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From Landgrabbing to Landhunger: High Land Appropriation in the Plantation Areas of Sri Lanka during the British Period1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Eric Meyer
Eric Meyer
Affiliation:
Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (C.N.R.S./E.H.E.S.S.), Paris
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Extract

In this contribution I propose to examine an aspect of Sri Lankan agrarian history which is often alluded to but rarely studied in depth: the process of high land appropriation for the development of coffee, tea, rubber and coconut plantations. The development of a land market in the Indian subcontinent is becoming a promising field of research for the study of imperial impact as a process at work in specific contexts.The Sri Lankan case differs from the Indian one in that land appropriation was originally meant for and followed by large scale land alienation to outsiders–the planters. This process has attracted the interest of most historians writing on the history of the Raj in Ceylon, but usually the only aspect stressed has been the appropriation by the Colonial State of forest and chena(land devoted to slash-and-burn cultivation) for sale to British planters.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 1992 , pp. 321 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

2 For example, Chaudhuri, B. B., ‘The land market in Eastern India 1793–1940’, Indian Economic and Social History Review XII, 1 (1975);Google ScholarPouchepadass, J., ‘Terre, pouvoir et marché’, Annales E.S.C., 1979 no. 3.Google Scholar

3 Jayawardena, L. R. U., The Supply of Sinhalese Labour to Ceylon Plantations, 1830–1930, a study of imperial policy in a peasant society. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1963. It is unfortunate that this excellent research work has not been published: it remains the most stimulating and sometimes provocative essay on British land policy and I owe a great debt to its insight, although I do not follow the author in all his conclusions.Google Scholar

4 In de Silva, K. M. (ed.), History of Ceylon Vol III, Peradeniya 1973;Google Scholar see also Roberts, M., Some Aspects of Economic and Social Policy in Ceylon, Oxford, D.Phil. thesis, 1965, esp. pp. 298–303.Google Scholar

5 Bandarage, A., Colonialism in Sri Lanka: The Political Economy of the Kandyan Highlands 1833–1886, Berlin, Mouton, 1983.Google Scholar See also Report of the Kandyan Peasantry Commission, Colombo, Ceylon Sessional Papers 1951,Google Scholar and Meyer, E., ‘The plantation system and village structure in British Ceylon: involution or evolution?’ in Robb, P. (ed.), Rural South Asia, London, Curzon, 1983.Google Scholar

6 Among the sources fully perused in Sri Lanka (in Colombo, Kandy and Kegalla), the diaries and some of the village reports of the Land Settlement Department (now in the Sri Lanka National Archives) have proved very useful; and where the kacceri papers have been properly preserved, like in Kegalla, the files of village settlements and of estate settlements (Certificates of Quiet Possession) are invaluable; documents from Ratnapura, Matara, Kurunegala and Matale have been used more casually. The Colonial Secretary records (especially Pending Files) and the papers of the Land Commission of the 1920s and of the subsequent Land Commissioner department give a lot of information, but already sifted to serve political or administrative purposes. The same remark applies to the Colonial Office series (Kew), which provide some information on land matters for the 19th century but are disappointing after 1900.

7 C. V. Brayne private papers in Cambridge South Asian Archive, undated memo entitled ‘The protection of the village’.

8 In the words of a contemporary, the Assistant Settlement Officer (hereafter ASO) Wijekoon, in his diary (26.5.1938).

9 Colonial Office records, Kew (hereafter CO) series 416/3.A22 Proceedings of the Commissioner for the Kandyan Provinces 18.5.1824; CO 54/211: 15.8.1844.

10 Turnour to Colonial Secretary Colombo, 15.10.1836, encl, in CO 54/345, 29.8.1859. On the role played by Turnour in the definition of a pro-planter land policy, see an excellent paper by Barron, T., ‘George Turnour and British Land Policy in the Kandyan Provinces, 1832–1841’, University of Colombo Review 1 (2), 12 1982, pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

11 See Jayawardena, , ‘The Supply’, and Roberts, ‘Some Aspects’, for a detailed discussion of the ordinance; my own interpretation differs in that I analyse clause 6 (requiring proof of tax, dues or services rendered for high lands) as originally meant to apply only to ninda lands for which no written grant was in existence: the subsequent extension of that clause to high land in any category of village through paddy tax receipts was not contemplated by Turnour.Google Scholar

