340 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. X. 



transport, is neither wise nor just. It deprives them of a 

 great part of their value, which consists in economising 

 carriage and thus affording aid and encouragement to 

 enterprise. 



In the foregoing remarks on the influence of capital, 

 intercourse, and market, the relation these elements bear to 

 the all-important one of labour has been incidentally shown, 

 but requires to be more particularly considered. 



As a general principle, it is obvious that some adequate 

 inducement is an indispensable condition of voluntary labour. 

 It would be vain to expect to enlist the best energies of the 

 people in work in which they have no interest. Labour may, 

 it is true, be extorted by the lash of the taskmaster or slave- 

 driver for the benefit of those who, for the time, possess the 

 requisite power ; and it has already been shown that prior 

 to the accession of the British in Ceylon, the Sinhalese 

 suffered galling oppression, and were in a state of helpless 

 ignorance and degradation. It was dangerous, wheresoever 

 it was at all possible, for them to possess anything of which 

 they could be deprived, and they were therefore in a state 

 of inevitable poverty. It was not possible for industry to 

 prosper, or for the people to advance under such conditions. 

 Although the country possessed great natural capabilities, and 

 the virtual monopoly of two precious commodities, cinnamon 

 and pearls, yet neither the people nor the country derived 

 any advantage even from these specialties ; in fact, the greed 

 of our immediate predecessors, the Dutch, reduced the value 

 and destroyed the monopoly of the spice, and drove the trade 

 into another channel. 



It is thus manifest that the nature, extent, and success of the 

 industries of a country are not under the control of the 

 labouring people, nor are the working class responsible either 

 for their own condition or for that of their country. This 

 fact, so clearly shown in the history of Ceylon, is fully borne 

 out in our own country elsewhere, and is strikingly manifest 

 in the fact that the depressed, languishing, dispirited people 

 who still linger about the ruipns of the ancient tanks, are of 



