SEtT.  2,  1895. J THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
t6s 
CEVLUN  LAHOUK  SUPPLY  AND  THE 
PJ.ANTEKS’  ASSOCIATION  : 
GOOD  ADVICE  TO  VOUNG  SUPE  UIN  TENDENTS 
BIG  AND  FIHMa  ; THE  INDO-CEYLON  KAILWAY. 
The  Meinoranclum  laid  hefore  the  “Labour 
Supply  Standing,'  Committee”  of  the  Planters’ 
Association,  and  by  it,  amended  and  published 
in  the  form  given  elsewhere,  is  umpie.^stionably  one 
of  tlie  most  practical  deliverances  of  the  kind,  that 
bar  appeared  for  a long  time.  Leaders  of  the  Asso- 
ciation have  been  accustomed  to  say  thej'  can 
do  little  or  nothing  in  respect  of  labour  supply 
and  management ; but  if  only  they  gave  us  perio- 
dical bulletins  of  the  kind  before  us — we  speak 
of  its  positive  not  its  negative  opinions — 
good  must  inevitably  result.  It  is  no  secret  that 
when  Mr.  Melville  White  called  this  particular 
Committee  together  to  discuss  a question  with 
which  the  country  was  .supposed  to  be  “ringing” 
there  was  not  a single  scrap  of  pajier,  no  letter 
nor  resolution  from  a District  Association 
to  lay  before  it.  Even  Dimbula,  Maskeliya  ( the 
home"  of  Mr.  A.  E.  AVright  ) and  the"Kelani 
Valley  were  silent ! Surley  this  shews  how' great 
has  been  the  cliange  whicli  had  come  over  the 
dreams  of  the  planters  since  “ the  Ides  of  March”  ! 
Every  one,  a few  months  ago,  snp^iosed  that 
enormous  advances,  multiplied  crimping  and  a 
generally  short  cooly  sui))dy  were  to  be  the 
rain  of  the  Tea  industry  ami  our  printers  could 
scarcely  keep  i>ace  wdth  the  letters  and  reme- 
dies which  poured  in  upon  them.  AVliere 
are  those  dreamei's,  or  physicians  now?  How 
marvellous  the  change  which  three  months’ 
steady  immigration  of  coolies  has  w'rouglit!  And 
this  brings  us  at  once  to  a notable  practical 
ommission  from  tlie  Memorandum  before  us,  namely, 
a recommendation  to  Superintendents  to  endea- 
vour to  iiiHuence  the  coolies  who  wish  to  visit 
their  country,  to  do  so  a little  later  and  if 
possible  to  distribute  their  vi.sits  more  equally 
over  the  year.  In  other  words,  it  has  to  be 
pointed  out  to  “Ramasamy” — who  would  not 
be  at  all  slow'  to  appreciate  tlie  situation — that 
the  arrangement  winch  fitted  in  admirably  with 
“coffee” — through  which  all  and  .sundry  were 
allow'ed  to  make  for  “the  cost”  early  in  the 
year, — does  not  at  all  suit  “tea”;  for,  indeed, 
tlie  early  months  of  the  j’ear  and  on  uji  till 
May  are  frequently  among  the  busiest.  We  do 
not  think  it  would  be  at  all  impossible,  to 
get  the  period  of  departure  gradually  shifted 
to  w’hat  arc  really  the  slack  months,  say  begin- 
ning about  15th  May.  AVe  know  that  the  ri.sk  of 
exposure  to  wet  weather  in  jtassing  to  and  fro, 
is  a great  objection  ; l>iit  with  through  railway 
communication,  and  eicn  now'  with  rail  and 
.steamer,  this  is  lamnd  to  be  obi  iated. 
We  now  come  lo  the  Memorandum  itself,  and 
as  the  most  notable  passage  iiv  the  whole  docu- 
ment— and  here  especially  do  we  recognise  “ the 
fine  Roman  hand  ’’  of  the  Chairman,  w e quote : 
— “The  cooly  is  very  much  what  the  master 
“ makes  him  and  there  is  far  les.s  change  in  the 
“cooly  than  there  is  in  .some  Superintendents 
“of  the  day.”  This  is  most  true,  find  it  is  a 
text  on  which  Mr.  Melville  AAMiite  and  his  fel- 
low Committee  men  might  very  well  enlarge. 
All  the  trouble  which  brought  a Medical  Aid 
Ordinance  and  tax  on  the  planters  in  the 
“seventies”  arose  from  the 
generation  of  young  |)lanters 
w'as  “to  make  haste  to 
who  had  little  or  no  symp.athj’  with  the  coolies 
or  care  for  their  welfare.  To  the  very  same 
cause  in  the  present  day  may  be  traced  tlie 
21 
appearance  of  a 
wliose  one  object 
be  rich  ” and 
evil  of  “over  advancing,”  crimping  and  the 
dying  about  of  “tundus”to  the  unsettlement  of 
canganies  and  the  disorganisation  of  coolies. 
