LITEJ?ARy REGI8TEJ? SUPPLEMENT: 
AND CEYLON 
"N0TE3 AND QUERIES. " 
fUnc'er thi3 heading we mean to give a small "Supplement" wUh out Tropical Agrieulturisl vnonthls, 
according as there is matter of sufficient value so to be preserved.] 
MONSIEUR BURNARD'S MEMOIR ON 
LON. 
{Continued from page 131.) 
Plantafeion of Sappan and Jackwood, which 
flourish very well, sliould also be enc()ura<^ed. It 
would therefore be requisite that Government for 
the advance of these cultivations sliould not impede 
t'-em in the commencement by taking the tenth. 
They must encouraoe the improvements and not 
take with one liand wiiat they give with the other. 
To give a better understanding of what has been 
alieady said, as well as what we have yet to say, 
we think necessary to define what we mean 
by tlie term tax or imposts in tlie different 
signific.atiou. Impost,a are in general all that the 
agents of the king desire from the people, and which 
the people pay with services, or their commuta- 
tion into money, and from the arbitrary will of 
Government wliicii the people submit from obedi- 
ence. This definition shews a division into a direct 
and an indirect tax. The first may be subdivided 
into the land tax, derived from the produce of the 
land, and personal tax charged upon the individual, 
and which arises from his old liability to service for 
the account of the price— the latter may be com- 
muted either for a capitation tax for life, according 
to the agreement made col'ectively by the whole 
caste, or for a certain rcdemp;ion from the 
corvee (cclium) which should be early agreed upon 
with every individual from IG to 60 years of age, 
of those castes, which are reputed foreign, and 
which were subject to those taxes, when the last 
Hoofd Thorabos were drawn up. The indirect tax 
bears upon articles produced or used in industrial 
labcur; it derived from imposts on imposts 
in transets or transported from one part of 
the Island to another. From papper stamps from 
the taxes in fisheries, arrack, tobacco, betle, chaay, 
pearls, basoars, 
What has already been said will lead us to 
conclude, that the laud tax is regulated and 
collected in a manner unfavourable to the Govern- 
ment and to the general interest that— that it ba 
received as uniformly as possible and in the most 
advantageous manner both for the Government and 
the cultivator, 
,, That the second should be equally divided 
among the inhabitants according to their ancient 
services, and that this operation, which is useful to 
the mass of population, and to tlie public chest 
should be conducted with address, so as to induce 
the castes liable to service themselves to oiler to 
redeem those linbles for a payment in money. 
That the third be so conducted as to equalise 
the weight of the other two. To attain the first 
two ends, it will first be requisite the tenth of the 
produce of the gardens planted with fruit trees 
should be raised with exactitude in the western 
parts of the island, from the River of Kaynelle 
to Deondura in the South, and that the tenth 
of the fields sown with paddy should be collected 
and not farmed out. These two changes which 
are favourable to the public interest would give 
an impetus to as/riculture and afterwards pro- 
duce great revenue. Secondly the service:; due 
should be inquired into and enforced according 
to equity and policy so* as to induce an offer 
of communication for value. As an example of 
the advantage which this investigation and this 
redemption would be productive of we will nob 
adduce what has been executed in a district 
in the east of the island some years ago, but we will 
refer to the services of the castes employed in 
the west for the elephant hunt and in the 
Dessavonies of Colombo and Matura hunt which 
are at present burdensome to the Government, 
ruinou* to the people, and only profitable to the 
native chiefs of those castes. The trade derived 
from elephants was in the former time advan- 
tageous to the Dutch Company, and in 1700-1 it 
produced a profit of 63 345 Pagodas, but since that 
period it has gradually decreased, and now only 
occasions loss. If then the exact enregistration of 
the individuals of those castes in the two Dessavo- 
nies were made, and it is said they amount to 
.3,000 or 4,000, it will not be dilficult to induce them 
to offer a redemption price for their services Ln 
order to purge the piovinces from these animals. 
From the produce of that revenue, a few rupees 
and a pound of powder might be the reward of 
any man who killed an elephant ; by that means the 
country would be freed from them, and the 
Government would obtain a sensible increase of 
llevenue and an augmentation of agiiculturists, for 
those mu<!t also occupy its attention. The changes 
to be made in the two branches of revenue should 
be so united as to mutually assist each other, the 
introduction of a tenth on the produce of fruit trees 
is of as much importance for the effecting of a re- 
establishment of agriculture, as the investigation 
into liabilities to service. 
If the revenue were not (^nneerned, justice would 
be nothing, the owners of land in the west of Ceylon, 
who hitherto have paid neither a land or personal 
tax, on account of their being a privileged caste, 
contribute to the expenses of Government, by whose 
weakness or abuse tiiey have hitherto been exempt- 
ed, although they have been gradually enriching 
