MONTHLY 
Vol. XL 
COLOMBO, FEBRUARY ist, 1892. 
[No, 8. 
COLONIZATION OF LANDS CONNECTED WITH 
RESTORED [IRRIGATION WORKS. 
HEBE is a paper published 
onoe a fortnight at Jaffna, 
called "The Hindu Organ," 
and in a number of this paper 
whioh reached us Bome time 
ago we saw notice of a co- 
lonization scheme whioh 
Mr. levers, Government Agent of the Nort- 
Central Province was said to have formulated and 
whioh received favourable appreciation. We applied 
to the Colonial Secretary's Office for a copy of Mr. 
Igvers' scheme, but nothing was known of it there. 
Application to the publishers of the " Hindu Organ" 
was then made,- and the result is that we have 
been courteously furnished with a copy of the 
issue of October 14th of this year, in whioh ap- 
pears Mr. levers' letter, dated October 31st, 1890,(?) 
which will be found on page 526. It will 
be seen that Mr. levers' wrote in response to queries 
from an influential member of the Tamil com- 
munity at Jaffna, and if the date at the top of 
the communication is correct it seems strange that 
the recipient of information so important should 
not have made it public until it was a year old 
The next point which seems to require explana- 
tion i'b the expression of the editor's belief that Mr. 
levers' scheme had been sanctioned by Government. 
Were this really the case, we think some public 
indication of the fact would have been made. But 
perhaps this and much more of a like nature is 
awaiting the decision of the Secretary of State on 
the policy whioh Sir Arthur Havelook is understood 
to have pressed on His Lordship for adoption. That 
policy, we know, from His Excellency's utterances, 
involves the abolition of the paddy tithes (whioh 
are in a vast proportion of cases the commutation 
of feudal sorviooB), while the import duties on 
grain are retained. Wo need not repeat our well- 
known oonviotion that even if any Government 
ventured to try tho osperimont (whioh Mr. 
Potter, to his lasting disRraoe, has favoured) tho duties 
on Indian grain, which would then beoomo 
directly hoslilo to our poor fellow-subjects across 
Ibe Strait, would uot survivo a yoav. And if the 
local tithes are abolished, where is the money 
to be found for a continuance of the irrigation 
policy whioh the home Government specially 
favours ? How are liberal scheme?, such as Lord 
Knutsford Buggested with reference to lands " under " 
Kantalay tank ; and how are still more liberal colo- 
nization schemes such as the enterprising and 
practical Government Agent of the North-Central 
Province has formulated to be carried out, how, above 
all, is there the slightest chance of the irrigation 
regions being efieotually opened up for settlement 
and cultivation by the agency of the railway, if 
we saoriflce the revenue of a million of rupees 
from local tithes and the more than two millions 
of import duties on grain whioh would inevitably 
follow? The subst'tution of a land tax would 
be a Rehoboam-like policy which the goyiyas, who 
all possess uplands cultivated with fruits, roots, 
and vegetables, would be the first to groan under 
and resent, perhaps after the fashion of the 
last argument which "dumb driven" cattle resort to. 
One thing seems certain, that the natives of 
Oeylon (the Moormen, and, perhaps some Tamils 
excepted) are more immobile, less courageous and 
less enterprising even than the Hindus of the 
opposite Continent, where some districts, like 
Bengal, suffer from population unnaturally congested, 
while vast expanses of waste land wait, as they 
have waited for thirty centuries, the axe of the 
forest clearer and the hoe and plough of the tiller 
of the soil. It is difficult for us, with our British 
notions of enterprise and self-dependence, to regard 
with patience and treat with pitiful forbearance 
people who, when Government have provided irriga- 
tion water, which, with land, low and high, they offer 
on terms which ought to be easy to men ordinarily 
industrious, insist that Government must go 
further and provide them with money capital and 
seed for cultivation and also with food until the land 
cultivated commences to give full returns. But it 
is the necessity of Government's adapting itself to 
oriental exigencies and adopting a policy so ab- 
solutely paternal and even maternal (" Your 
honour is my father Bnd my mother ") which Mr. 
levers recognizes in his elaborate scheme. We 
really hope the Government will — taking all tho risk 
of loss from insalubrity of climate and failure of 
colonists to fulfil their obligations— authorize Mr. 
levers to try on a moderate scale the experiment 
of the success of whioh, granted normal seasong, he 
seems so confident. A vote of some BIO, 000 or so 
would be well bestowed in testing the success of the 
ultra oriental and paternal policy recommended. 
We are, however, beyond measure surprised at the 
different results, in the shape of crop which Mr. 
levers anticipates from three different products, all 
grown in viigiu foil. Why should rice yield, even 
when irrigated only ;50-fold,— that is 30 bushels in 
return for one bushel sown, — while ku.akkan and 
gingelli return from 300- to -loO-fold '? If Mr. 
Green's statement that over 500-fold had been 
obtained from a piece of lioe land oouneoted witli 