12 CO 54/282, 5.12.1851, encl. report by Buller, C. R. (Government Agent Kandy) 16.11.1851; also CO 54/237, 17.7.1847. See Roberts, ‘Some Aspects’, pp. 229–32.Google Scholar

13 CO 54/247, 16.3.1848.

14 Bandarage, A., Colonialism, pp. 109–16, esp. figures given on p. 113.Google Scholar

15 CO 54/345, 29.8.1859, and Sri Lanka National Archives (hereafter SLNA) 59/3006 (very voluminous ‘pending file’).

16 CO 54/345, 29.8.1859, encl. Bailey reports, 12.11.1857 and 9.5.1859; Administration Report (hereafter AR) Matale 1867, p. 39.Google Scholar

17 CO 54/477, 17.8.1872 (case of Mudaliyar Tilekaratne); Diary of the Assistant Government Agent at Kegalla (hereafter AGA Ke) 23.7.1892; Diary of the Settlement Officer (hereafter SO) Lewis 10.5.1901 (for Matara).

18 See for example AGA Ke 13.5.1854 to 25.11.1855 (the batgam villagers of Balatgomuwa deprived of their lands by the speculation of the chief headman Edward Wijesinghe, a man of low country origin who assumed the prestigious local name of Molligoda); AGA Ke 8.1.1860 to 11.3.1861 (the radala family Deiyanwela deprived of its ninda village Berawila, on the border of the Kandy district, sold out to a British planter.)

19 See Alatas, S. H., The Myth of the Lazy Native, London, Cass, 1977.Google Scholar Anti-chena ideology is already in evidence in Turnour arguments in the 1830s. (Barron, ‘George Turnour’, pp. 5 sq.).

20 AGA Ke 1.10.1864 sq; see also Ceylon Sessional Paper no. 15 of 1873 (Cultivation and Survey of Chena Lands); AR Matara 1868 to 1872; AR North Western Province 1874.

21 See the cases of the villages of Daigala, Pelellegama, Gomanduwa and Narangalla in the unfiled records still kept at the Kegalle kacceri. The latter is a glaring case of summary enquiry and gross harassment of low caste villagers by the headmen; for a detailed critique of these patchwork settlements, SLNA 30/868, report by AGA levers to Government Agent Western Province, 12.12.1878.

22 The levers scheme is described in his above-mentioned report; his temporary successor, Baumgartner, thoroughly criticized it in his AR Kegalla 1881 p. 25A–26A, and levers replied in his AR Kegalla 1882.Google Scholar

23 Kegalla, kacceri, Pannila village file, report by Ievers 20.09.1884, with Gordon's comments; in practically half the villages (I have studied all the available files), there are problems subsequent to settlement. Pannila combines them all: as early as 1872, Goyigama villagers had protested against chena repression and received an understanding reply; when levers made his settlement in 1884 he could not obtain the agreement of these villagers whose lands were included in the Crown block. When in 1896 a prospective buyer appeared, attracted by the dismissed headman and a professional bazaar speculator, all the villagers followed the example given in 1884 and went back on their agreements.Google Scholar

24 There are some allusions in the private papers of Lord Stanmore (British Library) to these individuals and their position; Gordon himself was not exempt from tortuous behaviour, as we shall see later.

25 The final failure of the scheme is analysed in SLNA 59/173; see also AGA Ke, 13.8.1885 and 18.3.1896.

26 See for example the findings by Booth for the village of Lewala (a part of it in the Land Settlement Department records, the other in the Kegalla kacceri); I have fully examined this extensive collection of documents, still in use in the local courts, which form a valuable source for the economic and social history of the district.

27 On the failure of the Booth settlements, SLNA 59/1187 and 45/1867; typical cases are found in the villages of Lahupone, Dorawaka and Edurapota.

28 SLNA 59/178 and AGA Ke 3 1.10.1896: the English translation reads thus: ‘In the Four-korales there are as many Kandyans as the fields will grow food for. Therefore there should be no strangers introduced. If you sell your chenas you will lose part of your food supply and the rest of your food supply will be destroyed through the fields being silted up from the drains of the high lands. If you sell your chenas you will lose your lands and will some day soon have to work as daily labourers for other people who have obtained possession of your lands. You are happy now because you have only to work for yourselves to provide yourselves with sufficient food. When you lose your lands you must work as daily labourers and must always work whether you wish to or not, and whether you are well or sick; for if you do not earn your wages you will starve. You will be cheated by kanganies who will keep back part of your wages or who will get you into debt by giving you advances on high interest; when once you have got into debt, you will never escape; as if you go away you can be brought back on warrants. Furthermore your children will learn the vices of their masters: you will see your children learning to drink strong drink and to fight and to swear. They will copy the vices of the Europeans and not all their manly virtues. So do not be persuaded to sell your lands but keep your ancestral lands to yourselves and let the Four-korales remain what it has always been, the most favoured garden of the Kandyan provinces. There is plenty of room for tea plantations in the Three-korales and up in the hills where there are no paddy fields and only a few villages’.

