I 668 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. LApRH- 1, 19041 
I have heard of one instance in India where the 
telephones put up by one manager were taken 
down by the next and the wires used to support 
tea tats' ! In a case of this liind one need not be 
surprised if we next hear that these particular tats 
are being abandoned for others ! 
TELEPHONES IN CEYLON. 
It would pay every district in Ceylon well to 
have a telephone service, and it would pay every 
estate well to have a service between the different 
bungalows and the factory. The saving in coolies 
carrying chits about between the 1,500 planters 
and their 3,000 conductors and tea makers ; the 
saving of stationery and pencils ; the saving of 
valuable time ; the saving of human lives where 
a doctor is urgently required — all make it highly 
advisable that this modern means of communica- 
tion should be in use in every civilised, up-to-date 
aountryandthisis about the only instance in which 
THE CEYLON PLANTER IS BADLY BEHIND THE 
TIMES. 
In Java, where the estates are far more widely 
scattered, you find nearly every bungalow con- 
nected by Telephone with the Post Office, and the 
saving of time, the convenience and economy are 
duly attested by the Planters there. 
Perhaps the fact that the Telephone system in 
Britain is about the worst in the wOrld has opera- 
ted against its introduction to Ceylon, but this 
abuse of a blessing at home need not retard its 
introduction in your Colony, 
A RAILWAY IN THE KALUTARA DISTRICT. 
Java, too, has a better service of District Railways 
than Ceylon ; and if Kalutara were in Java, a 
concession would readily be granted to any syndi- 
cate who would construct a railway to that 
planting district. That it would pay to do so 
there seems little doubt, and as the Government of 
Ceylon makes the Railways a state monopoly and 
uses them as a means of raising revenue, the people 
are entitled in reason to expect railways to be 
constructed to any district where it can be shown 
that the traffic will be sufficient from the first to 
cover interest and sinking fund, especially where 
it is probable it will increase later on. One result 
of a railway in Kalutara would be that it would 
throw a lot of traffic presently carried to Colombo 
by canal on to one of the existing railways and 
thus increase their profits. 
A BRIDGE AT ANGURUATOTA FERRY. 
A bridge has long been wanted at Anguruatota 
Ferry on the Kaluganga, The fact that a high 
official was recently considerably delayed on the 
banks of that river, owing to floods, may do more 
to help the district in the matter of this bridge 
than much correspondence or many deputations !!! 
I recalled when the district bridges had timber 
platforms laid on them on a peculiar Macbride 
system, by which the four planks were cut more 
than half way through to insert rail heads. 
Horse accidents, or rather escapes from accidents, 
were as common as one could have expected under 
the insane state of affairs, 
HOW THE P. W. D. ACTS. 
Poor "E D H" nearly had his neck broken by 
his horse going through one of these bridges and 
he wrote complaining to Government). His letter 
was passed on to Mr Smith, the then acting 
head of the P W D, and after an immense amount 
of r?d-tape and circumlocution of bis letter between 
various officials, he got back a strongly-worded 
letter from the acliug head, saying that only four 
planks were bad and they were suffering from 
'"dry rot" which could not be observed "from 
above," and demanding the withdrawal of his 
statements about the bridge. We went down and 
inspected it, and found that 20 more planks had 
cracked nearly through during the time of the 
departmental enquiry. So a letter was sent to the 
Director P W D stating that the only " dry rot " 
in the matter was Mr Smith's letter, and that there 
were 20 more planks in a dangerous condition and 
demanding their immediate repair. Till the day 
he retired, poor Smith never got over the shock 
of having 
HIS OFFICIAL LETTER CALLED " DRY ROT " 
and turned to ridicule; but he had the bridge 
repaired, and well would it have been for him if he 
had had the whole of the "Macbride" platforms 
removed and new ones laid, as the Government 
had to pay dearly for damage to life and limb 
later on. Mr Wise, of " Cooiy Education Depart- 
ment," got heavy damages from the Government 
for an accident at one of those very bridges. 
GOVERNMENT'S ATTITl;DE TOWARDS RUBBER 
EXTENSIONS. 
Talking of Government officials, the obstacles 
placed by the present Forest official in regard to 
the selling of Government land for Rubber-Growing 
seems to me to be highly reprehensible. The 
height of his ambition seems to be to get as much 
as possible for tlie land either from the sale of 
firewood or from the sale of the land. Whereas, if 
he would look at it from a more statesman-like 
point of view, he would see that it pays the Govern- 
ment and Uolory far better to sell the land at a 
small price and have it in rubber than to have it 
bottled up in jungle and capital invested elsewhere. 
THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF LAND SALES IN CEYLON 
IS ROTTEN. 
Endless delays occur before one can get any 
Government land. The price paid is often 
out of all proportion to its value; and 
When Government gets the money instead 
of funding it, and spending the interest, the money 
is spent along with the other revenues of the 
Colony ; and having spent the money the Govern- 
ment is so much poorer in respect of capital than 
it was before the land was sold. Then any one 
can buy a block of land and not cultivate it, 
holding it for a profit : this is wrong. If your 
present Governor would lease instead of selling the 
land, with a proviso that so much land had to 
be cultivated within a certain time, the result 
would be the colony would have a certain annual 
income from its lands, People wouia only take 
them up if they were bonnfide cultivators, Those 
who took up land, paying say K2 an acre of rent 
instead of R60 per acre for the land, could open 
nearly double the area they could if their capital 
went in paying for the land. Thus the Colony 
would gain in every way, and much more revenue 
result to the Government and to the individual, 
than by the present system of sales by auction. 
These auction sales too often result in the land 
going too dear through undue competition, or 
too cheap through combinations being made not 
to bid, and which places the man who has 
worked hard in selecting a block after years of 
experience, entirely at the mercy of anyone who 
comes along and chooses to take advantage of his 
experience and knowledge. 
