8i8 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [June i, 1898. 
OUR RICE SUPPLY AND LOCAL 
CULTIVATION : 
OUR DEPENDENCE ON INDIA TO WHICH 
WE PAY 20 MILLION RUPEES YEARLY 
FOR RICE; 
MB. ELLIOTT’S WALAWE EXPERIMENT 
FIVE YEARS’ EXPERIENCE OF PADDY 
RENTS’ ABOLITION : A SPECIAL REPORT 
SHOULD BE CALLED FOR. 
OUR RICE IMPORTS FROM INDIA IN- 
CREASING— ARE LOCAL CROPS INCREASING? 
THE COLONIAL OFFICE REGRET THE 
CHECK TO “TANK RESTORATION’’ OF 
LATE YEARS ; BUT MR. CHAMBERLAIN’S 
POLICY OF TAKING REVENUE FOR 
northern railway a fatal BLOW: 
“PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE 
HORSE.’’ 
There never wa.s .'ll! occa.sion in the modern 
hisitory of Ceylon when greater interest sliould 
bei felt in the question of local Pice Cultivation 
than at the pre.sent moment. The threatened 
advent and spread of plague in Bengal is enough 
warrant of it.sell for tlii.s statement. But it lias 
for the past iifty years been a sore subject with 
thoughtful members of the Ceylon Government 
.and general community that so large a sum of 
"money should every year have to be paid arvay 
to India for the needful supply of our staple 
.article of food, more especially in view of the 
'attractive tradition that the island at one time 
grew enough rice for a larger popu atiou than 
it holds at present. If true, that must have been 
as we have shown elsewhere by indisputable 
facts— very far back in its lii.story, long befoie 
any European touched its shores. We have, how- 
ever, to deal with our own day and to point 
out the immense importance of any local attempts 
to free ourselves from so much dependence on 
India, and the unprecedented encouragement now' 
ottering to native as well as European capitalists to 
make experiments in rice culture. The encour 
ageinent is found in the unusually high range of 
prices of late for imported rice, in the ten per 
cent “Protection’ duty, in the countenance and 
aid of the authorities in any reasonable proposals 
and in the existence of suitable, irrigable land in 
more than one district available for cultivation. 
.If in the face of these several advantages it 
can be shown that rice-growing in Ceylon is not 
profitable, then indeed may we despair of ever 
seeing our dependence on India,- Burma or other 
rice-growing countries greatly lessened, or of 
North-Central or North Ceylon ever doing much 
to redress the balance. 
However, we have rather more than 
theory to offer and it is w-ell that due atten- 
tion 'should be given to Mr. Elliott’s statement 
(appended) of his full belief in the profitable 
nature of the enterprise he has himself taken in 
hand in the Walawe district of the Southern 
Province. There is land there and at Tissa, we 
believe, available for a good deal of extension 
should capitalists, at this time especially, think 
'of trying an industry for whose produce there is 
always a local demand. But in considering this 
matter, surprise must be felt that during the 
past live years far more has not been done by 
native landholders and cultivators— to the 
manner born— for the extension of the industrj- 
of which they know more than an.y other in the 
land. We need not recall what Governors Ward, 
Kobinson, Gregory and Gorilon did to revive 
and extend rice cultivation. It was always said 
in their time, howe\er, by adverse critics that 
the interference of Government as rent collector, 
with the tricks and extortions of headmen oper- 
ated as a strong discouragement to any extension 
of the chief industry of the Sinlialese and Tamils. 
‘ If only the Paddy Kents (or let us for once say 
Paddy ‘Tax’) and all its abominations were abo- 
lished, what a cliange would be witnessed!” Well 
at .a stroke of the pen Lord Knntsford abolished the 
Rents ; five years have elapsed ; five miliions of 
rupees of re venire (not to speak of extortions never 
accounted for) have been left in the pockets of 
those who used to pay the same to Government ; 
a Protection duty hit.s been in operation all 
these five years and this and “dear rice” (for 
most of tire time) have ojrerated as strong en- 
couragements to extend ; — and yet where are we 
to look for the great change, where do we find 
any evidence of an extension of rice cultivation 
among the natives under such exceptional cir- 
cumstances, or where even, may we ask in our 
ignorance, is there any special evidence of a 
marked improvement in tlie condition of the 
people ‘t The Reports of the Provincial Agents 
and their District Assistants have little or nothing 
to tell ns of extension, or iuquovement, year 
by year-, during the past five years; ami we 
are driven to the conclusion that in the inter- 
ests of the people and permanent prosperity of 
the country, a fatal mistake w.as made in the 
total abolition of tiie Rents, instead of modify- 
ing and abating the same in the poorer districts, 
and devoting the whole of the rest of the col- 
lection to lire inomolion of Irrigation and the 
improvement of the means by which the industry 
existed. 
The subject is ore that ought to be taken up 
in the Legislative Council, and the General Euro- 
pean Member, as standing between the Planting 
and Mercantile and Native Hepie.sentatives, might 
well be expected to make it his own. A special 
Report should be required from all the Agents 
and tlieir Assistants on the results noted in tlieir 
several Districts from the abolition of the Paddy 
Rents in 1893. A few pointed questions sliould 
be embodied in the official circular (D as to 
extension (or conti action) of cultivation ; (2) 
whether as much attention is given to the 
fields as before 1893 ; (3) who have chiefly 
benefitted (a select number of landholders, money- 
lenders and headmen — or the actual cultivators) 
by the remission of the rents ; (4) wlietlier the 
general condition of the people has improved. 
More practical and useful .suggestions than 
tliese can doubtless be made. The local 
Government as well as the Colonial Office 
should welcome such a Report. Five years 
is a .considerable period in a tropical land 
and there is the risk if further delay be 
made, of losing some more of the Public 
Servants with most experience of native rice 
cultivation in the era of paddy rents. Such a 
Report might be of great use to the Irrigation 
Department, and it would help to elucidate 
several puzzling, problems such as the scarcity, 
almost famine, not long ago reported from one 
of the s]recial rice-growing divisions of Batli- 
caloa ; and further how it is that cultivation 
does not extend pn the unoccupied land loithin 
the Jafl'na peninsula, although the crowded 
population in certain districts, are supposed to 
be ready to go out into the Wanni if a railway 
be made. The full expectation, — when the “ rents’ 
were abolished and “ protection ” established, — 
was that the effect would be felt in the 
Customs figures showing the import and bom 
