Here, finally, is how the alienation of CROWN LANDS, under successive Governors, compares :

Total: acres 1,028,384 £2,053,905 £1 19 11

Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock, K.C.M.G., succeeded to the Government of Ceylon in May 1890, and while continuing the active beneficial policy of his predecessor in respect of railway extension and other desirable public service, His Excellency after a few months' experience chose to recommend the abolition of the "Paddy" rent or tax, the only branch of Land Revenue in the island. Unfortunately this levy on rice cultivation was removed without touching the corresponding Customs duty on imported rice, so establishing Protection in its worst form. This abolition was given effect to by Lord Knutsford as Secretary of State, in opposition to the opinion of nearly the whole Civil Service and four previous Governors of Ceylon, the last of whom, Sir Arthur Gordon, had prepared the way for the removal of all the obnoxious features of the Paddy tax without destroying the just principle of an internal rice levy balancing the Customs duty. This subject is fully dealt with in another chapter.

CHAPTER V.

NATIVE AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING INTERESTS.

Paddy (rice) Cultivation-Cinnamon-Coconut, Palmyra, Kitul, Arecanut, and other Palms-Essential Oils-Tobacco-Cotton-Sugarcane-Other Fruit-trees and Vegetables-Natural Pasture-Local Manufactures.

W

WHETHER or not Ceylon was in ancient times the granary of South-Eastern Asia, certain it is that long before the Portuguese or Dutch, not to speak of the British, era, that condition had lapsed, and so far from the island having a surplus of food products, the British, like their European predecessors, had to import a certain quantity of rice from Southern India to feed their troops and the population of the capital and other chief towns.* There can be no doubt as to the large quantity of rice which could be grown around the network of tanks in the north and east, which have been lying for centuries broken and unused in the midst of unoccupied territory.

Driven from the northern plains by the conquering Tamils, the Sinhalese, taking refuge in the mountain zone more to the south and west, found a country in many respects less suited for rice than for fruit and root culture; but yet, under British as under native rule, rice or paddy-growing continues to be the one most general and favourite occupation of the Sinhalese people, as indeed

* Old Sinhalese records show that rice was imported into Ceylon from the Coromandel Coast in the second century before Christ.

it is of the Ceylon Tamils in the north and east of the island. Agriculture, in their opinion, is the most honourable of callings, and although in many districts fruit and root-that is, garden-culture would prove more profitable, yet the paddy field is more generally popular.

Nowhere in Ceylon are there tracts of alluvial lands so extensive as those which mark the banks and deltas of rivers in India, and the average return of rice per acre in Ceylon, under the most favourable circumstances, is considerably below the Indian average. It was the opinion of one of the most experienced of Ceylon civil servantsSir Charles P. Layard, who served in the island from 1829 to 1879-that the "cultivation of paddy is now the least profitable pursuit to which a native can apply himself; it is persevered in from habit, and because the value of time and labour never enters into his calculations." This view has since been contested (in 1885) by an experienced revenue officer, Mr. E. Elliott, who shows that rice cultivation is fairly profitable; but his calculations refer chiefly to select districts, rather than to the island generally. In some parts of the western, in the Matara division of the southern, and in the Batticaloa district of the eastern provinces, very profitable rice fields are the rule, and large crops are also grown under irrigation in the north-central province. On the principle, however, of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, it would appear that the rest of the rice cultivators in Ceylon could more profitably turn their attention to plantation and garden products, such as coconuts, areca or betel-nuts, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cacao, tea, cardamoms, and fruits of all tropical kinds (even putting tea on one side for the present); then, selling the produce to advantage, they could buy rice from southern and northern India and Burmah more cheaply than they can produce it. But it is impossible, even if it were politic--which we doubt-to

revolutionise the habits of a very conservative people in this way; and therefore, so soon as the sale of forest land to planters, and the introduction of capital for the planting enterprise, put the Government in possession of surplus revenue, Sir Henry Ward acted wisely in turning his attention to the restoration and repair of such irrigation works in the neighbourhood of population as he felt would at once be utilised for the increased production of grain. In this way he changed a large extent of waste land into an expanse of perennial rice culture, for the benefit of the industrious Mohammedans and Hindus of the Batticaloa district in the Eastern province. Similarly, he spent large sums for the benefit of the Sinhalese rice cultivators in the southern districts.

Sir Hercules Robinson conceived a statesmanlike law, by which expenditure on irrigation works, chiefly village tanks, on terms far more liberal to the people than any offered in India, formed a part of the annual budget. Most cordially was this policy supported by his successor, Sir William Gregory, who, moreover, entered on an undertaking of greater magnitude than any previously recorded in British times: namely, the formation of a new province around the ancient capital of Ceylon, and the restoration of tanks and completion of roads and bridges within its bounds, sufficient to give the sparse Sinhalese population every advantage in making a start in the race of prosperity. At a considerable expenditure, spread over four or five years, this was accomplished, and a population of some 60,000 Sinhalese and Tamils were thereby more directly benefited than they had been by any of their rulers, native or European, for several centuries back. Curiously enough, not the Sinhalese but the Tamils-who have been called "the Scotchmen of the East," from their enterprise in migrating and colonising --are likely to take chief advantage of the expen