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This may develop, of such experience, of the right occasion on which to do so. but it can obviously never develop so rapidly, or to so great an extent, in a Committee as in an individual Minister. Apart, however, from these two factors, a lack of any sense of proportion, and an unwillingness to take anything on trust, serious delay in administration is, in my opinion, a quite inevitable result of the Committee system. However well suited it may be to a municipality, it is hopelessly ill-suited to the administration of so large and varied a number of subjects as fall to be adminis- tered even in a small country like Ceylon. And further, it demands, for its successful cperation, a far higher standard of administrative experience, public spirit, and general capacity than is likely to be found in the average member of the Ceylon Legislature for many years to come.
As regards the actual nature of their decisions, I do not consider that the number of unsound decisions recorded by the Committees is greater than might reasonably have been expected. That they have made mistakes, and in some cases serious mistakes, I do not deny. But such mistakes would have been an inevitable concomitant of any advance towards self-government. The mistakes would probably have been fewer had we had responsible Ministers instead of Committees, for the reliance placed on heads of departments would have been greater, but I am certainly not prepared to say that the Committee system itself has led, or is bound to lead. to serious maladministration. My complaint is not so much of the nature of the results it produces as of the dreadful paucity of results.
That it has a real educative value I do not attempt to deny. Members of Com- mittees do get an insight into the working of the administrative machine, and do realize and sympathize with many of the difficulties which, before they had that in- sight they used to brush aside or put down to deliberate obstruction by the permanent officials. But even this education has its disadvantages. Quite a large number of members unquestionably get their insight into the working of departments not in the regular way from the head of the department, but in an irregular way from sub- ordinates and disgruntled subordinates at that. The resulting effect on discipline, and on the authority of the head of the department can be easily imagined.
In short, while I realize that I may be accused of uttering altogether too hasty a condemnation, I wish to record my firm opinion that the Committee system has already proved a complete failure, and that its continuance much longer is likely to prove disastrous. So long as the system continues the ordinary routine of adminis- tration will be seriously delayed, and really important questions will run a serious risk of either being shelved altogether, or being hastily considered and dished up to the Council half-baked. At the present moment the Council is by no means wedded to it, and would probably welcome the replacement of the Committees by responsible Ministers. But there is a great danger that the longer the Council as a whole retains Executive authority. the less ready will it be to part with it.
I attach, as Appendix A, a copy of an agenda of the Ministry for Home Affairs. The agenda is an unusually short one, selected quite at random from the papers of one of the best of the Committees. I have shown in the case of each item the action taken, and the appendix will. I think, provide useful illustrations of several of the points which I have raised.
3. THE STATE COUNCIL.
To begin with, the members of the Council have shown no inclination whatever to work the Committee system in the proper spirit Early in the life of the Council one member mooted the suggestion that all members of the Council should have the right to attend the meetings of any Committee, and a motion that copies of the agenda and minutes of each Committee should be sent to all members of the Council has been referred to the Standing Orders Committee. To say that the Council as a whole do not repose any degree of confidence in their Committees, or in the Board of It is no exaggeration to say that Ministers, is hopelessly to understate the case.
when there is a division of opinion in a Committee, the general tendency of the Council is to take the side of the minority. This may be largely due to the fact that the minority. defeated in their own Committee. intrigue and lobby among the other members of the Council. It is also partly due, no doubt, to the tendency, inherited from the old Legislative Council. to rush into opposition against any proposition put forward by a properly constituted authority even when that authority happens to he one of their own Committees. While the row of official " Aunt Sallies" has dis- appeared their shadow still remains. Any attempt by a Minister to justify a decision of his Committee by quoting the opinion of a Head of a Department at once arouses
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suspicion and strengthens opposition, and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the strongest argument which the Board of Ministers could put forward in favour of any proposal would be to say that the Officers of State had opposed it. The Com- mittee stage of the budget discussion would have horrified the authors of the Con- stitution. The fact that the estimates had been closely scrutinized by the Com mittees carried no weight at all. Proposals for quite indiscriminate cuts in items like travelling allowances," already pared to the bone by the Committee, were carried with acclaim. On the other hand considerable additions to a popular vote like Education "were passed with no consideration of the financial situation, and with a faint but unheeded protest from the European members only. The haggling over small items was ridiculous. Ministers were naturally unable to give full explana- tions of all small items; but any suggestion that they should be accepted because they had already been scrutinized by the Executive Committee and the Board of Ministers was regarded almost in the light of an insult to the house. A typical instance of this attitude was the discussion on an item of Rs. 1,500 for the insurance of Excise Warehouses. The amount was slightly more than that expended in 1929-30. The Minister could not explain the difference. The suggestion that the amount should be accepted because it must clearly be based on actual known liabilities was received with the utmost indignation, and the passing of a motion to reduce the sum to 1929-30 figures was only avoided by the Minister promising to give an explanation the next day. There was no real suspicion that anything was wrong with the figures. But that anything should be taken "on trust was quite inconceivable. The general attitude of suspicion with which the rank and file of the Council regard any member of a Committee other than that to which they themselves belong is extraordinary. He is suspect of course only in connexion with matters concerning his own Committee, i.e., the very matters in which he ought to be most trusted! Every member would appear, in the eyes of his fellow members. to have two personalities, or three if he is a Minister. As a member of the State Council he is an enlightened and patriotic citizen. As a member of an Executive Committee he is a prejudiced bureaucrat (when dealing with the affairs of his own Committee). As a Minister he is the cringing slave of the Officers of State! I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that the spirit of mistrust (a spirit absolutely fatal to the proper working of the Committee system) is often more marked as between the Council and its Committees than as between the Committees and their Heads of Departments. The Council wishes to exercise so close a supervision over the Committees, and the Board of Ministers as. in effect, to convert itself into one large Executive Committee and one large Board of Ministers. One out of many illustrations of this spirit was the suggestion put forward quite solemnly during the budget debate, that, for the purposes of expendi- ture, all items (not sub-heads, be it noted, but items) of the estimates should be treated as if they were separate heads. The tendency to haggle over small items of the Estimates was even greater than it used to be under the old regime. The Donough- more Commission recognized that the extent to which the Legislative Council interested themselves in the details of administration was one of the features of the working of the old Constitution. They considered this feature inevitable, and in some respects not altogether undesirable, and deliberately evolved a constitution which would accen- tuate it. They hoped that by giving the Council (a) executive responsibility, and (b) the familiarity with administrative difficulties that would come from the exercise of that responsibility, they would succeed in converting unintelligent and destructive criticism into intelligent and constructive criticism. I propose to say more about this in a later paragraph. Here I would merely observe that the conversion shows no signs of taking place. In the Council (I am only referring to the Council and not to Committees), criticism of details is just as unintelligent and just as destruc- tive as it used to be in the old Legislative Council. For this failure to react to the transfer of responsibility the spirit of mistrust to which I have referred above is responsible, and this spirit of mistrust has its roots in the two great national failings of vanity and envy, two qualities, which are. I fear, markedly characteristic of the Ceylonese. So long as this spirit of mistrust prevails and results in insistence on the rights of the whole Council to interfere in the smallest matters of detail it will remain impossible for the Council, or its Committees, to exercise their executive functions with anything like reasonable despatch or efficiency.
Apart from the continuance (it would scarcely be unfair to say the intensifica- tion) of this undesirable interference in matters of detail, the most marked features of the working of the State Council up to date have been their attitude to the public services. They feel (and there is slight justification for the feeling) that their power of the purse is, in regard to reduction of expenditure on personal emoluments, less
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