(Excertped from Selected Journalism by HAJ Hulugalle) If it is now the end of the road for the agency houses (this article was first published March 1976), the event marks an important landmark in the Island’s history. It is a traumatic experience for those closely concerned, like the coffee crash in the middle of the last century when local banks were compelled to close down. Agency houses may be irrelevant in the present context and unless they have read the signs of the times ahead and sought other avenues, they too will be forced to put up their shutters.
It is now fashionable to regard them as the principle instrument of exploitation adopted by the foreign capitalist. Their contribution to the development of the country is too easily forgotten. As Shakespeare’s Mark Antony said, “the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.
” The first agency house in Ceylon, Acland. Boyd and Company, was opened in 1829. One of the partners was a Member of the Legislative Council.
The next was Crowe and Co., and George Crabbe, a partner was an MLC in 1840. Many of the higher officials of the Government including the Governor himself, were involved in the rush to buy and develop tracts of forest land.
There was plenty of land and the population was a mere fraction of what it is today. The biggest mistake the Government committed was to fail to demarcate land for village expansion and the future needs of a fast-growing population. This may be a h.
