357
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position as Governor and as President of the Legislative Council, wherein, if I am to carry out my duties, the right of intervention in debate and of speaking on behalf of Government should be firmly maintained as my "legitimate capacity as President of the Legislative Council,"
I have, &c..
Enclosure in No. 26.
W. H. MANNING,
Governor.
Colombo, 7th July, 1922. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WINSTON CHURCHILL, P.C., M.P.,
SIR,
HIS MAJESTY'S SECRETAry of State for the COLONIES.
WITH reference to the cable which we forwarded to you on the 30th June, 1922, we have the honour to draw your attention to the proceedings of the Legis- lative Council of Ceylon in connexion with the proposal to appoint a Committee of the Council to report upon a scheme for the allocation and distribution of territorial seats at its sittings on the 16th and 22nd June, 1922.
2. In view of the announcement made by His Excellency the Governor, Sir William Manning, in his message to the Council at the opening of the present session, that he would lose no time in appointing the Committee above referred to, the member for the City of Colombo, on the 18th June, moved "That the Government do communicate to the Council its decision regarding :-
(a) The number of members of which the new Reformed Council is to be
composed.
(b) The number of official members.
The number of members to represent territorial divisions.
The number of members to be elected to represent communities and interests, if any, and
(e) The number of unofficial members, if any, to be nominated before it appoints the proposed committee for the allocation and distribution of territorial seats.
3. We supported the motion because we felt that, without such information, it was not possible to allocate and distribute the territorial seats, as the number of those seats necessarily depends on the number of members which comprise the Council, and how they stand in proportion to the official and communal represen- tation.
4. This position was challenged by the Governor, who declared that it was our duty to serve on the Committee, and that the adequate representation of territorial interests had no relation to the number of members of Council and the number of communal and official members, a proposition which we could not possibly accept.
5. The Governor, however, on the 22nd June, proceeded to nominate the Com- mittee, requesting us in turn to serve. This in the circumstances we declined to do. Our action was resented by the Governor, who stated that we had placed the Council in an "undignified" position, and announced that he would report the proceedings to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, forgetting that, unlike the officials and nominated members, we do not derive our authority from, nor are responsible to, the Government, but to the constituents who elected us. We beg most emphatically to protest against an unwarranted interference with our rights and privileges.
6. It is quite clear from the statements made by the Attorney-General, Sir Henry Gollan, the official spokesman of the Government, during the discussion of the motion for the reform of the Constitution in December last, which was supported by the Governor in his speech, that the Government was anxious to make the number of members representing minorities, communities, and special interests, the main factor in determining the number of seats for territorial divisions, a creed to which we could not subscribe.
7. Wherefore we considered that it was all the more necessary that we should have been in possession of the information which Mr. Peiris' motion was intended to elicit, before we consented to serve on the Committee, which was to be appointed to determine the number of territorial seats without reference to other forms of repre- sentation.
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8. The Governor repeatedly declared that the Committee was necessary to give him some "guidance" to obtain a clear and definite statement of the aspirations of the people as to their territorial representation, and that he had refrained from putting forward any scheme, either as to the number of members in the Legislative Council or the distribution of seats, since he had nothing to go upon as the result of the debate of December, which the Governor described as a most unsatisfactory one, as there had been so many divergencies of view.
9. The above is not an accurate nor complete statement of the facts. There was ample evidence furnished in the debate of the opinions of the unofficial members for the Government, if it wished to do so, to formulate a scheme of allocation of seats, as a reference to the report of that discussion will show (see Debates in the Legislative Council of Ceylon, 1921, pp. 680 to 880)...
10. It will be observed that all the unofficial members expressed their views during the discussion, and an analysis of the votes show that, when the votes of all the unofficial members, both elected and nominated, are counted, there was a majority of one for the proposal that the Council should consist of about 45 members with a two-thirds elected majority. If the votes of the elected members are counted, there was a majority of four (10 to 6), but when they considered the votes of the ter- ritorially elected members, it will be found that all of them voted for the proposal except two, whose speeches show that they were in favour of it, and that their adverse vote was due to the withdrawal of the scheme for the distribution of seats, which originally appeared in section 8 of the reform motion.
11. The only official who expressed his opinions was the Attorney-General, and the other officials followed his lead in voting, but gave no reason for their votes. 12. The Governor by a written undertaking on the 15th December, 1921, pledged himself to give due weight to the views expressed by the unofficial element in Council, and especially by the members returned by the territorial electorates. During the discussion on 22nd June, he repeated this assurance and stated that he had in his despatch done what he had undertaken.
13. We therefore contend that our claim for a majority of territorially elected members should have been accepted, and that the Government should have been in a position to disclose its decision on this vital point before the Committes was appointed.
14. The Governor, in insisting on a committee, on the footing that the Council unanimously desired it, has overlooked the fact that the addition of the word allo- cation to section 8 of Mr. Peiris' motion was made in consequence of the Attorney- General's contention that section I was lost, and that section 8 could not be put to the vote without such amendment.
15. We acquiesced in this suggestion, because we felt that, without some proposal regarding the distribution of territorial seats, Mr. Peiris' resolution re- garding reform could not be forwarded to the Secretary of State in a complete form, but we did not anticipate that this amendment would be taken advantage of to refer to a Committee the determination of the number of territorial seats without any guidance whatsoever.
16. To show that in our view that such guidance was necessary was shared by the Attorney-General, we invite your attention to the following extract from his speech as reported in the Ceylon Legislative Council Debates, page 820:-"The divergencies in the Council, as shown by the course of the debate, would in them- selves make it impossible for the Government to accept these proposals. Therefore what interests me and exercises my mind at this stage is, whether we can devise some scheme whereby the principle of allocation may be settled and some arrange ment come to which fairly considers the interest of all concerned. My honourable friend makes two alternative proposals. He says, first of all appoint à select Com- mittee, or in the next place a commission under the Ordinance to consider this question. I do not see how such a committee or commission could act with advantage to the settlement of this question, unless you give it a principle on which it has to proceed. If you say territoriality is to be the principle to be applied, then its work is comparatively easy. If you say the communal principle is the one to be applied, that is also comparatively easy. But, Sir, when you come to have three principles in operation, first. the community principle, then the community plus territorial principle, and lastly the territorial principle. I defy any Committee or Commission, whether it comes from here, from abroad, or even from above, to arrive at a working settlement."
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
TUTITT
C.O.
Reference :-
882 /10
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-