3t8 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [November l, 1888. 
the prospect of a surplus of 1$ million in Ceylon. 
What they were — rupees or pounds — I do not know. 
It has been my business for a long time to endeavour 
to make a surplus, and I should be very much 
pleased to catch hold of that gentleman and 
get him to put his theory into practice. I 
think his remark was in some way directed 
at the -industry of the people. I object to making 
comparisons, but where they are in favour of the 
community amongst which we live I have less 
reluctance. I have spent 25 years in the West 
Indies. I inherited the traditions of a father who 
served the West Indian colonies for half-a-century. 
I have served from British Guiana in the South 
to the Bahamas in the North, and I say unhesi- 
tatingly that in the West Indies there is nowhere 
such an industrious people as that of Ceylon — 
whether it be Tamil, Moor, or Sinhalese. (Loud 
applause.) I should very much like my friends 
the tea planters of Ceylon to have a turn with the 
indentured emigrants of the West Indies, or the 
natives of the West Indies, or Africa. I speak as 
an official of 25 years' service in nearly all the 
colonies of the West Indies, with perhaps one 
exception, and I speak also from the other side. 
Fortunately or unfortunately I have been a sugar 
planter and proprietor, employing, jointly with 
others, some 400 or 500 Indians, the greater part 
of whom were indentured labourers. So that I 
speak feelingly and with some experience when I 
draw the comparison. Mr. Ferguson drew my at- 
tention very pointedly to railways. Perhaps about 
railways I may have a different notion per- 
sonally to what I have officially. From some 
American associations which I have I personally, 
perhaps, would go a little ahead of my proper 
official position. I have great faith in the American 
doctrine which says: — "Put a railway down where, 
ever you like : if there is population it is bound to 
pay." (Applause.) But that is the vexed question 
which is always brought forward— will it pay or not ? 
A private individual often thinks differently to 
an official. For instance, if I had private funds to 
invest I might go into a country, travel through it, 
and learn a good deal about it, and I might be 
perfectly justified in investing my £20,000. But in 
that same country, looking at it from an official 
point of view, I should not be justified in throwing 
in the weight of my official position, unless I could by 
some calculation show that it would pay. That is 
the difficulty in which responsible officials are placed 
in considering ijrojects of railway extension as com- 
pared with what I may call irresponsible or private 
persons. I hope, however, and I think that the 
public of Ceylon ought not to be altogether satis- 
fied with the measure of railway extension which 
is before them at present. I think perhaps it may 
be sufficient for the day. When we are getting 
towards the end of that extension or getting partly 
through it, we may begin to talk about something 
more. There is one point at any rate in which 
1 am sure the whole meeting will agree with me 
most thoroughly and unanimously, and that is in 
offering to Mr. Wall our cordial thanks for the 
trouble lie bus taken in preparing and in deliver- 
ing this paper. (Applause.) I fear very much 
that he has read it at some personal inconveni- 
ence in regard to himself, though I know he had 
an offer of assistance, but he preferred to read 
it himself, and there is no doubt that a paper 
comes with more acceptance and more force from 
its author than second hand. (Applause.) I am 
sure I can in your names say to Mr. Wall we are 
very much obliged to him for his paper. (Applause.) 
Mr. Wall:— Sir, and Ladies and Gentlemen, — I 
should indeed abuse the great kindness and patience 
which you have shown, if I were to unduly avail 
myself of my privilege of reply : at the same time I 
think I should scarcely be justified in entirely ab- 
staining. The paper was already too long, and I 
have therefore rather to thank the speakers generally 
for their additions to it rather than to answer them. 
However, I should feel myself very much at fault 
indeed, if I thought I had neglected to take due uote 
of the vast influence that had been ( xerted over the 
industrial enterprize of this country by the British 
Government as a whole, and by the British planters 
in particular. But, considering the introductory 
nature of this paper, it did not appear to me — nor 
does it still appear— that there would be any appro- 
priate allusion in particular to the Tamil labourer. 
The points I have had to establish were that the 
labourer must be remunerated, irrespective of his 
nationality, and, to endeavour to show what had 
been the causes of the low condition in which 
industry was when the British took possession, 
it was necessary, I thought, to make explana- 
tion which would sufficiently account for that 
low condition, and also justify, as far as it can 
be done, the attitude, the conduct, and the 
character of the people. But I think I have 
already alluded to the very great change that took 
place when British capital and British influence im- 
pressed themselves upon this country and its indus- 
tries, and I dwelt on the very great benefit that had 
accrued, and expressed a hope that the range of 
that influence might be extended so as to embrace 
the parts of the country which had not hitherto en- 
joyed it. I was rather too brief, perhaps, in my 
anxiety to condense my paper, and I ought to have 
said in regard to modern armaments that they were 
necessary. I entirely concur with the view taken by 
the first speaker on that subject. Nevertheless, they 
certainly do involve a large unproductive expenditure. 
With regard to the particular armaments to which 
he referred, which impoverished the country, it 
was, like other things, the act of the governing 
power and not of the people. Therefore the people 
whose character and position I was anxious to ex- 
hibit were not concerned in that extravagant expen- 
diture of money in meeting the incursions of their 
neighbors from the Malabar coast. With regard 
to the remarks about the railways, I must say 
that something far better than the rates of car- 
riage upon roads ought to be offered to us by the 
railways if they are really to be of use to us, as 
they are in other countries. It would be vain for 
us to rely upon railways that do not economize the 
cost of carriage over roads. In other countries, 
the cost of carriage by railways is ia some in- 
stances a third or even a fourth of the carriage 
by road, and I think therefore we have a right, 
especially as the industries of the country have paid 
for the railway, to expect that the railways shall 
be made subservient to the industry and progress of 
the country. If so, they must certainly do a great 
deal better for us than roads. That remark has re- 
ference to what the first speaker said — that we had 
always a check upon railways, that they could not 
exceed the cost of carriage upon the roads. But, in 
fact, the railway must keep under it to be of any service 
and go to a fraction of what the cost of ordinary 
rates would be. I am indebted to the last speaker 
— Mr. John Ferguson— for his mention of coconuts ; 
but, in faot, that is one of those matters which 
comes more into the modern explanation of the 
industries, than to those principles of them to 
which my paper more particularly was directed. 
I think, sir, these are the only remarks which 
seem to me to be called for at the present, as the 
time is late : and I hope that, whatever omissions 
there have been in the paper, will be made good 
in the subsequent chapters, when I deal with the 
various industries specifically. 