29 Most C.Q.P. cases are available in SLNA 30 and have been systematically studied. See also SLNA 30/868, 59/1074 (Ellis comments on a letter by the Matale planter Malcolmson to Governor Blake, 10.8.1904); also file entitled Land Settlement Work of F. R. Ellis in the Land Settlement Department Records Colombo; and Diary of Settlement Officer (hereafter SO) Fox, 17.4.1913 (on Lahupone village).

30 On the history of the paddy tax and its subsequent abolition, see the contribution of Roberts, M., History, p. 133 sq. On high land sales, see, for example, AR Kegalla 1885 pp. 167A–168A.Google Scholar

31 SLNA 59/178, Burrows to Colonial Secretary, 11.11.1896, and Executive Council paper 1001/96 with minutes.

32 The Le Mesurier episode is totally ignored by historians, in spite of a very voluminous documentation in CO 54 and SLNA; see my forthcoming publication: ‘Colonial drop-outs: from C. J. R. Le Mesurier to Leonard Woolf’.

33 Diaries of SO Lewis and Davidson, 1898 to 1901.Google Scholar

34 AR Matale 1912–1913 p. B 22.Google Scholar

35 SLNA 59/178 and 59/1074.

36 SLNA 59/178; also the Delwita Estate settlement file included in the volume entitled Settlement Work of Ellis, F. R., Land Settlement Department Records.Google Scholar

37 SLNA 59/1075, memo by Ellis, 10.2.1904; also evidence of Freeman, H. R. before the Land Commission, 27.6.1928, Land Settlement Department Records.Google Scholar

38 SLNA 59/178 and AR Sabaragamuwa 1896. A typical case of land tangle is described by ASO Perera in his diary for November 1938 (Nagoda village): ‘When the rubber boom led the people to search for land, the landbroker came to their assistance and obtained for them deeds from the parties who had last cultivated the land. Having obtained some sort of paper title, the speculator proceeded to plant rubber. Whenever obstacles were placed in their way, they were got over by the simple expedient of the payment of a small sum in consideration of which the obstructor gave a transfer of his title. Whether the vendor had title or not does not seem to have mattered at all to the planter.’Google Scholar

39 See Lal Jayawardena, ‘The Supply’, esp. chs to 6, where the best informed analysis of the 1897 ordinance and its impact may be found. But I cannot follow the author when he puts the emphasis only on the positive and protective aspect of the settlement practice. My own position which I hope to substantiate in a forthcoming publication is that, except in limited areas such as Sabaragamuwa, the colonial ‘philanthropy’ cost the British planter little: the ordinance came at a time when the defence of the peasantry meant in most cases the attack against Ceylonese speculators and Ceylonese landgrabbers, while at the time of high land appropriation by coffee and even tea planters no similar concern was shown to the village interests.Google Scholar

40 See the voluminous British Parliamentary Paper C 9370 vol. LVIII, London HMSO 1899, entitled ‘Correspondence relating to recent land legislation in Ceylon’.

41 SLNA 6, Registration number 01249/1910, Report by Cookson, G. A. Sabaragamuwa, to Colonial Secretary, 6.8.1910.

42 SLNA 59/1187, Minute by Governor Blake, 9.12.1903.

43 SLNA, box 761; Settlement Officer to Colonial Secretary, 11.12.1912.

44 See SLNA 30/868, correspondence between Ph. Ondaatje and the Assistant Govt Agent Kegalla, 1915 to 1919; Wickremasinghe, A. A., Land Tenure in Ceylon, Restrictions that cause hardships, necessity for early removal. Colombo, Mahajana Press, n.d. (1924); Evidence of Mideniya Adigar before the Land Commission, 11.7.1928 in Records of the Land Commissioner, Colombo. L. Jayawardena, ‘The Supply’, ch. 6, alludes to the affair, on the basis of a Pending file of the Colonial secretariat which seems to have since disappeared.Google Scholar

