( 126 ) 
All the revenues oi tbe country should be col- 
lected (without the native chiefs being otherwise 
allowed to interfere than to keep an exact 
account) by persons receiving from Government a 
salary for that duty. 
In this alone consists the grand secret of ameli- 
oration, and on a contrary course being pursued, 
all idea of improvement must be given up. These 
black employees receiving wages from Govern- 
ment must be under the direct control of the 
Dessave or Collector ; under the superintendence 
they must be severely punished on the least mal- 
versation ; even put into irons and kept to hard 
work for a longer or shorter period, as the nature 
of the case may require ; with some such severe 
examples, they will in one or two years be with 
ease retained in the limits of their duty. It is 
requisite to say that they should be well paid, 
and a partial trial made in one district will prove 
that this, far from being expensive, will be very 
advantageous. This is no theory with the com- 
piler of these observations ; he has proved its 
happy effort by experience after having tried, 
during a space of five years, every other method 
with the most indocile and independent chiefs of 
the Islajd. 
The usage of farming out the land tax at 
Ceylon (with a few exceptions) will always be nob 
only the most defective, but at once the most 
disadvantageous for Government, burthensome 
for the inhabitant and labourer, ^.ud impolitic in 
itself. 
The exceptions of these three assertions are so 
very few, that a convincing dissertation on the 
subject might easily be made here, had we room 
for it, but it will suffice to say in moderate terms, 
that the system of farming out taxes is a system 
of laziness or of those who are indififerent to the 
public welfare. 
The reverse of this system is, that Government 
should regulate the collection of the taxes by 
black employes known by the names of Wiebad- 
das, KannekapuUes, Cangans and Lascoreens, who 
are to be dependent on and accountable to the 
Collector alone, but then duplicates must be kept 
of all accounts relating to the revenues of the 
Island as has already been practised with success 
in an extensive district of the Island and without 
any inconvenience. This niode of collecting the 
revenue is so advantageous to Government, that 
it will give an advance of 10 per cent the 
first year ; profitable and equitable for the 
labourer and inhabitant, and singularly politic 
in every regard to diminish or entirely annul 
bhe dangerous influence of the chiefs of the country 
who are the greatest obstacle to every change 
for the better. It is also useful for the obtaining 
of an exact knowledge of the lands in question. 
It may perhaps be urged that the immense 
detail which this collection of tithes and other 
revenues of the country requires, renders measure 
impossible. To this objection we will reply that 
this labour which seems impossible from the 
minute details it requires is very easy, that 
order and fixed regulations are alone requisite, 
and that it has been effected with the greatest 
success several years consequetively in a very 
«xtensive district of the Island. 
Experience will certainly shew that it will be 
the same everywhere, where the same caution 
and severity are from the commencement dis- 
played with respect to the subaltern employees. 
What are we to do with all the grains re- 
ceived in gross will next be asked, what was 
formerly done with it, or sell it with profit and 
carry the amount in dimunition of the consider- 
able purchases of foreign grain, which the Govern- 
ment is annually obliged to make. The balance 
of this account would thus in time become the 
touchstone of a good interior administration, as 
we can only attain a state of improvement by 
forming a comparison of the present with the 
past. We shall hereafter point out the method 
of easily introducing this system of collection of 
the land-tax either to establish it in all the 
land, or for trial in any particular district. 
This collection never allows of any arrears in the 
revenue. 
We nmst now speak of the Thombos or registers 
of lands and of the inhabitants of Island. They 
are divided into two kinds. The land Thombo or 
register of lands in cultivation marking their 
extent measured by a surveyor, their boundaries, 
qualities, owner or owners (either in union or in 
separation) &c. The best model is that which the 
Government of Ceylon had decided on about 
thirty years ago, and which was provisorily 
begun for the province of Jafnapatam by Captain 
Nage), afterwards continued by Lieut. Ilopker, 
to whom Government gave 1,500 Rupees per annum 
as an extra allowance and two a«isistants. This 
became a surveying school for young persons. It 
was reckoned that the drawing up of the land 
Thotnbo of Jafua would be finished to 20 years, 
which would cause an expense of 30,000 R Ds« 
which the Government have regained in four or 
five years. The advantages resulting from such 
an enregistration are very great for the revenue, 
for good order and to prevent lawsuits between 
owners of lands. The two renewals of the land 
Thombo instituted within the last tea years at 
Jafna do not come under this head. They have 
had no other result than an expense of 30,000 
R-Ds. to the people, and again of that sum to the 
pockets of two employees. 
If the land Thombo on plan prescribed in the 
time of Governor Falck would have had the 
happiest results for tbe prosperity of Ceylon, 
a Hoofd Thomtoo or general register of the 
inhabitants would not have been less useful for 
their A^elfare, and to fix exactly the amount of 
services to which every caste and every indivi- 
dual of that caste was liable, or value in com- 
mutation of those services. This work has only 
been partially done, and yet it is of great use for 
the general benefit. 
We are authorised by experience to believe 
that this enregistration in a Hoofd Thombo, 
besides the good which would thence result to 
the natives liable to service, and the great revenue 
which would accrue from it to the Government, 
would be of material good in a few years, for 
these reasons, that several thousand inhabitants 
who in all the districts are now satisfied with sowing 
only the few parraa of nelie which are necessary for 
their yearly consumption, would sow one or two 
amunams each, if forced to choose between the 
state of labourer or that of a man forced to the 
Corvee. A still greater number of latter would 
become agriculturist from the very first year of 
the general enregistration of the castes ard of 
individuals subject to service ; the option should be 
allowed to every man, namely, whether he would 
perform the service to which he was liable, pay 
the redemption value of it, or exempt himself 
from it by becoming a labourer ; that the latter 
