The memorialists have protested against the lease on the double ground that a lease on any terms is contrary to the best interests of Ceylon, and that the rent agreed upon is “under existing circumstances wholly inadequate.” There must always be in cases of this kind a difference of opinion as to whether a fixed annual sum, with immunity from all expense and sundry other advantages, is or is not preferable to continuing to face all the risks for the sake of all the profits. In the present instance the lease appears to me to have been drafted with a sincere desire to safeguard to the utmost the property and interests of the Colony. [Illustration: Street scene in Marichchikadde, the pearling camp of Ceylon ] [Illustration: Return of the fleet from the pearl reefs to Marichchikadde, Ceylon ] It may be true that the development of the fishery upon a scientific system affords good prospect of a greater return in the future than has been obtained in the past, and affords at least the hope that the barren cycles which have been so common in the past will not recur to the same extent. But the operations necessary to that end are of a highly technical and experimental character, and I am very doubtful whether any machinery which could be set in motion by the Government would be suited to develop processes at once so doubtful and so delicate. In twenty years’ time the Colonial Government will receive back the fishery, not only intact, but in the most perfect state to which commercial enterprise and scientific methods can raise it, and, in the meanwhile, a regular and substantial payment is assured. Twenty years are no doubt a considerable period in the lifetime of individuals; but if within that time all the resources that science can contribute toward systematic development of the fisheries have been applied and thoroughly tested, the period will not, I think, be regarded as excessive or unfortunate in the history of a fishery which has lasted for more than two thousand years.[159] The Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers, Limited, with a paid up capital of £165,000, has just entered into possession of its lease, and it is uncertain what changes will be made in the methods of the fishery or what measure of success will follow the attempts at pearl-oyster culture and the growth of pearls. The attention of the pearling interests of the world is now directed to the work of this company in the development of its magnificent leasehold, and it seems not unlikely that greater changes will be made in the methods of the industry during the ensuing decade than have occurred in the whole of the last ten centuries.[160]