By Sena Thoradeniya
(Excerpts from a Forthcoming Publication Titled Dumbara Rata”)
(1) Introduction
Still our Kalu Suddhas lament that Ceylon lost British planters owing to granting of Independence” to the country and then impending nationalisation of the plantations. They add that the brown sahibs left the country owing to Sinhala Only” Act and later Land Reforms carried out by Mrs. B’s Government. The theory behind this lamentation is that British speculators, adventurers, wanderers and risk-takers (before they became Planters) came here with the good intention of developing a colony, bringing new technology and transferring technology and entrepreneurship to locals, investing their profits in other ventures for the advancement of the country and so on and so forth. If one takes the tea industry it continued for more than a century having a very simple manufacturing process from withering, rolling, firing, sifting and packaging and marketing black tea in bulk without any innovation, automation or value addition.
In this essay we do not intend to discuss about the plantation system, how it was established, evolved and financed, planters’ life styles, their psyche and management style and the Agency House system as they do not come under the purview of this essay.
Objectives of this essay are (1) to discuss some selected engagements of some British Colonial administrators who served in the Central Province with a segment of their own countrymen, Planters, and (2) to show how some Colonial policies were injurious to the Kandyan peasantry in the period from 1870 to 1895.
Central Province consisted of four administrative districts, viz. Kandy, Matale, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla. In 1886 Uva with Badulla District was declared a separate province.
(2) Extension of Nanuoya Railway
Continuous agitation by the planters for the extension of Nanuoya Railway line to Haputale and beyond was not to the liking of some colonial administrators. Government Agent of the Central Province P.A. Templer’s observations (1884) are important to our investigation.
He writes: This is a question whatever may be the financial condition of the Colony which is never allowed to rest by the owners of estates cultivated by means of English capital. The reason is not far to seek. The planter who is working here with his own or with borrowed capital is desirous to make what money he can in a few years and then sell out and return to England with his increased capital. There are no settlers who seek to make Ceylon their home: they are sojourners who wish to make money and go away never to return. Hence that happens, that railway extension in Ceylon means in the daily press and in common talk.”
Templer sees that the extension of the railway (is) for the benefit of certain estates”. Thereby their value will be greatly increased”.
Railway extension will not be considered in this report in this spirit. It will be regarded as a question of great importance to future and permanent good of the country and of the landowners and settled inhabitants of the country”.
Salient features of Templer’s observations are:
(i) Agitators for more and more railways had not considered the financial condition of the Colony;
(ii) Agitation was done by planters and the press;
(iii) Owners of estates had planted estates with English capital: his own or borrowed capital;
(iv) He is desirous of making a quick buck and sell his property and return to England with increased capital;
(v) They are not settlers who seek to make Ceylon their home;
(vi) Then we see Templer’s harshest condemnation: they are sojourners who wish to make money and go away never to return;
(vii) Extension of railway will benefit certain estates; their value will be greatly increased allowing the owners to sell them at a higher value.
The same thing happened at the time of construction of cart roads. Planters agitated for more and more cart roads. They saw the value of their properties increasing with the construction of cart roads. Speculators with the connivance of officials who worked in the Survey Department and the officials themselves bought properties where cart roads had been traced.
(viii) Templer regarded railways as of great importance to future and permanent good of the country and of the landowners and settled inhabitants of the country”. Thereby he had envisaged a landowning class of British origin and British settlers in the country.
In a few isolated cases only, this did not happen in Ceylon as in other British colonies such as colonies in the Caribbean, South Africa, Rhodesia and Kenya. America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand should be added to this list. There are many reasons for this, physical, economic, cultural and demographic factors and supply of labour.
It will be fascinating to study what railway lines Templer and some other British administrators had suggested instead of extending the railway to Badulla via Haputale; they were railway lines from Kandy to Batticaloa via Dumbara Valley (connecting it to Badulla) and from Matale to Mannar respectively.
C.J.R. Le Mesurier the Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya District, (or Assistant at Nuwara Eliya to the Government Agent for the Central Province), held a different view about the Haputale line. He wrote: Although the Haputale Railway Extension will be of the greatest direct utility to the Uva Province it will indirectly confer a very great benefit on this District from the great extent of waste and uncultivated land it will open up. Almost from present terminus of the railway until the end of the new extension at Haputale Pass the line will pass through a long unbroken extent of unoccupied Crown forest and Patana land ; when this is opened up and cultivated – as most of it must be when the railway passes through it- the benefit to the District will be great. There is no reason why the valley on the Dimbula side of Middle Camp should not become a second Nuwara Eliya. It is as well sheltered and it has a fine river running through it and it is one of the most beautiful places in the hills of Ceylon”.
Le Mesurier does not say that the extension of Haputale line will benefit the planters. Although he uses the word waste” he should be pardoned because he was advocating the benefits the railway will bring to Uva Province and opening up a Second Nuwara Eliya”, may be a second sanatorium” for fellow colonial administrators!
But W.E.T.Sharpe, Government Agent of Central Province (in 1887) saw its benefits differently; Railway extension to Uva, now happily sanctioned by the Secretary of State”, will not only relieve that long-suffering Province but will prove of incalculable benefit to the Province…..leading to the opening out of cultivation along the line …”
G.S. Williams the Assistant Government Agent of Matale(in 1870) was hoping for large receipts in land sales in future, connecting Matalewith Kandy by railway leading to the opening of the fine tract of forests which extends from Laggala to the back of the Knucles Range”. He disapproves the prevailing idea” that the Laggala lands are subject to severe blowing and says that sheltered slopes” favourable for growing coffee” are available with the introduction of belts of trees”.
Availability of Laggala lands were brought to the focus again by Robert Massie, the Assistant Government Agent of Matale in 1873. He was of the opinion that the violence of wind can be greatly checked by leaving belts of forests here and there instead of pursuing the old plan of a general burn” regardless of the quantity of timbres”. Thus, the British administrators had to admit that the devastation done by the coffee cultivators to virgin forests of the highlands. Massie thinks only of quantity”, disregarding quality” of timbre resources destroyed.
