The Hon. Bulankulame Dissawa : Admittedly.

Mr. C. P. de Silva: About 18,000 acres of land are to be put out of cultivation under the Elahera, Minneriya, Parakrama Samudra and Giritale schemes. I am getting good news from the Hon. Minister. There is enough water in the river and, according to statistics, we can expect an adequate water supply for this

season.

The Hon. Bulankulame Dissawa: I admit that water is necessary for cultivation.

Mr. Speaker: The Hon. Minister has admitted that point and the hon. Member need not stress it.

Mr. C. P. de Silva: I hope the Hon. Minister will admit that water is required for the growth of plants; I also wish him to admit something else, and that is more important and has been worrying me a lot. Let him give us an assurance. In this case plenty of water is available from the river, and it can be got if he brushes the Financial Regulations aside, as his very illustrious predecessor did very efficiently and in a very welcome manner. I am sure that the Hon. Minister will in his reply state that he will do what is necessary and make the giving of assistance to colonists and the opening up of colonization schemes a success and that he will see that in spite of the Financial Regulations, in spite of technical officers who deliberately bluff him-I repeat bluff him-he will see the situation clearly and issue orders that this water be issued for the yala season. Otherwise, all this assistance is worthless.

Next is the question of the subsistence allowance. I notice one feature in the Parakrama Samudra Scheme. Some of the colonists who were selected at the last land kachcheri were people who were living for some years in Tamankaduwa. Some were villagers. This subsistence allowance, I find, is not being given to these allottees or colonists. I

think it is a great injustice, and I beg of the Hon. Minister to see that the villagers who are selected as colonists, and those labourers of Government departments who are also selected as colonists, are not deprived of the allowance for the reason that they lived in the Tamankaduwa District at the time they were selected. I say it is unjust because these labourers were living a hand-to-mouth existence, just like our Government. They depended on their week's earnings for the week's expenditure and, when selected, they had to give up their jobs and start to work on the land. They were as destitute as the villagers selected from that area who themselves were living a hand-to-mouth existence. When they are moved into the colonies seven or eight miles away, their association with the village is cut off, the credit system in the colonies is different, and it is only the barest assistance that is given. It is extremely difficult to prevent them getting into debt, and once they get into debt they cannot get out of it for years to come.

The last aspect I wish to touch on is the management of acquired estates. I presume in the administration of acquired estates it is relevant to consider the policy of acquiring estates. I state that because, when the hon. Second Member for Kadugannawa

(Mr. Marikkar)

spoke, the question was raised and I think he made himself very clear. The point he raised was that in a certain case while large extents of 80 or 90 acres owned by individuals were available for alienation to peasants, some were acquired which were owned by a large number of people. I shall be grateful if the Hon. Minister will clarify the policy in regard to this matter. Personally, I think it is not correct to acquire an extent of land owned by a large number of people, where the actual extent owned by one person may be a few acres, in order to solve the landlessness of others. By that method of alienation you make some people landless in order to give land

to others. That looks rather irrelevant and peculiar when large extents of Crown land are being given to people who can develop them. I am not criticizing or disputing the necessity, under present circumstances, of giving Crown land which cannot be developed by peasants to people who can develop the land; but I request that there should be some co-ordination between the policy of acquiring land and of the policy of giving Crown land for development.

There is one other matter to which I should like to refer. Money is provided here for building houses and for giving other facilities to people settled in these acquired estates. I was made to understand by certain allottees in Knavesmire that they are employed as labourers on the estate, and that there is no difference in the method of employment or in the scales of pay they receive from those received by the other ordinary labourers. I am not sure on that point I am just repeating what I was told.

Dr. Perera: That is correct. They have never yet got the profits.

The Hon. Bulankulame Dissawa : They are entitled to profits.

Mr. C. P. de Silva: If the purpose of acquiring estates is to change ownership from some private proprietor to the Government-[Interruption.] I do not want interruptions, even from Ministers. If the purpose, and the net result, of acquiring private estates is to achieve a change of ownership; instead of housing labourers in lines you give them small cottages and quarter-acre blocks; and if the other terms of employment are the same, then I say there is no purpose in acquiring estates. All you provide is legislation compelling the owner to give a cottage instead of a line; compelling the owner to place at the disposal of these labourers a quarter acre of land in which he can grow his brinjals. If it is to perpetuate such a state of affairs, there is no purpose in

changing ownership, or of Government acquiring and conducting those estates. I think a privately run estate with that amount of compulsion will be much better than one of these Government-managed estates.

