated by the cost of food. Exceptions have been taken to this statement; perhaps it should include all other primary wants as well as food. It will always, however, be largely true as regards unskilled labour everywhere.^* Sir E. Watkin, M.P., in a letter to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Irish Industries, dated 25th June, 1885, said:—"When the labourer passes from the stage of underfeeding to that of good nutrition he can do more work, and he always does it." The fiscal systems actually in operation in Ceylon, with regard to food, make it difficult, if not impossible, for the labourer, at page 52 present wages, to subsist adequately. There is an excise duty of at least a tenth on the production of most grain raised in the island itself. This is an old form of taxation which may not have been specially injurious in the olden time when the people lived and worked under entirely different conditions to those of the present day. In those days, also, the tanks and irrigation works brought richness to every field; there were no other ways for raising revenue, and commerce, agriculture, and industry were carried on by different, and defunct, methods, and the island produced more than was wanted for a population, at the lowest estimate, five times more numerous than that of the present day. But Ceylon does not and cannot now raise enough grain for half its people. It therefore seeks rice in India and Burmah. There is a tax levied on the export of this article from India at the rate of 61/8d. the bushel; it is taxed again on entering Ceylon at 6½d. the bushel. It is well known that many people in the island are driven to find unwholesome substitutes for the food thus partly placed out of their reach by fiscal arrangements.

The Government expects to be recouped for the expenditure on irrigation works, irrespective of the tax of 1/10 th and upwards charged on most corn and grain grown in the island. A local Ordinance, passed in 1873, enables cultivators to convert the repayment by 10 annual instalments [for the outlay on works on irrigated lands], into a fixed charge in perpetuity of one rupee an acre. When land is not irrigated there is often a limited crop, and sometimes no crop at all. The Administration gains by the certainty of abundant harvests and the attendant prosperity. The Government, by this one rupee an acre, is repaid, more or less, for all outlay on repairing tanks and other irrigation works. It has been seen that the Administration takes, besides, about a tenth or upwards of nearly all the grain and rice crops raised by the capital, enterprise, and labour of the native cultivators. In the 16 years 1868-83 this tenth land revenue amounted to 15,395,000 rupees, while during the same period all other land revenues only amounted to 1,512,000 rupees.

Import duties are as follows: on rice, wheat corn and Indian corn, and other grain, 29 cents of a rupee (about 6½d. a bushel), on paddy (rice in the husk), 13 cents of a rupee. Wheat flour, 1 rupee per cwt. Dried fish, 50 cents per cwt. Ghee, 2 rupees 50 cents per cwt. Bacon, butter, ham, and page 53 cheese, 3 rupees per cwt. Salted beef and pork, 1 rupee 25 cents per cwt. Tea, 25 cents per lb. Jaggery, or palm sugar, 50 cents; brown or muscovado sugar, 1 rupee 25 cents; and refined sugar, 2 rupees 50 cents per cwt. Salt, 2 rupees 13 cents per cwt. Cocoa-nut poonac, 25 cents per cwt. Pickles, sauces, confectionery, cocoas, 6½ per cent, ad valorem. Spirits under proof, 7s. 6d. per gallon, and in proportion to strength. Ale in wood, 3d. per gallon, and 7½d. per dozen. Wine in wood, 11½d. per gallon, and 1s. 5d. to 2s. per dozen. Tobacco, 2½d. per lb., unmanufactured; and 55/8d. manufactured; is. 10½d. per lb. snuffs and cigars. The following articles pay 6½ per cent, ad valorem duty: candles, petroleum, pitch, vinegar, carriages, perfumery, stationery (except paper and envelopes, which are free), chemicals, soap, earthenware, glass and leather goods, clocks and watches, linseed and vegetable oils, hats and caps, gold and silver ware, starch, house furniture, linen, hempen and jute goods. Silks and woollens pay per cent., and cottons, 5 per cent, ad valorem. Pig iron pays 4s. 8¼d. per ton; bars and rods, 7 s. 6d. per ton; angle and Swedish, 9s. 4½d. per ton; corrugated, 13s. 1½d. per ton; galvanised roofing, 28s. 1½d. per ton; nails and rivets, 23s. 7½d. per ton; blister and cast steel, 18s. and 23s. 5½d. per ton. Lead, 11½d. per cwt. Zinc, in slabs, 11¼d. per cwt; perforated zinc, 5s. 7½d. per cwt. Brass and copper, 5s. 7½d. per cwt. Tin, 11¼d. and 1s. 4¾d. per cwt. Guns and rifles, 7s. 03/8d. to 14s. 0¾d. each; pistols, 4s. 25/8d. to 8s. 5¼d. each. Gunpowder, 55/8d. a lb.; shot, is. 41/8d. a cwt. Saltpetre refuse, not used in manure, 11¼d. a cwt Cement, 3¾d. per cwt.

