NO. 37. — 1888.] INDUSTRIES OF CEYLON. 



335 



of Malabar, another Dutch possession, should be injured. 

 And it is well known that the cloves and nutmegs were 

 destroyed in Ceylon in the interest of Dutch trade in the 

 Moluccas. For cardamoms, Bertolacci says, they paid the 

 Sinhalese 2 fanams per pound. Under this regime the capital 

 and power of the State were employed in seizing the pro- 

 ducts of industry on terms so grievous that it became the 

 interest of the people rather to root up their trees than to 

 harvest the fruit, wherefore it became necessary to enact 

 extreme penalties for the destruction of fruit trees. 



It thus appears that our predecessors employed their 

 capital in a manner to effectually discourage, or even to ex- 

 tinguish, the most important industries of the country, nor 

 was it ever applied beneficently, or under the conditions 

 which foster enterprise, until the British took possession. Of 

 private capital, independent of the State, there was then but 

 very little, and that little was in the hands of renters and 

 other such persons, exercising or usurping official functions 

 and authority. Sir J. Emerson Tennent seems inconsistent 

 in his remarks upon private capital, for in some parts of his 

 writings he exposes, with all the force of his powerful pen, 

 the extortions of native usurers ; and elsewhere, in the Blue 

 Book for 1846, he says : " It is a singular fact and somewhat 

 discouraging that there is not a single native capitalist in 

 Ceylon, though some are proprietors of land to a considerable 

 extent, and enjoy a corresponding rank and influence in their 

 localities." Here he shows, not the absence of capital, but 

 its abuse. 



The practical difference in the results of the employment 

 of capital by the State, as compared with its application by 

 private individuals, is well exemplified by reference to the 

 historic facts above cited. "Works constructed by the State 

 are generally on a large scale, and whether of an useful and 

 reproductive character, or of the opposite kind, they depend 

 for their maintenance on the disposition of the rulers for the 

 time being. They and they only have the power and the 

 means. No one else has either the responsibility or the 