45 Mideniya had married one of his daughters to Wijewardene, D. C., the boss of the Lake House press, and sold him large areas reserved for village purposes in Kosgahakanda; when the village was inspected in 1937, it was found that ‘all the lands appear to have been sold outright and the original owners have left’ (diaries of AGA Kegalla, February 1925 and of ASO Ingledow, 2.6.1937).Google Scholar

46 SLNA 6, L205/1926. Alexander as Government agent of Sabaragamuwa had been rather lax in his relations with European landgrabbers; he became after retirement from the Colonial Service the Secretary of the Ceylon Association in London, the lobby of the Ceylon British planters and businessmen.

47 (1963: 256–7). See also Report by ASO Bassett on the third interim report of the Land Commission (1928), Land Settlement Department records, Colombo; Evidence of Madahapola before the Committee on Landless Villagers (1925),Idem; and diaries of several Assistant Settlement Officers (Hughes, July 1926, Stace, February 1927, Leach, September 1928, Aluvihare, August 1930, Sandys, July 1930, Rasaretnam, December 1932, Seneviratne, October 1933): in all these documents may be found examples of the shortcomings of the settlement policy.

48 AR North Western Province 1921 p. F2, 1924 p. F6.

49 See Meyer, E., ‘Dépression et malaria à Sri Lanka, 1925–1939;Google Scholarl'impact de la crise économique des années 1930 sur une société dépendante’. Paris, E.H.E.S.S., doct. thesis, 1980.Google Scholar

50 See Evidence before the Land Commission of Fernando, H. M. and of the Planter's Association of Ceylon (21.3.1928), and of the Sabaragamuwa Planter's Association (25.5.1928). Also E. Meyer, ‘Bourgeoisie et société rurale à Sri Lanka’, Purushartha 6, Caste et Classe en Asie du Sud (1982), pp. 223–50.Google Scholar

51 Moore, M., The State and Peasant Politics in Sri Lanka (Cambridge, 1985).CrossRefGoogle ScholarLal Jayawardena, in ‘The Supply’, ch. 5, using some of the evidence of both Land Commissions, and working out the shaky statistical data of the socio-economic surveys of the 1930s, maintains that the incidence of landlessness was very limited even in the 1920s–1930s. It is true that except for certain categories such as recent immigrants in the villages of Kurunegala district, migrants from Matara, and maruveni tenants in nindagam, almost every household had some right and access to land; the latter category was already considered as ‘landless’ in early and midnineteenth-century reports: see CO 416/2 Replies of the Agents of Government to the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission, Administration report of Sharpe, Badulla, A.G.A., included in Sessional Paper 18 of 1869, or report by Mahavalatenne, appendix to Sessional Paper 6 of 1894. But the question here is whether there is or not a definite connection between a local shortage of land and landgrabbing activities in specific areas.Google Scholar

52 Diary of SO Stace, February 1930. ASO Northcroft, May 1930, ASO Ingledow, February 1937 sq., ASO Wijekoon, January 1938; and unnumbered file in Land Commissariat Records, Colombo.Google Scholar

53 See Notes on mapping-out, studies on the Kegalla district by Brayne, C. V., annexure to Land Commission Office to Settlement Officer, 1.2.1928 in Land Settlement Department Records, file 216; also in Brayne Papers, South Asian Archive, Cambridge.Google Scholar

54 Proposals for acquisition of estates for village expansion, Kegalla kacceri records, 2 volumes; Report by AGA Kegalla to the Land Commissioner on acquired estates, 13.9.1954 in Farmer, B. H. papers, South Asian Archive, Cambridge. See also Diaries of the AGA Kegalla, 17.4.1934, 27.11.1937 and 10.10.1938.Google Scholar

55 AR Matara, 1925 to 1929. AR Sabaragamuwa 1921 p. 1.2.Google Scholar

56 Diaries of ASO Sandys, June 1929 to November 1930, passim. For an example among others in the village of Pahala Kalugamuwa, 12.11.1930: ‘When I was inspecting the village a few days ago, a fairly large chena lot was claimed by a poor widow with six children and one or two grand children, her only land besides this being less than quarter acre of old garden. No one else put in a claim and I understood from the villagers that no one else intended to claim. Today I had an enquiry to this lot and claims sprang up like mushrooms in all directions [note the possible perverse effect of settlement interference]. Worse than this, it was found that the widow's deceased husband had, unbeknown to her, sold not only his own share, but six times as much as he was entitled to sell. Even though I somehow get over this on the ground that she has improved the land by building a mud house, and give her an equal share, that share cannot avert starvation from the family unless some of them emigrate at once.’Google Scholar

