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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TILICO. 882/10
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NOT TO
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
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THE SECRETARY OF STATE: You think a Kandyan register could be formed? MR. MOONEMALLE: I do.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: It would be a much more difficult thing to do than
to have a local register?
MR. MOONKMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Because the non-Kandyans would also want to be represented and you would have to have two registers and two sets of elections in the same country?
Mr. MoonEMALLE: Yes, I see that.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: You think that is practicable ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: I think so.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: That would meet your views ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: That is to say, you think you would get people really representative of Kandyan feeling from a purely Kandyan Electorate?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: But that you would not get it from a mixed Electorate even if Kandyans were in the majority. That is your point?
MR. MOONEMALLE: That is the point.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: That is a difficult thing for a non-Sinhalese, a man who does not know Ceylon, to understand. Anyway, that is your opinion?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: The fact is you do not think in a mixed Electorate the Kandyans would vote together?
MR. MOONEMALLE: No. There would be many divided votes. People with all kinds of interests would come in and divide the vote.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Buy the vote!
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes. They are doing it now in these small Councils. THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Cannot two play at that game?
MR. MOONEMALLE: I daresay, but our people are merely peasants, you see. They have not money to spend in that way. It is generally the people from across the border who have all the money.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: The low-country community is richer?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Richer, yes. They have the arrack and the plumbago. THE SECRETARY OF STATE: With regard to newspapers, have you a Kandyan newspaper which puts forward your point of view!
MR. MOONEMALLE: No, unfortunately we have not. The only approach to anything like a paper which represents our views is a paper in Colombo they call the Independent, but they themselves are liable to be bought over. We are going to press for an institution of that kind now. As soon as we get back we propose
to go into the country and raise a little money and get a press.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Would that be a vernacular press t
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, vernacular and English.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: I suppose the Independent is English ? MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Are there many English newspapers altogether in Ceylon, newspapers written in English?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, there is the Ceylon Times and the Ceylon Observer, both European papers. Then there is the Ceylon Morning Leader, run by some people at Morton near Colombo, and the Daily News, run by a family in Colombo. The Independent is now owned by a Parsee. Originally it was the property of Sir Hector Macdonald, who was once a Member of Council in the Burgher interest.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: There are some newspapers, suppose, that represent the European point of view, the British point of view!
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Others would represent the low-country Sinhalese point of view?
Mr. MoonemALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Then there is the Independent, which more or less represents you?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, more or less.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: In the vernacular press, most of the vernacular papers take the low-country Sinhalese point of view?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, and they are generally printed in the same office. There is one vernacular paper the property of the proprietor of the Ceylon Morning Leader, and another the property of the Daily News, and so on.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: You have no vernacular paper representing your views ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: No.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Do you mean to start one? MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Are these vernacular papers which represent the low-country point of view much distributed and read in your own district?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, just for want of reading material; these people go and buy a paper; they do not care what it is so long as it is something to read. They like reading in their own language. Unfortunately a good deal of the stuff they read is very noxious.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: You have said you want more education ? MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Everybody seems to be agreed about that. What are the other things of importance which you think the people want în Ceylon, and especially in your own part of it?
MR. MOONEMALLE: We want more communications in our own country. For instance, there are three systems of road-making there. There is the Public Works Department, which builds and maintains main roads; then there is the District Road Committee, which controls the roads of less value than first-class roads; and then there is the Council, which manages what are called village roads. Unfortun- ately when there is a certain volume of traffic on a second-class road you may wait for years, but it will never get into a first-class road because the District Road Com mittee get accustomed to spending a certain amount of money and they are perfectly satisfied. I think there ought to be some Central Board which will advise the Government as to when a second-class road should be handed over to the people who control the first-class roads, so that there would be a sort of evolution towards the first-class roads.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: There are the village roads which are maintained by the Village Council, second-class roads maintained by the District Road Com. mittee, and first-class roads maintained by the Government ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: Quite.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Supposing there was a Kandyan constituency, and you were standing to represent the views of the Kandyans, what are the sort
of things you would say to the people- "I am going to advocate better education, better communications," what else?
MR. MOON EMALLE: Yes, things of that kind.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Is there anything else that occurs to you ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: I have heard of a man who went and said he was going
to give them all sorts of things without taxation.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: He was a humbug.
MR. MOONEMALLE: He was a humbug.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Take an honest patriotic Kandyan who wanted
to do the right thing to his people, what would be the class of things he would advocate ?
MR. MOONEMALLE: I would tell them straight to educate themselves and their children and press on with that.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: That is the most important thing, you think ? MR. MOONEMALLE: I think so.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Do you consider that the Government in the past has been slack about education; that it has not done as much as it ought to have done ?
MR. MOON EMALLE: I think so. I know personally as a fact that the Director of Education wished to put what was thought to be a very extravagant scheme in a Supplies Bill, and it was knocked out and reduced to just what the Central Govern- ment chose to give. A man like that can never work his Department. I should say there ought to be every encouragement given to the Director of Education to get along with a progressive programme right up to the limit.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE: Has there been improvement lately in that respect? MR. MOONEMALLE: Yes, since Mr. Denham came. He is a man of strong type and generally gets what he wants and insists on asking.