560
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
C. 83230/31 [No. 2].
*
182
No. 135.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Received 5.17 p.m., 5th February, 1931.)
TELEGRAM.
[Answered by No. 137.]
5TH FEBRUARY. No. 25. Confidential. Please see 9th Schedule to First Revise of draft Order in Council. New draft sent with my Confidential despatch of 28th January, propose following alterations in allocation of subjects and functions to Executive Committees (1) Home Affairs. Omit" functions of Registrar-General, Public Trustee "and add "subjects of Internal Administration not otherwise allotted.'
44 Add (2) Agriculture and Land.
Veterinary Services " and Co-operative Societies." (3) Local Administration. No change. (4) Health. Omit Veterinary Omit Housing." (5) Labour, Industry, and Commerce. Services" and add "
Housing and Factories" and "Co-operative Societies and add Functions of Registrar-General." (6) and (7) No change. Public Trustee has been transferred to Legal Secretary.
11
་་
"
If revised allocation is approved I should be grateful for authority by telegraph to publish it for general information immediately without awaiting issue of Order in Council.
C. 83230/31 [No. 5].
No. 136.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 16th February, 1931.)
(Confidential (5).)
[Answered by No. 146.]
MY LORD,
Queen's House, Colombo, 28th January, 1931. I HAVE the honour to refer to the correspondence ending with my tele grain No. 233, dated 27th December, 1930,† in which I undertook to despatch to Your Lordship drafts of the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions, and revised drafts of the Order in Council, before the end of January.
2. I now enclose 12 printed copies of the Second Revise of the draft Order in Council, which has been divided into two separate Orders as suggested by Mr. Bourdillon in his Confidential despatch of the 30th July, 1930,§ and author- ized by Your Lordship in your telegram No. 111 of the 29th August, 1930,|| I also enclose twelve printed copies of drafts of the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions, and twelve typewritten copies of an explanatory memorandum, ‡ dealing with all these documents, which has been prepared by the Attorney- General, Mr. E. St. J. Jackson. For Your Lordship's convenience I append six spare copies of this despatch.
3. In view of the exhaustive nature of Mr. Jackson's memorandum I do not propose to comment in detail upon the documents transmitted herewith, except in regard to two points to which I desire to invite Your Lordship's special attention.
4. You will observe that I now propose to issue the Standing Orders of the State Council as a separate document, instead of in the form of a Schedule to the Order in Council. The reason for this change has been explained in Mr. Jackson's memorandum. My object is to avoid delay in the promulgation of the Orders in Council. I consider it essential for the successful working of the new Constitution that Ministers and other members of the State Council should be encouraged, from the very outset, to accept to the full the responsibilities which will devolve upon them, and should be given as little opportunity as pos- sible for shelving those responsibilities. This purpose would he frustrated to some extent if the State Council had, during the first year of office, to work upon a budget which had been prepared for it by the present administration, and if in its final framing the Executive Committees and the Board of Ministers
§ No. 131.
* No. 136.
† C. 73230/7/30 [No. 35]: not printed. ↑ Not reprinted.
||No. 133.
183
had had no greater share than that which falls to the lot of the Select Commit- tee of the present Legislative Council. It is not actually necessary that the first reading of the budget should take place before the beginning of August. It is clear, however, that, unless the State Council comes into being at a con- siderably earlier date, the Executive Committees can have little, if any, say in the framing of the preliminary estimates of their respective departments. While it will not in any event be possible for them to undertake the initial fram- ing of the Estimates for 1931-32, a work which must be begun in April, it will be possible, if the Council meets at or before the beginning of June, for depart- mental estimates, after undergoing initial scrutiny in the Treasury, to be sub- mitted to the Executive Committees for examination, and for their proposals to receive thorough consideration by the Board of Ministers. From this point of view alone, the importance of which I wish to emphasize, the earlier the State Council can meet the better. For general political reasons also it is desirable that the moribund Legislative Council, the thoughts of whose members are occu- pied with the coming General Election to the exclusion of almost every other consideration, should cease to function and be replaced by the State Council at as early a date as possible. No final estimate can be made as yet of how long the certification of the new electoral registers may be held up by the considera- tion of claims and objections, but present indications are that this certification may probably be completed about the end of March. It is even conceivable, though not I fear likely, that it might be effected by the end of February or the beginning of March. An interval of from 10-14 weeks will be necessary between the issue of the order for a General Election and the first meeting of the State Council. As a General Election cannot be ordered until the new Orders in Council have been promulgated, it is, therefore, most desirable that they should be ready for promulgation as soon as possible after the end of February. The Standing Orders on the other hand need not be published until shortly before the State Council meets, and while I will do my best to ensure that there is no avoidable delay in submitting them for Your Lordship's approval, there is little prospect that they will be ready for submission for at least another six weeks. Their inclusion as a schedule to the Order in Council would therefore unduly delay the consideration of that Order.
5. The only other new point in the draft (State Council) Order in Council in regard to which I wish to add to what has been said in Mr. Jackson's memor. andum is the provision contained in Clause 89 for safeguarding the rights of public servants.
*4
to pro-
In paragraph 56 of my published despatch of the 2nd June, 1929,* I expressed the hope that the new Constitution would contain a clause protecting all the existing and accruing rights of all public servants in office at the date of the commencement of the new Constitution, and Your Lordship, in the 20th paragraph of your reply to that despatch stated that you proposed vide in the Order in Council for the vested rights of existing public servants.'
The provision actually contained in Clause 134 of the draft forwarded with Your Lordship's despatch of the 6th February, 1930,† and repeated, with some elaborations, in Clause 164 of the First Revise (vide Mr. Bourdillon's despatch of the 30th July, 1930) would appear to be sufficient to carry out the recommen- dations of the Special Commissioners as contained in pages 131 and 132 of their report. The safeguards provided in these draft Clauses are, however, less than those which I had in mind when I wrote my despatch of the 2nd June, 1929.
That they would not satisfy the Services is sufficiently indicated by the two memoranda addressed to Your Lordship by the Civil Service Association in October, 1929, and January, 1930, respectively; and it is my considered opinion, in the light of the mumerous recent attacks which have been made on the privileges of public servants, that it is desirable to recast the relevant clause in a form which will obviate the necessity for the frequent rejection by the Secretary of State of proposals to reduce expenditure by curtailing the privi- leges of officers now in the public service. Your Lordship is aware that attempts were made in the Select Committee on the Budgets for 1929-30 and 1930-31 to cut down the provision for passage allowances, and that in the Budget for 1930- 31 this provision has actually been cut down by 25 per cent. An attack was also made on rent allowances in the Budget for 1930-31. but this was ultimately defeated. Passages are now being granted on the usual scale, and, should the
‡ No. 131.
* Cmd. 3419.
+ C. 63230/29 (No. 21]: not printed.