57 Diaries of ASO Seneviratne, September 1935; of ASO Ratnatunga, May 1938; see also Meyer, E., ‘Dépression et malaria’.Google Scholar

58 Diaries of ASO Willett, September 1929 and of ASO Navaratnam, 1937–1938, passim.Google Scholar

59 AR Nuwara Eliya 1926 p. B35, and Report of the AGA Nuwara Eliya on the Third interim report of the Land Commission, Land Commissioner records.Google Scholar

60 Diaries of ASO Seneviratne, September 1932 and October 1933; of ASO Perera, April 1935; of ASO Abeyakoon, August 1934 (villages of Unapane, Galhitiyawa, Etawakwala). A more general assessment of the situation in Uva is given in the Administration Reports for that province from 1928 onwards, which describe the mapping out operations in the Bandarawela–Welimada–Hali Ela triangle.Google Scholar

61 AR of the Land Commissioner 1932 p. B 5. See Meyer, E., ‘L'épidémie de malaria de 1934–1935 à Sri Lanka: fluctuations économiques et fluctuations climatiques’ Cultures et développement (Louvain) XIV (1982), pp. 183–276 and 589–638.Google Scholar

62 Among innumerable cases, see Diaries of the Settlement Officer, March and April 1932 (Delgoda village), and my own field research in Kegalla: the local headmen near Golinda Estate were paid batta by the planter.Google Scholar

63 In Kegalla the most notorious headmen in that respect were Ekneligoda and Mideniya, both in the Kelani Valley, and Ratwatte, Basnayake nilame of the Kandy Maha Devale; in Ratnapura, the Ellawalas; in Kurunegala, Palipana and Tennakoon. In the Kandy and Matale district, it appears that even incumbents of Buddhist temples were involved (Dambulla, Gadaladeniya). For the coffee period, see Roberts, , ‘Some Aspects’, p. 229 sq.Google Scholar

64 On the role of arrack taverns another extract from ASO Sandys diaries (29.7.1930): ‘I asked one man what was the cause of this orgy of selling and he put it down to what Stevenson, R. L. would describe as “drink and the devil”; he said: “People drink arrack and toddy at Kuliyapitiya [the local bazaar], then brawls ensue and they become involved in criminal cases. Then they fall into debts and are forced to sell to pay off the loans.”Google Scholar

65 See Diaries of the AGA Kegalla 1887 sqq. and 24.8.1892, and SLNA 30/572.

66 References from district and settlement diaries are too numerous to be quoted here and will be given in a subsequent publication; as regards the Corea brothers, they were the bête noire of the settlement officers (whose testimony should be used with caution), because they fought the 1897 ordinance from the start, on the heels of Le Mesurier, and were successful in many cases (Karawita Agare is a well known example). As leaders of the Chilaw Association, they became spokesmen for the lawyers and at the same time posed as the friends of the villagers: for example in 1907 they strenuously opposed a scheme of land registration which would bring registrars to the villages instead of the villagers having to go to town and rely on the local lawyers.

67 In the Kegalla C.Q.P. files are included such private letters of a very familiar tone: see Udaarambe and Panawitiya cases, SLNA 30/447 and Kegallakoccerirecords.

68 SLNA 30/573, Diaries of AGA Kegalla 4.6.1893 and of SO Lewis 4.12.1897; Times of Ceylon 18.5.1892.

69 Forsythe's memoirs have been published in the Times of Ceylon, February 1937; on his activities see also Diary of AGA Kegalla, 26.3.1885.Google Scholar

70 See C.Q.P. cases of Pelellegama, Wattegedara and Udaarambe in SLNA 30 and Diaries Kegalla 1890 and following years.

71 On Clarke, Diaries of ASO Fox, May 1910 to December 1915, and SLNA 59/1519 (Howpe-Horahinella settlement); on Van der Poorten, settlement diaries for September 1928 and SO diary, 12.10.1932; on others, diaries of ASO Bassett for 1927. On Thornhill, SLNA 59/2015, where the Controller of Revenue Fraser describes his activities (18.12.1911): ‘Mr. T. is carrying on the business of buying up claims and selling them again to companies he promotes. His mode of procedure is to select a village for his operations, obtain information directly or indirectly from the kacceri regarding the existence of wattoru [tax receipts], have a survey made by a private surveyor and ultimately apply for a C.Q.P. If the C.Q.P. is promised, he then obtains transfers in his own name and is at liberty to carry on negociations to dispose of his interest to companies.’ Compare with the stand taken by Alexander in his AR Sabaragamuwa for 1911–1912, p. 1.6, where he insists on the long-term gain for the villagers of the estate development.Google Scholar