(3) Le Mesurier and Grain Tax
Le Mesurier and his superiors were involved in a long-drawn ding-dong battle over the imposition of the obnoxious Grain Tax which drew Kandyan peasantry to starvation and compelled them to sale their fields.
In 2020, I have published an article entitled Le Mesurier: The Hero of Kandyan Peasantry” (The Island: 05 November). In my novel Madaran” (2020) I have celebrated Le Mesurier’s efforts in alleviating poverty of Kandyan peasants and how he fought with his superior officers against the sale of paddy fields for default of Grain Tax, portraying him as a powerful character.
From the day he assumed duties as the Assistant Government Agent, Nuwara Eliya in June 1881, Le Mesurier had an entirely different view about the Grain Tax and how it was recovered from the peasants. Where default was made and repeated attempts to recover the amounts due failed, he seized the fields on behalf of the Crown but did not dispossess the owner or sign the certificate of sale. The fields did not change hands at all and each proprietor was allowed to possess and cultivate his field as before. The cultivator was allowed to pay the arrears of the tax together with the tax for the current year from the next harvest. If not ¼ of the crop was appraised and was sold by public auction to the highest bidder. The same course was repeated at the next harvest and if the amount due is recovered in full the field was handed back to the cultivator.
Although this scheme on paper looks beneficial to the cultivator, as theorised that the cultivator was not deprived of his property and arrears recovered at harvest time only , no seizure and sale of whole crop, and no sale of household goods and chattels did occur, had not given adequate to the majority of farmers of Walapanewhere the most number of evictions took place.
We do not intend to discuss here different modes of paddy tax or commutation tax (Mada Badda in Sinhala) its origins, how it was collected from the peasants, different amendments made to it and finally the Grain Tax Ordinance of 1876 as they are well documented by Professors K.M. De Silva and Michael Roberts and Dr. D. Wesumperuma although in different perspectives. Incidentally Dr. Wesumperuma’s Masters’ Thesis was on Evictions of Walapane.
P.A. Templer, Government Agent, Central Province in 1885 had to admit that the present assessment both as regards to extent and yields of crop” too high”. Unfortunately, the people had to pay the survey fees to rectify the errors they complained in the extent of their land.
R.W.D. Moir, the Government Agent in 1888 also admitted that in some cases tax is too high”; a complete reassessment was not made of all fields”; no such assessment has been made for seventeen years”. This amply shows that the peasants for well over 17 years were forced to pay exorbitant rates without any reassessment.
Le Mesurier’s successor G.A. Baumgartner was rather sympathetic towards peasants. He reports extreme poverty in greater part of Walapane, failure of native coffee, protracted drought, fever and other sicknesses and the people were on the borders of starvation”. He differed carrying out sales of their only property-their fields, allowing the defaulters to gather their crop. He too found that the assessment of many fields in Walapane was excessive.
Why then the poor peasants signed the commutation register knowing that their fields were over assessed? For the sake of collateral advantage as securing a record of ownership, than they accepted the agreement. Complaints were made regarding the excessiveness of the assessment. But the assessment was being carried out on the principle of making little changes. The owners of over-assessed fields abandoned them. Funny part of this tax was that allowing the defaulter to buy his own land from the Crown!
The headmen who were ordered to distrain property for recovery of the paddy commutation found that there was hardly any property to seize and that the only property available was some materials in the dwelling house or a single coconut tree. There was no movable property whatever in the cases of 9/10 ths of the defaulters.
I am personally aware that many people living on the brink of starvation and without any clothes but rags hardly sufficient to cover them decently.” But Baumgartner shows his English egoism saying that they are the people most reluctant to go to work away from their villages, that is in the European estates.
Cecil John Reginald Le Mesurier was again appointed as the Assistant Government Agent of Nuwara Eliya in 1886 and continued until 1891. A new tax was introduced in 1878.
He provided some startling figures, the results of the policy of selling out land of unfortunate villagers for their arrears of commutation tax during the four years preceding 1886; 80% of the number of lands in constant cultivation at the last commutation have been abandoned; fields sold; many families had left the district; a decrease of over 10% of total population; their fields were purchased by fellow Kandyans, low-country men, Moors and the Crown. The causes for high default were over-assessment of the fields and the high rate enforced for a bushel of paddy as compared with the market price at harvest time. Paddy selling at Maha in Walapane and Uda Hewaheta was 50-75 cents a bushel whereas the commutation rate was Re. 1/= and Rs.1/30 in Walapane and Uda Hewaheta respectively.
Le Mesurier’s solution for this was, to have made a clean sweep and to have started afresh”. If not, results will be disastrous; a decrease in land revenue to the Crown; a diminution of area under paddy; decrease in the village population; influx of low-countrymen, many of questionable reputation; lawlessness in the villages; and a large increase of thieves and in vagabond population in the district.
Le Mesurier answers to the question why these people don’t go to estates; estate pay hardly compensates their efforts; villagers were paid a quarter of a bushel of rice for 6 days’ labour; distance they had to travel was too far from their abodes.
Le Mesurier was bold enough to make his own observations regarding Governor’s remarks about the Grain Tax. He criticised Sharpe’s arguments as untenable”. He said Sharpe’s criticisms do not touch the questions at all”. If Mr. Sharpe’s arguments were the only ones in its favour it would not difficult to show how fallacious they are.”
Le Mesurier’s main contention was that the Grain Tax is now a land tax instead of a tax on the produce of the land and the cultivator instead of giving 1/10 th of his produce to meet that tax is taxed more than that, often as much as 1/5 th. He illustrated the points he had raised taking into consideration annual yields and value per bushel at the threshing floor; but the Grain Commissioners had computed the tax according to the market rate. With the approval of Sharpe, Le Mesurier computed rates in Walapane and Uda Hewaheta and found that the value of paddy at the threshing floor was as 64 cents per bushel. Uda Hewaheta and Walapane fell into arrears because of the high rate of over assessing.