The exemptions are instructive: all machinery, railway iron, iron hooping and tanks, millwork, steam engines, bricks and tiles used in machinery buildings, manures, acids, fuller's earth, saltpetre refuse used in manure, mineral oils and grease, turpentine, rosin, coal and patent fuel, fire-clay, printing materials, mill and grinding stones, roofing slates, coil-yarn, rope, fibre, etc., horses, pianos, pictures, and gunny bags (to pack produce for export). A new industry has been introduced into Ceylon in recent years by the planters, because coffee was failing; this is the growth of tea. Tea is packed in lead, therefore tea-lead is now also exempted from duty. These exemptions have nothing to be said against them, but they embody the chief materials imported by planters' for their business, and it contains few articles the people make any use page 54 of. The free village communities had evidently no hand in the framing of this list.

The spirit distilled in Ceylon, called "arrack," is manufactured by distillers who pay an annual licence of thirty rupees to Government. The number in 1883 was one hundred. The exclusive privilege of retailing this arrack is annually put up to auction in the several districts of the island. The renter is often the distiller also. The cost of the spirit, wholesale, is from seventy-five cents to one rupee a gallon, but the retailers are bound to sell it at a fixed rate, usually about three rupees to 3.50 rupees a gallon, sometimes more, as may be determined; taverns to sell arrack only pay no licence, but a general liquor shop has to pay 100 rupees. The Administration of the island is more than usually interested in the consumption of these spirituous liquors manufactured in it; it gains by the increased value of arrack farms (which show a steady rise). Combinations among arrack-renters have been known to endeavour to corner the Government and lower the selling price at auctions. In 1883 there were over 850 arrack-renters, about 140 liquor shopkeepers, and over 3,000 toddy-drawers in the island, besides distillers; but the Cingalees, from all accounts, are not an unsober race; some of the other races are not abstemious. Beer and porter only may be retailed on a ten rupees' licence, and the licence for selling intoxicants, not to be consumed on the premises, costs thirty rupees a year. The licence for liquors to be drunk on the premises costs 100 rupees a year. An hotel licence is 250 rupees.

The Ceylon system of licences is very searching, and comprises many industries, and the stamp duties are very elaborately set forth, and have been complained against for their irksomeness.

All servants must be registered, and sometimes the master, sometimes the servant, has to pay the charge, which is from a quarter rupee to half a rupee each time.

Timber may be cut in the Government forests (the Government owns all the forests) on paying a licence and 25 per cent, of the value of the timber. Jungle may be cut on payment of one-tenth, except in the northern province, where the charge is one-fifth of the estimated value. The quarries (in the western provinces) may be worked by payment of a royalty of 3 rupees 75 cents for every 1,000 stones, o6 cents a cartload of cabook soil, and 03 cents for sand. Dead chanks may be dug for on page 55 payment to Government of a fifth of their estimated value. The Government sells salt to the dealers at 2.36 cents per cwt.

The exclusive privilege of selling liquors distilled from palm-trees, and toddy generally, as well as the sale of arrack and rum, is farmed out in each province by Government

There are certain tolls (a long list) collected on roads and bridges as well as for canals and ferries, and these are also rented or farmed out by the Government. For the local taxes in towns there is an assessment rate of 5 per cent, on property within the limits.

Matters are not always as quiet in Ceylon as they might be in administrative eyes. It appears that in some quarters of the island police are specially stationed, at the cost of the inhabitants accused of misconduct. This is an extreme measure, and the power to apply it ought not to be among the ordinary functions of an irresponsible administration. The cost of the administration of justice for the criminal classes is nearly £90,000 a year. There are between 1,600 and 1,700 regular police, costing about £60,000 a year.

The export duties are 200 rupees for each elephant, plumbago 25 cents per cwt., coffee and tea 5 cents per cwt., and cinchona 10 cents per cwt. The export duty on plumbago is virtually a royalty.

