Dec. i, 1894.] THE TROPIC \L 
AGRICULTURIST. 
the Chamber of Commerce ; but their motion was 
defeated and Mr. J. T. White was duly selected. 
During the next few years, the Coffee leaf 
disease (Hcmileia vaslatrix. occupied the attention 
of Mr. Wall as it did of every one interested 
in and dependent on the Planting Enterprise. 
He took a full share in the discussions and 
experiments and was as hopeful as the rest, 
indeed perhaps more sanguine than most, of 
the final disappearance of the fungus without 
permanently injuring coffee fields that had been 
cultivated and cared for. Mr, Wall was elected 
Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce for 1874-5 
(and again for 1875-79.) At this time (1875-78) 
his Firm of Messrs. Geo. Wall & Co. were owners 
of '21 estates with a cultivated acreage of 
3,614 and were Agents for 85 estates representing 
20,513 acres in cultivation. Railway Extension 
from Nawalapitiya to Haputale, first memorialized 
tor, at our instance, in 1872, had now become the 
great question of the day. Mr. Wall as usual in 
the face of a great public work, adopted a critical, 
dubious attitude. He was placed on the Railway 
Commission by Governor Gregory and favoured 
a Maturata or Lowei Dumbera route, as well as 
narrow gauge, to Uva. In the midst of this 
period, February 1876, Mr. Wall ventured 011 
a contest for the Chair of the Planters' Association 
With Mr. H. S. Saunders who was supported by 
the Observer and generally by the party in 
favour of Railway Extension from Nawalapitiya 
to Haputale, in reference to which work Mr. 
Wall was generally suspected to be lukewarm 
if not in opposition. The result of the contest was 
the defeat of Mr. Wall who only got 135 votes 
against his opponent's 194. Mr. Downall was at the 
same time nominated Planting M.L.C. Plant- 
ing and husiness affairs closely occupied Mr. 
Wall during the next few years ; for it had become 
evident a crisis was approaching in ''coffee." A 
trip home early in 1879 to endeavour to restore 
confidence was not successful ; for in August 
1879, his firm of Geo. Wall & Co., after more than 
a quarter of a century's existence, had to suspend 
operations and be wound up. Much sympathy was 
felt for its head who had laboured so long and 
Btrenuously in business, in planting and in colonial 
affairs generally. Fortunately, after a time, 
through the aid of Sir Edward Watkin, Mr 
Wall was able to secure proprietorship in a 
young plantation of the new industry, tea, 
which lias done so much to restore prosperity 
to the planters and to the island generally. 
In September 1SS2. the death at Farieland, 
Kandy, of his old friend, Mr. G. H. K. Thwaites, 
F.R.s. was a blow to Mr. Wall, who, himself a 
Fellow of the Linmcan Society, had long taken 
an intelligent interest in the Iiotany of the 
island and had written on sunn; branches, Ferns 
especially. Having been made a Vice-President of 
the local Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 
1873, Mr. Wall began to turn bis attention to 
the early agricultural industries of the island and 
wrote some papers on the subject for the Journal 
of that Society. He was however, elected once more 
Chairman of the Planters' Association in 1881 and 
again in 1883-5 retiring finally in the latter 
year when Mr. T. N. Christie was elected. 
Soon after this Mr. Wall fathered a scheme 
for a Colonial Parliament or Imperial Council 
which created a good deal of discussion. Mr. Wall 
continued to write in the columns of the Observer 
from time to time, and he took an especial interest 
in the Tropical Agriculturist, a monthly periodical, 
to serve sub-tropical planters all round the world, 
which we had commenced in 1881. In all dis- 
cussions concerning new products Mr. Wall was 
full of interest and he himself experimented with 
not a few of these. 
JOURNALIST AND POLITICIAN : UP TO 1894. 
Then followed what has been not the least 
notable portion of the career of this versatile 
and active-minded colonist, his journalistic 
career as Editor during several years and nomi- 
nally up to the day of his departure from the 
island of a local paper, the "Ceylon Independent." 
Though, latterly, in weak health and obliged 
to live by himself at Nuwara Eliya — his family 
being in England — Mr. Wall kept up his writing, 
his style easily revealing his newspaper work, In 
1889-90 a great opportunity arose of making capital 
against his old bete noir, the fiscal system of the 
island, through an official report on the result 
of a certain limited number of evictions among 
paddy land tenants in the Kandyan country 
at the instance of that most pro-native 
of British Civil Servants, Sir J. F. Dickson. 
The explanation really was that the natives in 
question, like their European neighbours, had 
been ruined by the failure of coffee, for, on their 
coffee gardens they depended far more than on 
paddy. However, the cry, " Down with the paddy 
tax," was taken up under the most favourable cir» 
cumstances, the very word " eviction" being hateful 
to the ears of British statesmen at a time when 
Irish evictions gave so much trouble; while Sir 
Edward Watkin did all in his power in and 
out of the Cobden Club to serve his old friend and 
his supporters in the Colony. The result (to 
make a long story short) was that a new, 
inexperienced Governor and Lord Knutsford 
as Secretary of State agreed to abolish the 
immemorial paddy rents of Ceylon. As the 
writer took an entirely opposite view to Mr. 
Wall, his statement of the facts may be deemed 
a one-sided one ; but we think every point 
advanced can be verified. The abolition was 
in the face of the opinion of very nearly the 
entire Civil Service ami Legislative Council, 
and against the views of live ex-Goverqora 