He concludes that all the fields on which the tax was too heavy had been already sold.” Land became the property of wealthy persons having bought them for a song at the default sales. He debunks Sharpe’s assertion that the Crown buys in where lands do not fetch their fair value at the sale for default. Le Mesurier stresses that the land did not fetch its fair value. The highest value paid per acre at such default sales in the district was Rs. 23/=. Crown bought land when there were no bidders. He ridicules Sharpe that his explanations were a greater confession of the injustice of the present system”.
Le Mesurier proposed amendments to the Grain Tax Ordinance, to make the crop of the field liable for the tax and not the land itself” and to fix the price of paddy per bushel for the purposes of tax at the rate ruling at the threshing floor at harvest time. He firmly believed that the Grain Tax has effected a drastic change in land ownership. This was not contemplated by the framers of the Ordinance. Something should be done to arrest the change before it leads to disastrous results”. He predicted what would be befallen on the peasantry. Describing the plight of the peasants he was courageous enough to say that it would be better that the revenue should suffer than the people”. The greatest inducement a native can have to be honest and hardworking is the possession of a paddy field.”
He said that depriving a person of his landed property rather than his person and movable property was an act against new criminal codes”. While arguing that a new commutation system was introduced to do away with the abuses of the older systems, illegal profits of and extortion by the collectors, now what had happened was exaction of more than the Crown is entitled to”. Loss of population in the country is a far greater evil than loss of revenue.”
The price of paddy in this district ranges from 50 cents to 87and ½ per bushel at harvest time at the threshing floor, according to locality” but the Grain Commissioner has fixed Re. 1.20 as the rate to be paid, that I would wish to see amended”. I would therefore suggest that the Grain Tax should be continued as a commutation tax on the produce of a field; that it should be levied only when there is a crop on the land.”.
He estimated the production of rice (in bushels) in each division of Nuwara Eliya District and calculated a Nuwara Eliya peasant receives for his annual consumption. It was 3 and 2/3 in Kotmale, 4 in Uda Hewaheta and 4 and 1/6 in Walapane respectively. Even this supply was not available for consumption as 1/10 ths had to go in payment of Grain Tax.” He wrote that prisoners in jail get about 8 bushels per head per annum!
Le Mesurier repeatedlywrote about the evils of the Grain Tax. In my Administrative Reports for the last two years I have persistently advocated a change in the rate of the grain tax; and last year also gave my reasons at length why the grain tax should in my humble opinion be abolished altogether. I have no reason in the interval to alter my opinion in any way.”
He replied to his critics who brought counter arguments against his suggestions. One such argument was that the expenditure on irrigation would cease. Revenue from whatever source it is derived would still be spent for the good of the people and irrigation where necessary would go on as before”. He said that the revenue that will be derived from his proposed land tax replacing the Grain Tax would be a considerable one and this could be spent on irrigation.
What he proposed was a moderate land tax” as a fairest method of raising revenue; it would soon enable the government to do away with the salt tax and the road tax”. He proposed to establish an excise tax instead of the present – most objectionable method of taxing arrack”. His suggestions were to reduce establishments and continue taxation to three sources- the land, the liquor and the customs; to curtail the profits of the middlemen i.e. arrack renters. He also proposed a tax on imported liquor, a considerable addition to the exchequer”.
As compared with other colonies the better classes of Ceylon are very lightly taxed and with the abolition of the inland paddy tax and the imposition of a graduated land tax the poor would be relieved of a great burden, while rich would contribute more fairly and equitably towards the cost of administration”.
The present high-income agitators of Sri Lanka who protest against excessive taxes should learn from Le Mesurier and forward an alternative method of taxation.
W.E.T. Sharpe, Government Agent of Central Province in 1886 understood that value of paddy (Re. 1/= per bushel) was not sufficient to pay the tithe and road tax, but was callous enough to say that it will induce in increasing number of villagers in the vicinity of European estates to seek employment there”. He had thought that sudden increase in tea cultivation would affect the labour supply in the estates. Getting Sinhalese labour is a safeguard against” failure to get labour from India in time. Sinhalese labourers are easily managed and give no trouble if paid weekly wages and allowed to return at the close of each day to their homes outside the estate.” I know a gang of Sinhalese are now residents in lines and treated in every way as Tamil coolies are.” In time however they may prove a valuable addition to the labour force of the district”.
Sharpe says that the new commutation agreement which was in force from 1887 was in extreme accuracy”; redresses grievances and eases the burden where possible. He does not forget to censure Le Mesurier: practical relief given, forms the best answer to the criticisms of my Nuwara Eliya Assistant on the working of the Grain Tax Ordinance”.
Sharpe ridicules Le Mesurier’s sympathy” for the peasants. In reply to Le Mesurier, Sharpe writes: It would be I contend, premature to adopt Mr. Le Mesurier’s proposals and to reverse the policy of recent legislation by relieving the land of the liability and throwing it as of old on the produce only.”: it is the only tax which will reach the village population at all… we must choose that form of taxation……and secure the largest return.”
(4) Bodi Ela Irrigation Scheme
The grateful peasants of Uda Hewaheta named a new settlement as Lamasuriyayagama, in recognition of Le Mesurier’s services rendered to the poor peasants who suffered as a result of different types of Grain Taxes. His monumental work was Bodi Ela Irrigation Scheme which was carried out to help those who had lost their lands by sale for default of Grain Tax during the preceding seven years, to stop internal migration of peasants owing to the sale of fields and encouraging the peasants who had lost their land to take up land under this scheme. He formed an Association for this with an 8-point constitution. By 1989 around 300 families took up lands to cultivate paddy, corn, kurakkan, cotton and tobacco. People received advances of rice, tools and seeds etc. to be repaid with 5% interest in kind of the harvest, not more than a ¼ share of their harvest until their debt is paid off.
