CO882-(3-4) — Page 629

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TC.O. 882

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4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

'ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

Addumnistrativ proosals.

Page 9 of print.

l'age 5 of print

Employment

of Natives.

Pangraph 65

Despatch.

Compare Mr.

niemorandum,

Ram Nathan's Mr. Saunders reinahe page

19 of print, and Mr. Dick- k-in's memo- 1ndum of 6th

• February. Paragraph 65

Despatch.

14

The duties on registration of documents affecting titles to land require to be carefully watched, and if it be found that the expenses to Government of land registration exceeds the amount derived from the stamps, it may be found desirable to raise the charges under this head.

The testamentary and probate duties, again, require consideration. The probate duties especially, are, I understand, very low, and the people of Ceylon appear also to be exempt from taxes on legacy or succession.

The details of this question are of course such as can only be duly investigated in the Colony, and I shall be glad if you will cause them to be carefully examined in order I have briefly indicated may be found to ascertain whether some such revision as possible.

38. In the third paragraph of this Despatch, I stated that certain administrative changes had been suggested in Ceylon which might be considered independently of the question of retrenchment, though connected with and bearing upon it, and I now propose to advert very shortly to the two most important of these recommendations. The first is that natives should be more extensively employed than at present in the Government service; the second that the Colony should be redivided ❝for adminis- trative purposes into three provinces corresponding with the division of races, viz.,

·Tamils, Kandyans, and low country Singhalese."

"

"

39. As regards the general principle that the natives of the Colony should be en- couraged to enter the Government service, there can only be one opinion, and it has already been noticed that the effect of throwing open the cadetships to public examination in England has been, as Sir J. Longden points out, practically, though unintentionally, to exclude the Natives from the Civil Service proper.

It will probably be found better, instead of making any sweeping change, to follow generally the suggestions of the Committee, and reserve in future for Natives soine few of the minor appointments now held by cadets, gradually introducing them as Sir J. Longden proposes, as the present cadets are absorbed in the ordinary course of promotion. The only point on which I feel some doubt is whether instead of appointing Natives to rural magistracies, as suggested by the Committee, it would not be better to employ them as magistrates or office assistants at the larger stations, where they would receive the guidance of the higher European officers. Such appears to be the basis of that part of Mr. Dickson's scheme of re-organization, which relates to the further Memorandum employment of Natives; and his suggestion to the Committee, that a Native office assistant should be employed at the Matale Kachcherie (page 9 of Report) indicates the manner, in which the experiment can probably be best tried. The question, how- ever, is one of which the details must be decided mainly by local experience.

6th Febru- ary, paragraph

Re-division of

ng to race,

heme.

40. The proposal to redivide the island for administrative purposes into three provinces cord divided according to race has been expanded by Mr. Dickson into a general scheme of reorganisation, which has been forwarded and reported upon by Sir J. Longden in his Despatch, No. 234 of the 16th of May. The latter also considers the desirability of redistributing the provinces in paragraphs 66, 67, 68, of his despatch containing the Report of the Committee. In his memorandum appended to the Report of the Com- mittee (page 27 of print), Mr. Dickson well states that "to shift the administrative centre "backwards and forwards in an Oriental country is very dangerous, it unsettles the "minds of the people and impresses them with a feeling of uncertainty as regards the "character and determination of their rulers."

For this very reason it appears to me that a sweeping change of the kind suggested needs to be justified by evidence that the system proposed to be altered is either radically bad in principle or ineffective in practice, and I fail to see that either of these charges can be sustained against the present organization of Ceylon, while, if the financial results be taken into consideration, it is not clear that any great economy would be effected by the change.

