CHAPTER EIGHT

ADMINISTRATION

8.1 Administrative Units

Discussing the economic development of the Crown Ceylon in the previous chapters, we have already touched on the role of the British administration several times. The provision of favourable conditions for the plantation economy has evidently been one of the main concerns of the administrative body throughout the nineteenth century. With the construction of roads, bridges and railways, with the rigorous enforcement of its land policy as well as with its tax policy, the British administration supported the European planting community in many spheres. In a small and administratively man- ageable colony like Ceylon economy and administration were often closely interwoven. In the early days of coffee cultivation, the own- ers of the fi rst plantations were mostly well-to-do Civil Servants—or Governors. Therefore, a substantial number of administrators held some personal interest in the welfare of the planting industry. With the rapid expansion of the plantation system in Ceylon, the direct participation of Civil Servants in the cultivation of cash crops was prohibited in order to prevent further misuse of administrative pow- ers. Answering a despatch of the Secretary of State inquiring about the participation of Civil Servants in the planting industry, Governor Gordon wrote in 1884: In reply to Your Lordship’s Circular Despatch of the 24 June last, requesting to be furnished with a Return of the Estates owned and managed by Civil Offi cers in this Colony, I have the honour to state that the rule of long standing in this Colony is that Civil Servants are not allowed to own land or to manage Estates and that so far as I can learn this rule is not infringed.1 However, the further the plantation industry expanded, the more important it became for the fi nancial welfare of the colony. A substan-

1 CO 54/554, 7 August 1884/No. 299, Gordon to Derby.

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tial portion of the general revenue was derived from sources directly or indirectly related to the plantation system. Ceylon had only very little non-agricultural industry and the peasant subsistence sector could only bear so much tax burden. Thus, the fi nancial situation of Ceylon depended almost fully on the fortunes of the planting industry—and the pursuit of planter-friendly policies concerning land, labour and taxation was a vested interest of the . The term ‘administrative unit’ can be applied to two spheres of the administration: either to the administrative division of the colony in , and divisions or to the internal structure of the administrative machinery. In both of these spheres substantial reforms and developments took place throughout the nineteenth century. In the course of the implementation of Cameron’s and Colebrooke’s proposals in the 1830s, Ceylon was subdivided in fi ve administrative provinces—the Central , the Eastern Province, the Northern Province, the Southern Province and the Western Province. In 1845, the North-Western Province was created as an additional administra- tive unit. Only in 1873, the then Governor Gregory added another prov- ince—the North-Central Province. A revival of systematic irrigation policy had been initiated during Gregory’s Governorship. To facilitate the administration of the new irrigation it was decided to separate the districts of Nuvarakalaviya (NP) and Tamankaduva (EP) from their provinces and create a new province with the ancient of Anuradhapura as its capital.2 In earlier chapters we have already mentioned that the irrigation enterprise showed its best results in the poverty-stricken of the North-Central Province. The creation of this separate province has been an important prerequisite for this achievement. The Province of Uva was formed by uniting the Bintanna, Viyaluva, Vellassa, Udukinda, Yatikinda (all CP), Vallavaya and Buttala divisions (all SP) in 1886. Badulla became the capital of the newly established province. The Central Province had been too large to effectively administer the rapidly expanding planting industries. At the same time, the needs and interests of the rural population had often been neglected. Crop failures were frequent due to droughts and the bad

2 Garrett Champness Mendis, Ceylon under the British, 3d rev. ed. (Colombo: Colombo Apothecaries’ Co., 1952), 122.

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