What Le Mesurier wrote about relief work is heart rending: Large number of people who notwithstanding the inclement weather are turning out every day to work for the lowest possible wage on relief work”. It is really pitiable to see these poor half-starved people, principally women and little children and disease-stricken men, with scarcely a rag to their bodies and emaciated as they are, all coming forward eagerly to avail themselves of the opportunity of earning enough to feed themselves”.
What a misery had brought by the Colonialists on the heroic people of Walapane who fought against the Britishers in 1818 to drive them out?
Le Mesurier proposed the same system to other projects to safeguard peasants from village usurers who had migrated from low country areas; proposed to set up Government rice milling in large paddy producing areas such as Batticaloa; proposed establishment of small colonies of the poor classes as nuclei under large irrigation works as they are restored; to give land to cultivators at a merely nominal rent of say 5 to 10 cents per acre per annum and advance other requirements such as rice, tools, seeds etc. at 5% interest per annum.
In his 1890 report the new Government Agent of Central Province, R.W.D. Moir disputes what Le Mesurier had stated about Bodi Ela Irrigation Scheme, that sofar as official records show no promise” was ever made that the channel would be completed within any given time.” Moir held a complete opposite view about the scheme, that it would be rather rash to undertake to supply all the settlers until they were able to raise a crop off the ground and that the success of the experiment is still uncertain”.
After a visit to Bodi Ela, Moir writes: Those who came before me seemed to be weak and unfit to work”. No wonder. They were the people who lost their land; rice supplied to them was insufficient, each adult getting 3 and ½ seers of rice a week and children 1 and ½ to 2 seers. It was thought that when water from Bodi Ela comes people would set to work preparing the land for cultivation.
Le Mesurier’s immediate successor G.M. Fowler (1891) was arrogant to call the scheme a pauper settlement”. He says that the people are afflicted with sickness; that they still live in same miserable huts”; Lamasuriyagama must be considered a failure in view of the extravagant anticipations indulged in”. He proposed to treat the people there in the same manner as estate labourers.
In spite of initial failure due to a breach in Bodi Ela masonry work owing to heavy rains Lamasuriyagama became a prosperous village. In its reconstruction ela followed the line pointed out by the villagers.
Le Mesurier in 1889, whilst commending the indomitable courage, energy and perseverance of European Planter who saved the credit of the Colony”, admires the wonderful change in the Planting enterprise”; the conversion of the barren wilderness of coffee stumps into thousands of acres of luxuriant tea shows what British enterprise and capital can accomplish in the midst of difficulties”. He does not fail to extol British enterprise and capital”. But adds, one sad blot alone marked the administration of the District”; that was the oft-told tale of Walapaneand Uda Hewaheta evictions” as a result of excessive tax and of recovering by forced sales hopeless arrears from a people who had lost the means of paying their dues.”
This was the result of over assessment of the fields by government appointed assessors. Le Mesurier showed figures for the whole district yield over assessed 15-fold. How cruelly the people have been over taxed;” What wonder that they fell into arrears when they had nothing but their paddy crops to depend on and that they lost their lands”.
Le Mesurier wrote extensively about the importance of paddy cultivation to villagers. To hamper the paddy cultivation is to make him unsettled and discontented and to endanger the village communal system”. So long a villager has a paddy field and can spend his time and energies upon and get a living from it, so long will he remain happy and contented.”
He was of the opinion that no one can induce European capitalists” to take up paddy cultivation. I should consider it an unfortunate day for the villager when Europeans embark in this enterprise”. Although he had not gone into details of this unfortunate situation, he must have thought what harm the Enclosure Movement” during 1760-1822 did to the small landholders in England.
Calculating the costs of each operation associated with paddy cultivation he computed that the total cost was in the range of Rs.110.61 to cultivate two acres of paddy and the cost to produce one bushel was Rs. 1.84. A crop of 60 bushels was sold at Rs. 60 at harvest time and the farmer loses Rs. 50.61.
He searched for papers in the Kandy Kachcheri record room for several days regarding the 21 years’ commutation of 1838 and redemption of fields in 1835 onwards and found that the Government held out no promise whatever that they would abolish the tax.
(5) Le Mesurier and Road Tax
Furthermore, Le Mesurier again and again pressed the Government for abolishing the exemption of Indian labourers from paying the Road Tax.
it is most unjust that he should escape this liability and that others who are worse off in every respect than him should have to meet.” Here Le Mesurier was referring to poor villagers who were overburdened with road tax in addition to paddy tax. I think the time has come when the exemption of Indian agricultural labourer from road tax should be abolished. Whatever effect it might have had on the supply of labour at the commencement of the planting enterprise, it is difficult to imagine that it would make any difference now. A cooly who receives 33 cents a day and who does not mind running up a debt of 10 or 15 pounds to his kangani would never be deterred from coming to Ceylon because he has to pay Re.1.50 a year as road tax there and why the poverty-stricken villager of Walapane who scarcely see money from one year’s end to another should have to pay the tax and the well paid, well-fed and well-cared for Tamil cooly escapes altogether is not now very apparent.”
During this period nobody had pilloried Le Mesurier that he was colluding with Sinhala-Buddhist Chauvinists” who upheld Majoritarianism” and Xenophobia” to the detriment of marginalised Indian labour.
Although we condemn the inhuman road tax, it should not be forgotten that in this instance also Le Mesurier thinks about the plight of the poverty-stricken villagers of Walapane. Le Mesurier suggested to use Indian labour to work on roads close to their plantations or on the railway, whereas Sinhala villagers had to travel 30-40 miles away from their homesteads unable to return for several days.
