CEYLON 163 



50 cents per diem in place of 35 cents ; also that it is 

 not possible to maintain with them the same standard 

 of discipline as with the Tamils. The Sinhalese is close 

 to his own home, and when he is tired of work he 

 takes his wage and departs. In wet weather he will 

 not turn out, and when his village is busy harvesting 

 rice or other products he prefers that occupation to 

 the work on an estate. 



There is every reason to anticipate satisfactory con- 

 ditions in regard to future production of rubber in 

 Ceylon within the next seven years. If the present 

 average yield is applied to 225,000 acres, and is taken 

 as a basis for calculation, there can be small doubt that 

 in 1919 the average production should be at the rate 

 of not less than 4 hundredweights per acre. This 

 would give a total output available for exportation of 

 50,000 tons. This may be regarded as a minimum 

 figure when calculating probable exports after 1919, for 

 extensions of the present cultivated area will assuredly 

 occur from year to year, and these may even duplicate 

 the area of the existing plantations in the course of 

 another fifteen or twenty years. In 1910 the exporta- 

 tion of local origin from Ceylon in round figures was 

 1,500 tons; in 1911 it rose to 3,000 tons; in 1912 it was 

 6,200 tons; in 1913 the amount reached 10,686 tons ; 

 in 1914 the export will exceed 15,000 tons; in 1915 

 additional large areas come into bearing, and the expor- 

 tation will not fall far short of 25,000 tons. Steady 

 increases will take place in the three years following, 

 and in 1919 the production will be approximately 

 45,000 tons, with the prospect of further steady 

 development. 