41. These are the general objections to be taken to a scheme of this kind, but Mr. Dickson's Mr. Dickson has worked out his suggestions so clearly and fully that they deserve, at any rate, careful consideration, and I do not feel satisfied that they have been suffi- ciently appreciated. Following the Indian system, Mr. Dickson proposes to have three Commissionerships, corresponding to the three different races, and under them districts presided over by district agents. In one sense his scheme is open to the criticism that it increases centralization, for he substitutes three Commissioners for seven Government Agents; in another sense it may be said rather to decentralize, for under it the unit of administration would be the District instead of the Province, and the District Agent would be an officer of greater power and responsibility than the Assistant Govern-

15

ment Agent is at present. Taking this latter view, the geographical difficulties pointed out by the late Governor, lose some of their force, the centres of administration would be more numerous than at present, and the duty of the Commissioner would be not, so to speak, to rule from a distance, but to constantly visit and inspect a series of district capitals. In spite, however, of much that may be urged in its favour, I am of opinion that the scheme possesses no advantages sufficient to outweigh the general objections stated above, and that the desirability of accurately mapping out a country according to race may easily be exaggerated. It is also open to criticism on more special grounds.

As Ceylon is a Crown Colony, it seems undesirable to give as much power to any of the provincial officers as would be placed in the hands of the Commissioners, who would apparently to a great extent usurp the functions of the Colonial Secretary. Further, considerable local irritation would, as Mr. Douglas points out, be probably caused by the change, and the prospects of the Civil Service would be injured. It would be difficult to carry it out for some time to come without affecting the position of existing officers, and the people would probably be slow to understand the position of the District Agents, and would complain of greater difficulty in laying their grievances before one of the three Commissioners than they now have in referring to one of the seven Government Agents.

42. It is part of Mr. Dickson's scheme to combine in the same bands, to a greater extent than at present, administrative and magisterial duties; he wishes apparently that the higher Ceylon officers should hold the position of the Indian Collector Magistrates; but even if such a course would strengthen the hands of Government at the present time, I could not consent to a step which appears to me to involve the extension of an un- desirable principle, viz., the union in the same hands of executive and judicial powers.

43. There are, however, two recommendations contained in his memorandum, which should be very carefully considered by your Government, and it appears to me that they might be adopted, much to the advantage of the public, irrespectively of the rest of

his scheme.

Government

The first of these is that the police should be placed under the control of the provincial Police to be authorities. The amount of serious crime which has been rife in the Colony of late placed under years seems to show that the police organization has hardly been satisfactory, and it Agents. certainly appears to be an anomalous arrangement that the Government Agent, who is responsible for the security and good order of his province, should have no control over the paid police, and that these latter should work "independently of and in depart- "mental antagonism to" the village headmen.

The faults of the present system are summed up by Mr. Dickson in the words Paragraph 9 of "Division of authority in the control of the police of the country gives encourage- Memorandumu. "ment to lawlessness, and is a constant source of weakness."

To obviate these defects, I should be glad if you would consider whether it might not be possible, while retaining the present constitution of the force, to bring the Police of each Province more closely under the authority of the Government Agent, who would utilise them at his discretion in connexion with the village headmen for the maintenance of order, and especially for the detection and prevention of crime. When- ever it might unfortunately be necessary, as in the case of serious riots, for the police to act as an armed force for the preservation of the public peace, the Inspector-General or some other high officer of police, would as at present, remain responsible, and in all matters of promotion and internal administration the Inspector-General would retain bis present powers; but as his ordinary duties would consist mainly in inspecting the force stationed in each Province, he might find time for also inspecting the prisons, as suggested by the Committee (a point to which allusion has been made in the 24th paragraph of this Despatch). Should, however, any re-arrangement of the Police duties be decided upon, it should be made clear to Mr. Campbell that the change is not intended to reflect in any way upon his personal management of the force.

direct to

44. The second recommendation, which I should be glad to see, if possible, adopted, Revenue off- is that the collectors of revenues in each district should account direct to the Central to account Treasury. In Mr. Dickson's scheme these collectors would be the District Agents, Treasury. "and would in all matters of account be directly under the financial authorities in Paragraph it. "Colombo"; under the present system the same course might be adopted with the Assistant Government Agents, who at present, as I understand, send in their accounts to the head of the Province, merely, according to Mr. Dickson, in order that the totals may be introduced into the accounts of the Province.

If they were to account direct to the Central Treasury, it is reasonable to suppose that much unnecessary correspondence would be avoided, and that the time B 4

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