Abstract:
The Land Act, introduced by the British rulers in 1840, declared that all uncultivated land
belonged to the government. With this, it was inevitable that most ordinary people would
become landless. The Land Act of 1897 exacerbated this situation. In addition, large-scale
land acquisition for plantation cultivation disrupted local farming activities and caused
severe economic hardship to the country's people. The Land Act introduced in 1927 did not
relieve the local people. The proposals of the Land Commission, appointed in 1928, were
instrumental in alleviating this situation to some extent. The purpose of the study was to
examine what economic reforms the Land Acts of the 1930s brought about for the welfare of
the people. The study used primary and secondary sources based on the qualitative data
collection methodology. Primary and secondary sources such as Land Ordinances,
Dispatches, Administration Reports, Hansards Records, Sessional Papers, Blue Books,
Ceylon Census Reports, and Furguson's Directory were used. The Land Acts of 1931 and 1935,
introduced in the 1930s, are optimistic compared to those implemented during the colonial
economic reforms to promote commercial crop cultivation and plantation expansion.
However, these new land reforms introduced by the British did not create the previous
self-sufficient economic pattern.