How'  dificrent  from  the  old  typical  planter  after 
the  pattern  set  by  Robt.  Boyd  Tytler,  Peter  Moir 
— who  has  just  passed  away — and  may  more  of 
a similar  order.  Who  ever  heard  of  coolies  ne- 
glected in  the  lines.  Or  sent  to  the  C >urt  to 
settle  their  quarrels  in  their  day?  And  why 
should  not  Alanagers  and  Superintendents  take 
as  much  pains  in  the  present  era  ? The  very 
first  requisite,  indisputably,  is  a thorough  work- 
ing command  of  the  language  of  the  coolies. 
Can  eveiy  young  planter  of  the  present  day- 
in  charge  of  an  estate,  really  understand  a coolie 
who  conies  to  him  with  a complaint,  it  may 
be,  against  his  cangany  ? Are  we  going  too  far 
in  suggesting  that  the  Tlanters’  Association 
might  establish  a form  of  examination  in 
coolie  Tamil  and  grant  a certificate  to  young 
men  satisfying  tw'o  or  three  competent  exami- 
ners ? Such  certificate  w'ould  of  course,  not  be  all- 
important,  but  w'e  venture  to  say,  it  would  by 
no  means  be  scouted  by  proprietors  and  agents 
looking  out  for  men  to  take  charge  of  estates. 
Very  good  advice  is  given  as  to  the  manage- 
ment of  coast  advances  and  w'e  would  press 
home  their  responsibility  on  our  chief  Agency 
and  Proprietary  Firms  and  Companies,  as  pointed 
out  in  the  concluding  portion  of  the  Memoran- 
dum. For  “crimping,'’  evils  of  the  “tundu” 
system  and  all  other  ills  a.ssociated  with  the 
local  transfer  and  scarcity  of  coolies,  it  is  most 
correctly  and  comprehensively  alleged  that  there 
is  no  better  remedy  than  to  increase  the  supply 
of  coolies. 
And  now  we  come  to  what  is  said  about 
“facilitating  the  journeys  of  coolies  to  and  from 
Ceylon.”  Here  we  regret  to  lind  that  the  Chairman 
has  forsaken  the  best  tradiiions  of  the  Planter.s’ 
Association— ever  in  the  van  of  progress, — and  has 
adopted  a narrow-minded,  jiarocliial,  lukewarm 
view  of  a great  and  important  undertaking.  Here 
is  what  Mr.  Melville- AA’^hitc  wrote  (as  published 
by  the  local  “ Times  ”)  : — 
“ The  question  of  the  Iiido-Ceylou  railway  seems 
hardly  within  the  range  of  practical  politics  yet 
and  there  may  be  a fear  that  the  journey  oy  rail  will 
be  too  expensive  and  possibly  bring  the  home  of  the 
cooly  too  near  the  country  of  his  adoption.” 
This  reminds  ns  of  nothing  so  much  as  the 
worse  than  lukewarm,  the  sneering  allusions,  with 
which  certain  individual  leaders  were  wont  to 
meet  our  luogramme  for  a Nawalapitiya-Hapu- 
tale  Uailwav  in  the  early  “seventies.”  The  late 
Mr.  ( leorgc  AVall  was  not  alone  in  trying  to 
give  it  the  “;'o-by”;  for  several  others  supported 
him  ill  “tickling  the  cars  of  the  groundlings” 
by  saying  tlial  it  was  not  within  the  region 
of  “ |ira(dical  politics”  nor  would  be  for  a 
ilccatlc  or  score  of  years  to  follow.  AA’e  need 
not  say  how  such  criticism  and  opposition 
•served  but  to  whet  the  earnestness  of  the 
few  who  stood  by  us  ; and  to  do  the  As- 
sociation justice,  that  body  as  a whole  gave 
uniform  support  to  the  memorials  w'liich  the  then 
far-away  ami  neglected  Uva  Planters  laid  before 
it,  although  several  of  the  leaders  would  have 
sneered  them  out  of  court  if  they  dared.  Now, 
we  trust  and  believe  it  would  be  the  same  in 
the  present  case.  For,  let  it  be  noted,  the  Indo- 
Ceylon  Railway  is  the  child  in  tlie  first  in- 
stance, of  an  eminent  and  very  old  member  of  the 
Association,  Mr.  Edward  .1.  Young.  He  was 
specially  chosen  I*y  the  Association  to  visit  South- 
ern India  and  report  on  the  Labour  Question, 
ami  valuable  as  his  Re[iort  may  be  in  other  re- 
spects, there  can  be  no  (|uestiou  than  any  im- 