Indeed, I would even go to that extent of repealing the road tax altogether”, he wrote.
Plantation labour was constantly referred to as Malabar coolies by the Britishadministrators.Only Le Mesurier identified them in a more dignified manner as Indian Agricultural Labourers.
G.M. Fowler’s comment on road tax is startling: he says that as the Tamil labourers were exempted from the road tax, In some cases Sinhalese labourers have adopted Tamil names in the hope of evading their liability” to pay the tax! Fowler succeeded Le Mesurier in 1891.
H.L. Moysey , Assistant Government Agent of Matale wrote that in 1885 alone 492 were sent to jail for defaulting the Road Tax. They were employed in stone breaking”, that is to induce all to pay. But Moysey wanted to get better value” from the Kandyans. He says more can be obtained from them in katty and mamoty work than in breaking stones”.
Moysey says that Laggalapeople never get any rice to eat at all”. What was his proposal? The forests contain a large variety of fairly nutritious food and a mistake is often committed in saying that people are suffering from famine …. they have to make use of more forest food than usual”. What a nice suggestion? The men who colonised this country to bring their civilisation” asking the people to eat bush vegetables!
S.M. Burrows, Assistant Government Agent of Matale (from 1887, who called himself His Honour the Administrator), openly held views as against Le Mesurier with respect to Grain Tax and other matters. He wrote: There is for the moment a fashionable outcry against this tax, but so far as the writer’s experience of this District goes, its operation is exceedingly fair and its provisions remarkably lenient”. For him the opposition to the tax was a fashionable outcry”, its operation is exceedingly fair” and its provisions are remarkably lenient”. Although he does not mention this is about the opposition to the Grain Tax by the press, and Cobden Club of London in addition to the opposition of some Civil servants such as Le Mesurier.
Burrows brings an East -West binary” to taxation: If the principle is a just one that every inhabitant is bound to contribute something towards the revenue, it would be difficult to find a scheme for securing this with a more equitable instance. Granting generally the advisability of abrogating taxes on necessary foodstuffs and the comparative advantages of indirect over direct taxation is it quite clear that these considerations necessarily apply to the condition of life that obtain in the East? It would not be difficult to prove that most foolish mistakes have been made by an indiscriminate application of approved Western Principles to the vastly different circumstances of the East”.
What he says is Principles” of their West do not apply to the conditions of the East. Did the British colonialists follow this so-called Principle” in all the matters they dealt with? Did not they indiscriminately apply the so-called approved Western principles” in dealing with the freedom fighters, peasantry and agrarian relations, religion etc. Paradoxically their present-day sons and daughters strangle Sri Lanka at their Geneva altar!
He writes that in his district Grain Tax was satisfactorily collected in spite of many difficulties and disputes”. He repeats his dogmatic views of East-West binary: Notwithstanding sensational literature which has appeared during the year on the subject of this tax the present writer does not see reason to think that it presses with undue severity on the people of the district. Objections can easily be raised to any tax whatsoever, especially by the taxed; and there are of course theoretical objections to a tax on food; but the real question, is it safe to apply the principles of European Political economy to such conditions as prevail in an Eastern country under English rule?
Burrows attacks Le Mesurier and others who proposed a land tax instead of the grain tax: Nor does it appear that the objectors to the tax have any workable substitute to propose: for the general land tax may be regarded chimerical”!
Does Ranil Wickremasinghe echo in 2023 what Burrows said in 1989?
What type of a man this Burrows was?
While on circuit in Elahera – Attaragallewa area he went to see a large statue of Lord Buddha. He calls it a monster; quite as large as the monster at Polonnaruwa…..”. Monster means huge or extremely large also; but in this instance he does not use this word in that sense; otherwise why does he use as large as the monster at Polonnaruwa”.
His interpretation of Sigiriya frescoes shows what a dim-witted man he was. He further shows his philistine, crude, macabre nature and English arrogance having breakfast on top of the Sigiriya Rock. We had breakfast up in this curious place, probably the first European meal ever eaten there. Nor do I suppose that many more meals will be eaten here, for the frescoes once copied, nobody will have any particular object in risking his life up here again and the ladders and jumpers will all be taken tomorrow”. (One Murray was copying the frescoes). The man had not thought about Sigiriya’s historical, archeological and aesthetic value, that the place will be visited by millions of people after its restoration and future excavations.
We were British enough to smoke our pipes here as we set and enjoyed the view and wondered whether the fragrant weed have ever penetrated to this quaint little fumoir before. We climbed up to the picture gallery again and deposited there a sealed bottle containing an account of our ascent and doings; and then all means of access were removed and the swallows and bees resumed possession”.
Badulla Assistant Government Agent, Aelian King thought (1884) that the Kandyan peasants are lightly taxed”; if he will only exert himself there is no reason why he should suffer want or find any difficulty about paying his dues to Government. The only direct taxes he pays are the road tax (Rs.1/50) and a tax adjusted to the value of 1/10 ths of his field an amounting to about Rs. 3/= an acre”. King echoes the popular myth created by the colonial administrators that the Kandyan peasants are lethargic.
We do not want to go into details showing statistics related to arrears of road tax, how the total value of labour produced increased instead of paying the tax, number of defaulters and number of villagers sent to jail although King thought that Rs. 1/50 is a small amount. King had a fine way of calculating taxes; as Rs. 1/50 was the tax paid by the head of a family in a year each individual pays not more than 50 cents!
For him, sharp measures in operation”, for the recovery of paddy tax have not really resulted in much hardship or suffering”. He was inhuman to write that many of the defaulters who sold their land had other lands. Where in a man’s only paddy field has been sold, he probably has a garden or chena. He can always
find work either in cultivating the fields of his neighbors or in engaging himself on estates or on public works.” Colonial administrators knew that the peasants evicted from their lands can be absorbed by plantation agriculture. This is what had actually happened. After the completion of the Nawalapitiya Railway Extension train loads of villagers went to estates in search of work. Then they were exploited first by the middleman, the kangani.
