with a population increased in Ceylon within the planting era by one hundred per cent., four to five times the quantity of cotton cloth is consumed, and ten times the quantity of food-stuffs imported into Ceylon. As a contrast must be mentioned a calculation made respecting the British pioneers of planting-the men who worked say from 1837 to 1870-which showed that only one-tenth THE FALLS OF THE HOOLOOGANGA: KNUCKLES. From a Photograph by II. Humphreys. of these benefited themselves materially by coming to Ceylon. Ninety per cent. lost their money, health, or even life itself. Latterly the experience is not so sad, especially in respect of health. The British governors of Ceylon have repeatedly acknowledged that the planting enterprise is the mainstay of the island. None have more forcibly shown this than Governor Sir William Gregory, who, in answer to the remark that the general revenue of the colony was being burdened with charges for railway extension and harbour works, benefiting chiefly the planting industry, said: "What, I would ask, is the basis of the whole prosperity of Ceylon but the planting enterprise? What gave me the surplus revenues, by which I was able to make roads and bridges all over the island, causeways at Mannár and Jaffna, to make grants for education and to take measures to educate the masses in short, to promote the general industry and enterprise of the island from Jaffna to Galle-but the results of the capital and energy engaged in the cultivation of coffee? It follows, therefore, that, in encouraging the great planting enterprise, I shall be furthering the general interests of the colony." Sir William Gregory was able to create a new province in Ceylon, entirely occupied by the poorest and previously most neglected class of natives-namely, the North-Central Provincewith roads, bridges, buildings, forest clearings, and irrigation works, solely by the surplus revenues obtained from the planting enterprise. The pioneer planter introduces into regions all but unknown to man a host of contractors, who in their turn bring in a train of pedlars, tavern-keepers, and others, eager to profit by the expenditure about to take place. To the contractors succeed the Malabar coolies, the working bees of the colony, who plant and cultivate the coffee, and at a subsequent period reap the crop. Each of these coolies consumes monthly a bushel of rice, a quantity of salt and other condiments, and occasionally cloth, arrack, etc., the import, transport, and purchase of which find employment for the merchant, the retail dealer, the carrier, and their servants; and, again, the wants of these functionaries raise around them a race of shopkeepers, domestics, and others, who, but for the success of coffee planting, would have been unable to find equally profitable employment. Nor are the results bounded by the limits of the colony. The import of articles consumed, as well as of products exported, gives employment to hundreds of seamen and to thousands of tons of shipping that, but for this increased trade, would never have been built. The larger demand for rice stimulates and cheers the toil of the Indian ryot; the extended use of clothing benefits the Manchester spinners and weavers and all dependent on them; a host of employés and middlemen are busy furnishing tinned and other provisions in food-stuffs for a planting colony; while the increased demand for the implements of labour tells on Birmingham and Sheffield, which also benefit, as regards the tea industry, by the demand for varied machinery, for sheet lead, hoop iron, and a host of other requisites. Who shall say where the links of the chain terminate, affecting as they do indirectly all the great branches of the human family? Then again, when plantations become productive, how many different agencies are called into operation. Tea and cocoa require a host of manipulators in the factories where, as a rule, all is prepared for shipment; but there is transport to, and handling at, the shipping port. Coffee requires far more attention at the seaport, for on arrival in Colombo the parchment coffee has to be peeled, winnowed, and sized by the aid of steam machinery; cardamoms are picked and sorted; cinchona bark is packed by hydraulic machines; and sometimes tea is re-bulked and re-fired: all these agencies which provide employment for engineers, smiths, stokers, wood-cutters, etc. Colombo "stores" in their best days (mainly through the drying, picking, and sorting of coffee) gave occupation to thousands (estimated at 20,000) of the industrious poor natives, and enabled them to support an expenditure for food, clothing, and other necessaries, the supply of which further furnished profitable employment to the shopkeeper, merchant, seaman, etc. This is of course still true to a certain extent. In fact, it is impossible to pursue in all their ramifications the benefits derived from the cultivation of the fragrant berry which was once the staple product of Ceylon. Other results, too, there are-moral ones such as must sooner or later arise from the infusion of Anglo-Saxon energy and spirit into an Eastern people, from the spread of the English language, and, what is of more importance still, the extension of civilisation and Christianity. The material change in the planting districts and the Central Province of Ceylon within the last fifty-five years has been marvellous. Villages and towns have appeared where all was barren waste or thick jungle; roads have been cut in all directions; and prosperous villages have sprung up like magic in "The Wilderness of the Peak." Gampola, Badulla, Nuwara Eliya, and Mátalé, which each consisted of a rest-house and a few huts, and Nawalapitiya, which had no existence at all in 1837, are now populous towns; while Hatton, Talawakelle, Lindula, Nanuoya, Panwila, Teldeniya, Madulkelle, Deltota, Haldummulla, Lunugalla, Passera, Wellimadde, Balangoda, Ratotte, Rakwána, Yatiantotte, etc., are more than villages. Some of the planting grant-in-aid roads, carried through what was dense forest or waste land, are lined for miles with native houses and boutiques, as also with native cultivation in gardens or fields. The change cannot be Mr. Hardy was accustomed to travel through nearly all the Sinhalese districts. Writing in 1864, he says:"Were some Sinhalese appuhami to arise, who had gone down to the grave fifty years ago, and from that time remained unconscious, he would not know his own land better described than in the words of the Rev. Spence Hardy, of the Wesleyan Mission, who, after spending twenty-two years in Ceylon, between 1825 and 1847, returned to England, and revisited the island in 1862. THE DEVON FALLS, DIMBOOLA: A PEEP FROM THE NEW ROAD. |