72 Again an extract from Sandys diary (12.6.1929): ‘Ihala and Pahaladilla are practically devoid of inhabitants, who have all been driven out by a certain rich landowner. We asked a very old man what had happened to him and he said: ‘Loka [probably Marambe Ratemahatmaya] wanted me to go, so I went.—Did he pay you anything for the land?—No.’

73 See Knavesmire C.Q.P. in SLNA 30/573 and Kegalla AGA diary; the local tradition collected by me in 1978 still recalls the episode.Google Scholar

74 Diary of ASO Stace, December 1925 and May 1927.Google Scholar

75 Diary of AGA Kegalla, June 1892 and December 1895, SLNA 30/524 and village file of Palle Kanugala in Kegalla kacceri. Other cases of resistance in Moradana village, AGA Kegalla 16.11.1896.Google Scholar

76 On Gilimale: diary of the SO, 4.7.1931; on Wilagama, diary of the AGA Kegalla, 28.1.1893 and file on the Wilagama village in the Kegalla kacceri. On Knavesmire see above. More generally on forgeries AR Sabaragamuwa 1920, p. 1.3.Google Scholar

77 Villages of Matuwagala (SLNA 59/2219), Erabadde (SLNA 45/1928) and Gallinna (ASO Bassett, February to May 1927) in Ratnapura.

78 See Gilimale, , and the large village of Dodampe (SLNA 45/1925 and diary of SO Archibald, 21.2.1925), where land matters were in a complete mess as a result of sales and leases to timber merchants from the 1840s and to rubber planters big and small after 1910; the ‘feudal’ family was disintegrating at the turn of the century.Google Scholar

79 The whole story may be found bit by bit in the diaries of ASO Bassett from November 1929, SO Stace and ASO Christoffelz from June 1930.Google Scholar

80 Diary of the AGA Kegalla, 20.11.1885 onwards, and 8.3.1895.

81 SLNA 59/2257.

82 Administration Report of the District Judge of Kandy, 1868, and of the AGA Kalutara, 1902; diary of SO Lewis, 11.10.1899.

83 SLNA 30/480 (Mahabage), 59/304 (Chetti chena case), 30/568 (Advocate Ondaatje to AGA Kegalla, 9.4.1915).

84 Administration Report Sabaragamuwa 1897 p. J4, SLNA 30/444 and 496, and diary of SO Stace, 23.1.1929: ‘An astounding burst of bitterness against the village vendors: “they land us with title, they swindle us in contracts, then they exclaim they have not been paid’. There was a lot behind that outburst: folly in sale, folly in purchase, a tragic harlequinade has been played in this Kukul korale.’

85 Jayawardena, L., ‘The Supply’, p. 336.Google Scholar

86 Again diary of ASO Sandys, 16.12.1929, where he describes the situation in a village where, according to pedigree, one branch could claim 2/3 of the land and the other 1/3; but the latter had planted and occupy more land than the former, and the officer in a quandary adds: ‘Moral: grab as much land as you can before settlement’.

87 AR Matara 1906 p. D27; SLNA 6: L295/27 for a tentative comparison between settled and unsettled villages which reads as a self justification.

88 Jayawardena, L., ‘The Supply’, ch. 6;Google ScholarSamaraweera, V., ‘Land as “patrimony”: nationalist response to immigrant labour demands for land in the early XXth century Sri Lanka’, Indian Economic and Social History Review XIV, 3 (1977);Google ScholarIdem, Land, Labour, Capital and Sectional Interests in the National Politics of Sri Lanka’, Modern Asian Studies 15, I (1981).Google ScholarMoore, Mick, ‘The State’; see also E. Meyer, ‘Bourgeoisie et société rurale’.Google Scholar

89 Moore, M., ‘The ideological history of the Sri Lankan “Peasantry”’, Modern Asian Studies 23, 1 (1989), published after completion of the present article.CrossRefGoogle Scholar