THE 
COLONIZATION 01' LANDS CONNECTED WITH 
BESTOKED [IRRIGATION WORKS. 
HEBE is a paper published 
onoe a fortnight at Jaffna, 
oallod " The Hindu Organ," 
and in a number of this paper 
which reached us some time 
ago we saw notice of a co- 
lonization scheme which 
Mr. lovers, Government Agent of the Nort- 
Contral Province was said to have formulated and 
which received favourable appreciation. We applied 
to the Colonial Secretary's OfHoe for a copy of Mr. 
leVers' scheme, but nothing was known of it there. 
Application to the publishers of the “Hindu Organ" 
was then made, and the result is that wo have 
been courteously furnished with a copy of the 
issue of October 14th of this year, in which ap- 
pears Mr. levers' letter, dated October Slat, 1890, (?) 
which will be found on page 626. It will 
be aeon 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 oommunioation 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 is 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 tbe 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 which Sir Arthur Havelock is understood 
to have pressed on His Lordship for adoption. That 
policy, we know, from Hia Excellency's utterances, 
involves the abolition, of the paddy tithes (which 
proportion of eases the commutation 
01 feudal services), while the import duties on 
gram are retained. Wo need not repeat our well- 
own conviction that even if any Government 
entured to try the experiment (which Mr. 
nn T lesling disgrace, has favoured) the duties 
S:, u " . would then become 
ectiy hostile to our poor fellow-subjeota across 
•ne SKfttt, would not survive a year. And if the 
local tithes are abolished, where is the money 
to be found for a continuance of tbe irrigation 
policy which the home Government specially 
favours 7 How are liberal schemes, snoh as Lord 
Enutsford suggested with referenoe to lands " under " 
Eantalay tank ; and how are still more liberal colo- 
nization ecbemes such as the enterprising and 
practical Government Agent of the North-Central 
Province has formulated to be carried out, how, above 
all, is there tbe slightest chance of the irrigation 
regions being efleotnally opened up for settlement 
and cultivation by the agency of the railway, if 
we sacrifioe the revenue of a million of rupees 
(com local tithes and tbe more than two millions 
of import duties on grain which would inevitably 
follow 7 The substRution of a land lax 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 "dunib driven" cattle resort to. 
One thing seems certain, that the natives of 
Oeylon (tbe Moormen, and, perhaps some Tamils 
exoepted) are more immobile, lees 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, tbe axe of the 
forest clearer and the hoe end plough of tbe tiller 
of tbe soil. It is diflloalt (or us, with onr British 
notions of enterprise and self dependoneo, 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 oultivalion 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 snd my mother ") which Mr. 
levers recognizes in his elaborate scheme. We 
really hope the Government will — taking all the risk 
of loss from insalubrity of climate and faiinre of 
colonists to fnlfil their obligations — authorise Mr. 
levers to try on a moderate scale the experiment 
of tbe sueoessof which, grunted normal eessons, he 
seems so confident. A vote of some BIO.OOO or so 
would bo well bestowed In testing the suecees of the 
ultra oriental and paternal policy recommended. 
AV'e 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 virgin soil. Why should rice yield, even 
when irrigated only 80-(old, — that is 80 basbeis in 
return for one bushel sown, — while kuakkan and 
gingelli return from 300- to 450-fold 7 If Mr 
Green’s statement that over 500-fold had been 
obtained Irom a piece of rice land connected witb 