The Hon. Minister said that the allottees are entitled to a share of the profits. From the Administration which I have read, I find that in the Report of the Land Commissioner last few years most of these estates have been paying large dividends. It is rather interesting to know what dividends have been paid to these allottees in the last five years, say, in each case, because the hon. Member for Ruwanwella (Dr. Perera) said that in the case of Knavesmire nothing has been paid. I hope the Hon. Minister will clarify that position, because if dividends are not paid and if allottees are not made to realize that they are part-owners of this business or property, that they get a share of the profits, and that they are not mere labourers employed by the Government, then there is no purpose in acquiring estates.

In giving assistance to allottees, I should like to repeat that what is more important than giving assistance in the form of money is to see that everything is done and a plan is evolved to make it possible for an allotment to give the allottee a reasonable income. If that cannot be done, and if, in the planning of these schemes, arrangements are not made for that, or if arrangements cannot be made for it, then there is no purpose in opening up such a scheme or in giving assistance to people just to rot there.

Mr. Speaker: The Hon. Minister might reply now.

8.29 P.M.

The Hon. Bulankulame Dissawa: Mr. Speaker, in fact, I did not think that this Supplementary Estimate would take so much of time, and I must first and foremost offer my heartiest thanks for all the advice and helpful criticisms offered by various Members. Members. In fact, at the start, the

[Hon. Bulankulame Dissawa] hon. Member for Matugama (Mr. Wilmot A. Perera) wanted to elicit certain information with regard to these items. I took down a few notes. In the first place he asked what we are going to do with the houses that are to come up in the future. I can tell him that this Supplementary Estimate is not for the purpose of ending, or winding up, these activities. One hon. Member said that there will not be any houses coming up in the future in these village expansion schemes. All I can say about it is that the pace at which we are going is rather too fast, in the matter of the construction of these houses. I found that in 1951-52 nearly 2,000 houses were completed and nearly 27,000

houses were under construction. It is impossible, with the staff available to us, to see that these buildings are properly constructed, to see that the payments are properly made. Therefore I thought it was best that we should take stock of the present situation. I have temporarily directed that no more houses should come up after 1952 October. But I do propose to provide for a certain number of houses in the next Budget Estimates and to see that the subsidy for construction of houses is not stopped altogether. I propose to continue giving the subsidy up to a certain extent, to the extent that we have officers to cope with the work.

The next point was with regard to access to village expansion schemes. The hon. Member referred to certain roads which run through private estates. If road reservations have been made by the Crown I do not think prescription will apply to the Crown, and the only method by which we can deal with those who are not prepared to give right of way is to sue them as encroachers and eject them from the reserved areas.

After these points were made, the criticisms of hon. Members were more in the nature of advice to me. I will carefully read every speech of every hon. Member and see how far I could implement their suggestions.

You will realize, Sir, that during the war all our land work fell into arrears and the kachcheris could not

cope with the work. In fact, as the hon. Member for Bingiriya (Mr. Subasinghe) stated, various land kachcheris were held, land was alienated, but the allottees were not put in possession of the land. It is to overcome these very difficulties that I thought it would be best to go slow, and first see to it that in the case of alienations that have already taken place the allottees are put on the land; that these alienations are regularized and that the commitments that have already been made by way of subsidies are discharged. That is why I have come to the House with this Supplementary Estimate. I can assure the House that the idea of subsidising allottees has not been given up. Hon. Members will see in the next year's Budget certain proposals to continue subsidies, but not in the way we have been used to hitherto.

Then there was a good deal of criticism with regard to land tenure, with regard to timber, the difficulties in the construction of latrines, and so on. I will take into consideration all these criticisms and see how far I could go to implement the suggestions of hon. Members.

Beyond this I do not know whether I have to answer every one of the questions raised by hon. Members. I have not been able to take down everything and I do not remember what each Member said, because their observations were so many and so varied. I am glad, however, that these criticisms were offered. I will be reading HANSARD carefully, and wherever possible I will certainly see that their suggestions are

implemented.

Question put, and agreed to.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE 8.36 P.M.

The Hon. Sir J. Kotelawala : Before we adjourn, I should like to inform hon. Members that it is expected to prorogue Parliament on the 29th of April. There will be meeting on the 28th April. Hon. Members should attend that meeting on the 28th April, and those who cannot do so might please obtain