CHAPTER XIV.
 

      WHAT  ITS  GOVERNMENT  CAN DO FOR CEYLON.



Active and Independent Administrators required—The Obstruction to

   Progress offered in Downing Street—Railway Extensions, Irrigation

   Works, Northern Arm, Graying Dock, and Tramway at Colombo

   called for—Law Reform needed—Technical, Industrial, and Agri¬

   cultural Education needs encouraging—The Buddhist Temporalities

   Questions—Fiscal Reform of Road, Excise Laws, Salt Monopoly,

   Food Taxes and Customs Duties—Tne Duke of Buckingham's Ceylon

   and Southern India Bailway Project—Ceylon and India—Waste

   Crown Lands.



   AS regards the wants of  Ceylon,  its  government is a

     paternal despotism ; and the Governor and Secretary

of State  (with  his  Colonial  Office  advisers) being to a

great extent irresponsible  rulers, much depends on their

treatment of the island.  There can be  no doubt that

in the  past progress has  been made in spite  of, rather

than with,  the  prompt, zealous co-operation of Downing

Street.   In  support of this  view we would quote  from

a review in the  London  Spectator  of a recent work  on

the  " Crown Colonies of Great Britain " :—

   "  The system  of Crown Colonies is supposed to be that

of a benevolent  despotism,  a paternal  autocracy.   It is

in many cases that of a narrow and  selfish oligarchy.   It

is supposed  that  the Colonial Office  exercises a beneficial

supervision, and  is everywhere the guardian angel of the

bulk of the population in all the British Colonies.   The

supposition  that a few Civil  Servants, most of whom have

never lived  out  of  England,  or  engaged in any  trade  or

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