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



343 



man. The distinction thus conferred upon all who were 

 engaged in the occupation in which the rulers were most 

 interested, and which gave to such people a rank above their 

 fellows, secured the supremacy of that industry. Thus the 

 cultivators who filled the State granaries were made to look 

 with scorn upon all other classes of the people, who suffered 

 degradation in different degrees, according to arbitrary 

 arrangement. The people were thus placed in an unnatural 

 relation one class to another, whereby invidious distinctions 

 were created amongst them all, and severe discouragement 

 was imposed upon those industries which were likely to 

 enrich the people engaged in them. Nor was the distinction 

 of the favoured class an unmixed blessing to themselves, for 

 they were obliged, on pain of their own degradation and 

 that of all their descendants, to adhere to their particular 

 pursuit, whether their lands afforded an adequate return, or 

 failed, from whatever cause, to yield the produce necessary 

 to maintain their increasing numbers. Hence the coveted 

 distinction subjected its possessors to the fate we see to-day so 

 terribly exemplified in the condition of the wretched sur- 

 vivors of a once dense population, who still cling to their 

 ancestral lands about the ruined tanks, and also in villages 

 which have outgrown the resources of the lands belonging 

 to them. 



The obligations and restrictions imposed by caste upon the 

 labouring population of Ceylon, and the relations thereby 

 established between labour and the other factors of industrial 

 progress, are entirely opposed to the conditions under which 

 success is possible. Of these none is more important than 

 the freedom of the labourer to dispose of his one possession, 

 sinew, in the manner most conducive to his advantage and 

 to the demand that may exist for its use. Caste inflicts a fatal 

 impediment to the adjustment of means to ends, and imposes 

 insuperable obstacles to progress and prosperity. One craft 

 may lack labourers whilst another is overdone. Natural 

 resources may lie neglected because the people, where they 

 are available, are precluded by their caste from defiling 



85—90 C 



