272 



The Supplement to the Tropical A gvieulturist 



Reports of the Government Agonts, W.P.* 

 in the course of which an account is given 

 of the improvement in the position of 

 the peasantry following on the extension 

 of tne coffee enterprise. Mr. Layard, 

 as he then was, spoke of the wages to 

 be earned by Sinhalese as carpenters, cart 

 drivers, fellers of jungle, &c, and he added, 

 (the quotation is from memory) : " Paddy 

 cultivation is about tho least remunerative 

 industry in which a villager can engage." 

 Too much has been made of this very mode- 

 rate statement of an opinion, which went in 

 fact no further than that, at a time when 

 speculation was brisk and the coffee industry 

 in tho height of its prosperity on the borders 

 of W. P., the stay-at-home agricultural 

 labourer could make less wages by following 

 his ancestral pursuits in his native village 

 than he could earn by migrating to a place 

 where business was brisker and by their 

 plying such trades as he was fit for. It has 

 no sort of application to the employment of 

 the agricultural labour in ordinary times and 

 at a distance from European centres of trade 

 and speculation, and it does not refer to 

 the landowner at all. But, that being so, 

 the opinion so expressed, probably a correct 

 one so far as it then went and in the place 

 for which Sir Charles intended it, is not 

 to shut out all further argument concerning 

 consideration of the point ? Let us try the 

 question by such other tests as are at disposal. 



What aL-e the best known or least dis- 

 puted points in connection with Sinhalese 

 labour ? They are these. That during the 

 periods when paddy farming operations are 

 in full swing it is impossible by the offer of 

 any reasonable wages to induce the Sinha- 

 lese to engage in any other works and that 

 no field in a fairly populous district ever 

 lies uncultivated for want of labour. If these 

 two undisputed facts are not to be accounted 

 for by the remunerative nature of the work, 

 what is the explanation ? Why is it that, 

 though the planter may want labour for his 

 estate, the Government for the roads and 

 the native employer for his plumbago pit, 

 the owner of a paddy-field never lacks an 

 anda/caraya '? Is it due, as we are told, to 

 the tyranny of custom, the oppression of the 



* The statement was made in answer to our 

 personal enquiry and embodied in a " Summary 

 of Information " some thirty years ago. but 

 "A's" argument is all the same very strong.— En. 



unpaid headman, or the keenness of the vil- 

 lager in the pursuit of honour ? 



Or is it, it seems possible, that the villager 

 likes best the work at which he can make most 

 wages in the easiest and most congenial 

 way ? At least he himself never complains 

 of the work but only that there is not 

 enough of it. 



Are we all quite sure that we know the 

 villager's business, as we know that of the 

 native capitalists, better than he knows it 

 himself ? — Your obedient servant, A. 



Note by Ed., CO. — Mr. Elliott, while in the 

 Service, wasquiteasoptimisticas "Mr." Ashmore 

 as to Paddy Cultivation being profitable, at any 

 rate in certain, districts. He read a paper before 

 the local Asiatic Society in August. 1885, which 

 created a good deal of discussion ; but without 

 going into that, we may quote the following 

 summary as a text for the' matter which follows 

 showing the other side of the shield. Here is the 

 substance of Mr. Elliott's paper : — 



Mr. Elliott gave a detailed account of the 

 modes of cultivation in the Matara and Batti- 

 caloa districts. The expenses of cultivation per 

 acre he finds to be : in Matara, 36 days' labou r 

 of a man, and an outlay of 4 bushels of paddy ; 

 in Batticaloa, for munraari, 38 days' labour of a 

 man and 8 bushels of paddy, for malamellama, 

 18 days' labour of a man and 10 bushels of 

 paddy. 



After giving some instances of exceptional 

 crops in favourable localities, he stated that he 

 considered 25 bushels as a fair average return 

 from irrigated land. 



With such a return, the average cost of raising 

 a bushel of paddy ranges from \\ to 2£ days' 

 labour, while a return of 30 bushels reduces the 

 cost from 1 to 1-J days' labour. But as all these 

 estimates are based on outside rates of expendi- 

 ture, he considers it may be fairly assumed " a 

 day's labour produces a bushel of paddy." 



Cents 25 is an outside value of labour in the 

 rice-producing districts. Mr. Elliott is of opi- 

 nion the enemies of paddy are few, and can be 

 easily combated. The Paper also gave particu- 

 lars of cost of transport from the producing dis- 

 tricts— Batticaloa to the market at Jaffna. This 

 amounts to 25 cents as cost of production, and 

 transport 50 cents, and the paddy can generally 

 be sold for B125. 



The administration Report on the Kegalla 

 district for 1885 was the authority quoted by a 

 writer who criticised the above statement. The 



