colony
by persons of moderate capital. The Council may make such regulations
as they may deem fit for awarding the premium, provided that: —
a. No article at present exported shall be considered a new industry.
b. The
claimant of the premium shall have grown, exported, and sold such
product of a profit of not less than £1000 value during the three years.
c. The
Council may, with the consent of the Governor, waive the necessity for
the full value of the export within the three years, provided that the
new product is of such a character as to attain to general cultivation,
and fulfils the purpose intended.
d. Should
two or more persons compete, and the product or products be such as to
meet the general requirements of the reward, the Council may, with the
consent of the Governor, apportion the whole or any part of the premium
mentioned in Section 10 of this law in such manner as to them may seem
fair and just.
The
amount of premium proposed to be offered in this case is £1,000. The
example is one that might be copied with great advantage in Ceylon; but
we fear there is little chance at this time of the Government
-permitting the planting representative to widen the scope of his
motion on Wednesday next. That motion has reference to " Mining Rights.
" It is extraordinary that the Ceylon authorities should have so long
delayed to make their regulations known, seeing that the Madras rules,
which they were supposed to be waiting for, were published some time
ago. Our Madras contemporaries have criticized unfavourably the local
Government rules, pointing out that they are far less liberal than
those drawn up by the Mysore Government. The Mail advocates " free trade" in land for mining purposes, and supports its argument as follows :—
The
Madras rules first limit the extent of land which may be granted, to
one and the same applicant for mining, to 30 acres, in one block or
more, though they allow land adjoining to be taken up for buildings,
works, or what not, provided it is not used for mining. They next fix
the assessment at the extremely high figure of R5 per acre on all land
taken up whether for mining or other purposes. They then provide that
within three months of the grant, not less than five coolies per acre
of the land granted for mining shall be regularly employed. And they
forbid any assessment or sub-lease, without the consent of the
Government being previously obtained. It is probable that the
Government wish to discourage land being taken up for speculative
purposes, and to prevent large areas getting into hands of the same
individuals. If, as in the early days of gold in Australia, men took up
small pieces of land, and worked them themselves, washing the soil for
gold, and using only the simple appliances each individual miner conld
command, and if there were any chance of all the available land being jo taken
up, we could understand the policy of limiting the area of mining
grants—only we should then say, the limitation did not go far enough,
and that instead of 30 acres being granted, the grant to each should
not exceed a few square yards. But there is no chance of anything of
this sort in India; the climate is against it; everything is different.
We are beginning where they only arrived in Australia after years of
work—with quartz-crushing on a large scale, which demands the best
machinery, ind a capital so considerable that it is almost a necessity
that the mines should all be worked by Companies which, now that
everything comes out in £1 shares, will probably have their
thousands of members. Now Companies, as a rule, want a good deal more
than 30 acres, and if each shareholder had 30 acres it would have to
reckon the extent of its property by square miles. Though only jo acres
may be given to the same applicant, there is nothing, so far as we can
see, to prevent ten men going in for ten adjoining 30 acres lots, and
making them over to a Company in one lot of 300 acres, except the rule
prohibiting transfers without the consent of the Government, which we
think, could never be enforced, and would be
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