King exactly saw that those people who have lost all their paddy fields will usually become tenants under the new owners”. Thereby the traditional farmers were forced to become tenants in their own fields probably under low country speculators, Moors and Tamils. For example, in 20 fields out of 28, David Perera bought from Kumbalwalavillage, former owners worked as ande cultivators. How delighted King was? This is the sort of arrangement I have been expecting; would happen in many cases”. .
(6) Le Mesurier’s Other Proposals
Le Mesurier also proposed amendments to the Forest Ordinance to provide right to pasturage and water, to collect forest produce, firewood, charcoal, honey and fence sticks from large forests in which villagers had from time immemorial rights which were denied to them by various legislation. Some of these rights were enjoyed by communities.
Reforestation of Hanguranketha abandoned lands (property of De Soyza family) to restore water supply, establishing pasturelands in patanas of Uva, Walapane, Elk Plains and Elephant Plains in Nuwara Eliya and Thotupolawith decent fodder grass” , to make it worthwhile to European capitalists to start sheep and cattle farms on the extensive plains” were among his proposals.
Only now Sri Lanka’s Minister for Agriculture Amaraweera has thought about growing fodder grass, 132 years after!
Le Mesurier suggested leasing of small plots of land in Nuwara Eliya plateau for garden cultivation on easy terms, an industry for small capitalists” and a means of livelihood to many a poor man” which would populate what is now a desolate wilderness”. He encouraged potato cultivation and maintained an experimental plot of his own.
He planted a very large number of ornamental trees around the town and some willows. A plot of land was levelled for a cricket ground.
He suggested the establishment of a Government Agriculture Department; took a great interest in propagating fish culture in the District; called for the preservation of the game and acted against poaching.
He despised giving salt-and water for able-bodied prisoners.
Le Mesurier (in 1889) did not forget to write about the collapse of the Oriental Banking Corporation: In the midst of this crisis came the failure of the Oriental Banking Corporation- a disaster that had it been allowed to take the course, would have done more to ruin people of the district, the small traders and landowners than any other calamity that would have been conceived.” It is very noteworthy that he does not say how it affected the plantation industry.
Earlier in 1884, P.A.Templer Acting Government Agent of Central Province, mentioned about the failure of the Oriental Banking Corporation and said that the Government account was opened with Chartered Mercantile Bank. G.A. Baumgartner, Assistant Government Agent of Badulla wrote that as a consequence of this 10 Rupee OBC notes were sold for 6 Rupees at the bazaar. Matale and Nuwara Eliya Assistant Government Agents were silent about the whole issue. Thanks for e- Con e -News, otherwise the above will go unnoticed by the writer.
(7) His Scholarly Works
Le Mesurier translated Niti Nighanduwa” into English, the Vocabulary of Law that existed in the last days of the Kandyan Kingdom with a 39-paged Introduction in 1880. His Manual of the Nuwara Eliya District” with its Gazetteer (1893) situates with other Manuals and Gazetteers prepared by colonial administrators. (incidentally with the concurrence of a publisher I translated this into Sinhala during the Covid lockdown but the publisher showed his reluctance to publish it owing to high cost of printing paper). Le Mesurier was a pioneer to write about Veddhas of Ceylon (in 1886). C. G. and Brenda Seligmanns’ The Veddahs” was published only in 1911. The other scholarly articles Le Merurier contributed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society include A Short Account of the Principal Religious Ceremonies Observed by the Kandyans” (1881) and Ankeliya” (1884). His Sinhalese Proverbial Sayings” (1884) was also a pioneering study.
A medical doctor who served in Nuwara Eliya District told the writer that people of Theripehe,a village in Nuwara Eliya District attribute the Sinhala saying Awwai Wessai Sivalage Mangulai” to Le Mesurier. While he was attending a wedding of a villager nicknamed sivala” there was intermittent showers as well as sunshine, so he instantly came out with this expression. This has spread to other areas as Nariyage Mangulai”.
(8) End of an Illustrious Career
In 1891, Le Mesurier left Nuwara Eliya after serving there five years and was appointed as Assistant Government Agent Matara in 1891and Assistant Government Agent, Hambantota in 1892 respectively. In 1982 the Grain Tax was abolished.
In 1986 he was dismissed from the Ceylon Civil Service by the Acting Governor of Ceylon establishing a legal precedent. Reason was contracting a second marriage becoming a Mohammedan while his legal wife was alive and not divorced. Colonial Government did not understand that if he was not divorced and his legal wife was still alive there was no need for him to become a Muslim. This was sheer racist and religious intolerance the preachers of Democracy did not follow. Sheer British bigotry!
We have shown earlier how he had become a thorn in the Colonial administration from his Nuwara Eliya days. The other Assistant Government Agents who were eyeing the coveted Government Agent post of the Central Province were all against him. His Bodi Ela experiment was condemned. The village Lamasuriyagamawas scorned as ego inflation”. It was dubbed as Lama (child) +Suriya (sun) + Gama (village).
I have with me all the law reports in respect of Le Mesurier’s divorce case but I do not like to come down to the level of a court reporter!
Later Le Mesurier was involved in many land cases. Michael Powell in his lengthy essay titled Fragile Identities: The Colonial Consequence of CJR Le Mesurier in Ceylon” (2007) gives a detailed account of Le Mesurier becoming a Muslim, his dismissal and his land claims and litigation based on Administrative Reports of Government Agents and Assistant Government Agents of Southern Province and Matara District respectively. An abridged plagiarised version of this essay without any acknowledgement appeared in a Sunday English Weekly recently.
Le Mesurier was fighting on behalf of the impoverished peasants of Walapane defying the dictates of his superior officers. But it is sad to state that present day Sri Lankans writing to Colombo-based English weeklies make merry on how Le Mesurier contracted a second marriage becoming a Muslim.
