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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. X. 



fact, is one of the leading conditions which determine the 

 character of a nation's industries. Wheresoever labour is 

 exacted by force and fails to receive its just remuneration, 

 wheresoever service is executed without wages, the woe 

 pronounced by Jeremiah will be realised. The fruits of 

 such service will be uncertain, and may perish like the river 

 of Joseph, or endure uselessly like the pyramids amidst the 

 desolation they have helped to create. In short, power that 

 is exerted selfishly is unenduring, and that only is progressive 

 and permanent which extends its rule unselfishly to all 

 classes of the people. The degradation of any section of a 

 community is a mortal malady of the State, which will in the 

 end bring the whole body politic to decay and ruin. The 

 healthy condition of a State can only be secured by maintain- 

 ing that of each class. The providential arrangement by 

 which the violation of the principles of justice and charity 

 entails its own penalties is as applicable to a nation as to an 

 individual. Hence all the devices by which despotism has 

 striven to maintain and perpetuate oppression have through- 

 out the world's history eventuated in the destruction of the 

 oppressor. 



We have seen that in Ceylon, until lately, the conditions 

 which call forth the energies of the people have been 

 continually violated, and that the natural consequences have 

 followed in the deposition of the oppressors, the stagnation 

 of local industries, the waste of natural resources, and the 

 demoralisation of the people. The requisite inducements 

 for effective exertion, the capital necessary to utilise the 

 labour of the people, and the knowledge required to direct 

 it, were all wanting, until British capital and the energy of 

 the planters supplied these essential elements to a part of the 

 country where they have fructified abundantly. May the 

 same happy results be soon extended to those parts which 

 still lie under the blight bequeathed by former Governments \ 



The institution of caste, howsoever it may have originated, 

 afforded to native rulers an effective means of securing their 

 own ends by working upon the feelings of pride natural to 