Wages for able-bodied daily field labour vary from 25 cents, or a fraction over 5½d., to 50 cents, or 11½d.; 7½d. a day is deemed good wages. Domestic labour is paid for at about the same rate. Other labour is paid, from unskilled at 3½d. per day, to 1s. 10½d. a day for skilled. Labourers are also engaged for periods, receiving at the rate of about 14s. a month, more being paid for special duties or exceptional capacity. Bread is said to be 5½d. per lb., flour being purchasable at from 33s. 9d. to 67s. 6d. the barrel of 196 lb. Bread is evidently not greatly in demand, for a barrel of flour can make 270 lb. The food of the people is rice, which may be bought cleaned at from 3s. 8d. to 5s. 7½d. the bushel; and in the husk, at from 1s. 8½d. to 1s. 11½d. the bushel. Beef sells from 3½d. to 5½d. per lb., and mutton from 5½d. to 11d., and pork at 5½d. Meat is cheap, but the quality is inferior.

A labouring man requires one bushel of rice a month in Ceylon (a native of Africa will want half as much again, at least); a man, wife, and three children will want at least three bushels a month—a total of thirty-six bushels a year for the family, cost- page 56 ing for the lowest qualities perhaps 144s. The road tax will be 2S. 9¾d. for himself; the State taxes will be 8s. 6¼d. per head, or 42s. 7¼d. for the family; but as 19s. 6d. of this will have been included in the cost of the rice, the balance remaining to be paid will be only 23s. 1¼d. If a man be a good labourer, employed the whole year round, he will earn in 300 days, at 7½d. a day, 187s. 6d. After the above deductions, he will have 17s. 6¾d. left. But there will be some local tax, or forced labour, or bad weather, or illness, or all combined, to take something from his earnings, leaving him probably a balance of only 2s. or 3s., often nothing. He has yet to supply a home, clothing, and the various other essentials of the commonest existence. His wife and children will earn wages when competent to do so. In such cases the expenditure will also have to be greater for food necessaries. The greatest of mysteries in Eastern countries is how people manage to live. The official returns show that the population of Southern India earn less than 1d. a day per head; it used to be ½d. per day (their prosperity has recently doubled). Things are perhaps better in Ceylon, but life is dearer there also. It is of immense and paramount importance to look clearly into the minutest details of taxation and economic systems in such countries, for the ruin of a people is easily accomplished, their physical powers sapped, and their life-blood and vitality drained away from them for ever. The probability—the certainty, is that the people of Ceylon do not and cannot obtain or purchase enough food for a decent and healthy existence. The population do not live in these countries, they exist; and neither mental nor physical energy can ever be expected from them. It is melancholy to see travelled and instructed people speaking of these and similar races as being unfitted by Providence for those rights and duties which it is nevertheless certain the beneficent Creator intended all mankind equally to possess. A course of starvation extending over generations has had its depressing and demoralising results, and Nature is charged with giving birth to effeminate races when they are only a people suffering from the consequences of impolitic and oppressive economic systems. A food tax, however light, is the most unjust, as it is the most dangerous method by which revenue can be raised in such countries as Ceylon.

The mortgage laws are much complained of by parties interested in such matters, and they make out a strong case. page 57 It is only in accordance with the strictest common sense that while people are disputing about property before a court of law, it should not meanwhile become valueless by the abandonment of all cultivation. In tropical countries, unless cultivation be kept up, a property, within a very short time, becomes a mere jungle. It may be necessary to go to a court of law to have a claim determined, but some method should be at hand to keep the property from deterioration or, may be, ruin.

The shipping returns show (for 1884) 3,294 vessels inwards, measuring 1,758,445 tons; of these, 135 (steamers) measuring 217,490 tons, called at Colombo to coal, and 318 (steamers) measuring 432,731 tons, called at Galle. Of the above vessels 2,379, averaging 8o½ tons each, were colonial coasters, and doing local trade with India and adjacent ports chiefly; 745 were British, and averaged nearly 1,730 tons each; 79 were French, averaging 1,955 tons each; 37 were Austrian, averaging nearly 1,724 tons each; and 10 were Italian, averaging 1,487 tons each. There was an increase of 76,082 tons in British shipping over the previous year, but there was a decrease of 20,058 tons in colonial shipping, and of 40,525 tons in foreign shipping. Most large steamers, British and foreign, on their way to and from China and the eastern ports, call at Ceylon, and this accounts for much of the above tonnage.