Dr. S. A. Megama in his Guns, Taverns and Tea Shops, The Making of Modern Ceylon” (2019), briefly discusses Le Mesurier’s land deals quoting aforementioned Administrative Reports. But his short description does not give its true picture to the readers. To understand the extent of Le Mesurier’s land claims one should thoroughly study the Administrative Reports of E.M. De C. Short Assistant Government Agent of Matara (1898)
The Colonial Government proclaimed a new ordinance named the Waste Lands Ordinance No. 1 of 1897 and appointed a Special Officer, J.P.Lewis, author of Manual of the Wanni District” (1895), who later became the Government Agent of Central Province, to investigate the claims to forest or jungle land where there were prospects for plumbago, their acreage and sales of land by villagers. He describes the plan of action taken by the claimants and brings to light the chief claimants: a good instance being that of a valuable forest land which is now found to be the private property (on paper) of the very gentleman (Mr. Le Mesurier ) who a few short years ago was emphatic in support of the Crown title”.
The Crown had sued Le Mesurier to recover possession. According to this report Le Mesurier was a claimant of very extensive tracts of land and had paper title to something like 12,000 acres of land’. It is very strange that Lewis reporting that Le Mesurier left the public service so late as January 1896”, shy to state that he was dismissed. We do not intend to go into details of Le Mesurier’s legal squabbles and accompanying matters which are very intricate.
Herbert Wace, Government Agent of Southern Province wrote in 1899 that the Special Officer in his investigations had discovered systematic forgery of Dutch deeds in the Matara district to support claims to considerable areas of crown land. According to Wace wholesale manufacture of forged deeds against the Crown in this district” justifies the introduction of the Waste Lands Ordinance; without such enactment it would have been impossible to deal with the evil”. Mr. Le Mesurier’s conduct when Assistant Government Agent of the district in negotiating for others the purchase of waste and villagers’ land has considerably lowered the standard of official integrity and even those highest in office under him as shown above had scrupled to benefit themselves in the scramble for land in the district.”
When Short left on leave he was succeeded by Saxton, Le Mesurier’s bête noire at Matale. In his 1899 report he finds the opportunity to attack Le Mesurier. Saxton as District Judge cancelled the warrant of the Notary for writing 10,000 acres of land for Le Mesurier.
Le Mesurier had written number of letters to the Special Officer Lewis. Much time has been taken up by the preparation of detailed replies to numerous letters of Mr. Le Mesurier on various subjects,” writes Lewis. Some interestingpoints were raised by Le Mesurier which remind the reader his Nuwara Eliya days such as, spoliation of land by the Ceylon Government, oppression by its officers, iniquity of all land legislation. The most important was his request for the preservation of Dutch and other records.
W.E. Davidson, Assistant Government Agent of Matara in his report in 1900 quotes extensively from Lewis’ report; its many parts were related to Le Mesurier’s land claims and connected legal action and judgements given. The Crown claimed damages against Le Mesurier to the extent of Rs. 36,000 and costs in two cases which went to trial.
Lewis says that many imitated Le Mesurier showing false or shadowy claims. Lewis quotes a quip which was prevalent about imitators: Balasuriya ended what Lamasuriya began”! in other words both had made unsuccessful efforts to get hold of Crown land. The first part of each name Bala” and Lama” respectively suggest infancy. This is a contemptuous attack on Le Mesurier which challenges his erudition and knowledge of Sinhala language who wrote an article titled Sinhalese Proverbial Sayings” in 1884 to The Orientalist”, another pioneering work. This quip cannot be an invention of an ordinary man!
Le Mesurier was involved in land purchases only after his dismissal from Civil Service. Allegation against him that he did get assistance from his officers to copy Wattorus and used them for his own advantage did not arise while he was holding office.How do we know that he had used Sannas, Wattorus and Dutch Tombos (land grants) in his research work? By this time, he had published an article on customs and superstitions connected with the cultivation of rice in the Southern Province. While in Nuwara Eliya he compared the cost of rice cultivation in Nuwara Eliya District with some other districts of Ceylon.
Ironically Government Agents and Assistant Agents facilitating the planters in the scramble for land was rewarded by the Government.
We cannot deny the suggestion that Le Mesurier did all these to embarrass the Government to take revenge for his unjust removal using his knowledge of land related documents as mentioned above, in a confrontational style”. Powell says that it was more of a crusade than land grab”. Le Mesurier’s action forced the Government to examine and index Dutch records,” something which modern researchers have Le Mesurier to thank” writes Powell. As explained earlier the Government had to amend the Waste Land Ordince (Ordinance No. 1 of 1897) and appointing a Special officer to institute legal action against Le Mesurier and other land grabbers. But the Government was forced to take action under ordinary law against him as a result of protracted communication between him and Lewis.
Le Mesurier’s criticisms of Grain Tax and Road tax may have surfaced at this juncture, what the authorities could not do while he was in service.
(9) Partners in the Same Colonial Agenda
P.A. Templer’s observations regarding Nanuoya Railway Extension as explained in part (2) of this Essay should not be interpreted as there was an animosity between British Colonial Administrators and British planters. The truth was that they were partners in the same Colonial Agenda. In other words, there was no tussle between Colonial administrators and Colonial planters.
In all their writings the Government Agent in charge of the Province or Assistant Government Agents of the districts showed their great dismay over the ruination of coffee plantations owing to leaf disease. They wrote delightfully about the opening up of tea plantations and its subsequent success and introducing of other crops such as Liberian coffee, cinchona, India rubber, cocoa, cardamoms, tobacco, cotton and even barley and sunflower. Negotiations were held to grow fiber plants in Matale East. The company had requested for 5000 acres for this in Kalu Ganga area. Another crop introduced was Annatto (Bixa Orellana; anaththa in Sinhala), Wikipedia explains it as poor man’s saffron. Colonial administrators took great efforts to propagate cocoa cultivation among villagers in Matale District with the British planters.
Tea acreage has increased and almost every estate which formerly used to be under coffee is now planted up with tea. Cardamoms continue to thrive.”
The best average of tea prices for the year was secured by a Matale planter, Mr. E. Gordon Reeves of Hulankanda estate.”
The writer may be permitted again to testify his admiration of the indomitable energy and pluck which have enabled the planters of Matale to face a period of unexampled depression and disaster and to arrive out for themselves a prospect of new fortunes which if not so sensationally brilliant as in the days of coffee, promise to be eminently satisfactory”. (From the Administrative Report of S.M. Burrows, AGA, Matale District).
It is impossible not to rejoice heartily in the fact that the enterprise and the determination of the planters have so successfully retrieved disasters which would have been crushing to any less able and courageous body of men.” See the words Burrows was using; praising his own set of colonisers.
Colonial administrators in their official Diaries had included the contents of letters they had received from planters under captions such as: A planter from Medamahanuwara writes”; A planter of Rangala writes”; A planter from a large property writes from Dimbula”; from Bogowantalawa a planter writes”; A gentleman in Madulkelle writes”; of Matale a resident Superintendent writes”; A Visiting Agent of great experience in the Kandy District writes”, so on and so forth;. all give details of the flourishing tea industry.
This shows how British administrators treated the planters in great respect and their words were taken as gospel truth as the Colonial administrators knew that the future of the Colony lies in the prospects of the plantation industry. They praised the planters as they were the people who saved the colony reviving its economy from the ashes of coffee.
While on circuit Government Agents and Assistant Government Agents occasionally stayed the night with planters.
There are instances that the Government Agent through Rate Mahattayas had helped the planters to secure village labour to work on their estates. Moir on circuit to Medamahanuwara in Uda Dumbara said that the planter was willing to pay them either daily or weekly to labourers themselves or through kangani.
Contrary to the earlier methods adopted in alienation of Crown” land to speculators after the promulgation of the Waste Lands Ordinance”, later the Assistant Government Agent of Badulla W.E.T.Sharpe (1875) got Kandukara and Buttala Koralas Rate Mahattaya J.A.L. Rambukpotha to find suitable land in Badulla and Moneragala (Maragala and Mundaragala range) forests for coffee cultivation. Rate Mahattaya’s Report submitted to the Assistant Government Agent covers an area of 8000-10000 acres giving details of altitude and topography, soil, drainage system etc. This is admirably situated for coffee planting”, soil is exceedingly fertile being equal to any flourishing coffee district of the present day.” In 1877 F.B. Templer, Government Agent of Central Province succeeded in bringing into land market 3425 acres of this at a rate of Rs. 60/= per acre.
All valuable timber did not bring any return to the Crown: cutting of choice and valuable timber from the Mundaraga forest before sale of lands for coffee cultivation was not very successful, the locality being too remote for the exercise of due supervision and for the removal of the timber at reasonable rates of transport to central depots.”
Who benefited remains a question even after more than a century!
Fine forest lands at Kalupahana below Haldummulla and Horton’s Plains and forests in Ohiya valley, splendid land for coffee” were surveyed. The sale was suspended until the Uva railway question is settled, the lots being actually along the line”.
A German planter from Sumatra, Meyer in 1887 introduced tobacco in Rajawella, Dumbaraand in Matale on a large scale with the blessings of the colonial government. The German Syndicate” as it was known then have decided to make Matale estate formerly Dorakumbura village lands, the headquarters of its operations. (Some foreign funded Social Scientists” in Sri Lanka had argued that the British planters never set up plantations in traditional Kandyan villages. To disprove this one evidence is more than enough. The majority of estates carry names of old Sinhala villages; some were anglicised such as Oodoowerre for Uduwara in Badulla, Oonoogala” for Hunugala in Matale, Goomera” for Gomarain Patha Dumbara). .
G.S. Saxton, Acting Assistant Government Agent of Matale wrote in 1891 that villagers at Ukuwela , Warakamura and other places in Matale selling their property to planters right down to the edge of their paddy fields; in no time paddy fields were filled with silt from new clearings. In 1892 an earth slip carried down around 60 acres of tea lands from Kandenuwara Estate, Matale and covered a similar area of villagers’ paddy lands in Esingammedda, Alakolamada and Galekoluwa
Planters began to buy chena lands from the villagers for tea and cocoa cultivation. The villgers were driven away from the villages. Population in Kandyan areas further diminished as a result of migration of men in search of employment in coconut plantations in Kurunegala. Some villages have completely disappeared.
J.B.A. Bailey, Government Agent of Central Province wrote (1894) that selling their chena lands to planters by villagers was advantageous to have land brought under permanent cultivation and that the people will be better off under the altered circumstances as they will always be able to obtain work and good wages on tea estates”. Sell your land and become a wage owner in your own land! This is only a repetition of what had happened to the peasants who had to sell their paddy lands for default of Grain Tax.
Although the registration of marriages was made compulsory there was a reluctance of the Kandyans to do so. Saxton followed the dreadful policy of refusing chena lands to adult men whose marriages were not registered.
(10) Conclusion
There are no references to planters returning back to Ceylon except those who went on home leave or furlough. Other than the early pioneers the succeeding planters were employed as managers by either plantation companies or Agency Houses. So, the question of leaving or remaining in Ceylon owing to Independence” or looming nationalisation of plantations does not arise. It is another myth propagated by Empire worshippers” like suddha hitiya nam mehema wenne ne”. This anti-national catchword gained prevalence during the Galle Face Carnival revealing that the protesters had no elementary knowledge of either country’s history or how the Britishers subjugated our country.
(Assistance given by Mr. Bimal Amarasekera, Archival Research Assistant of Sri Lanka National Archives and security personnel of SLNA is greatly appreciated).
