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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference :-

C.O. 882

9ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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that your Lordship will .ier it with favour, and will be pleased to induce His Majesty's Government to afisad the relief prayed for

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Provision for the comribution will be inserted as usual in the Estimates to la presented to the Council on the 5th proximo, and this canmunication can only reach your Lordship towards the end of that month, lant I would ask to be informed of the decision taken on both of my proposals before the 30th of June, in order that, il they are favourably entertained, the consequent alteration of the Estimates may be made before they are submitted for your approval

21489

(No 290.)

MY LORD,

No 135

CEYLON.

I have, &c.

CAVENDISH BOYLE

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

(Received 15 June, 1908)

¦ Masacred by NA..., 178 |

The Queen's House, Colombo, Ceylon, 23rd May, 1998. REFERRING to the despatch of your Lordship's predecessor, No. 561, of the 9th November, 1907.* I have to express my regret that I have not earlier found at possible to comment upon the proposals therein contained. The importance of the oject to the Colony, and the necessity for close enquiry and a full statement of the case from the point of view of the local Administration, have demanded very careful consideration of the questions involved, and herein lies the reason for the delay, for which I ask your Lordship's indulgence.

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In

2 In the letter of the 31st Octobert from the Army Council, which forms enclosure to the despatch under reply, it is stated that "the principle that Ceylon, when financially competent, should bear the whole cost of the garrison necessary for its defence was laid down in the first despatch written to Ceylon by a Secretary of State fin 1801), and, after confirmation by surcessive Ministries, was once more asserted by the majority of the C'olonial Contributions Committee of 1890." paragraph 6 of the same letter, it is further stated that: It appears clear to the Council that the recent abandonment of Trincomali involves a reversion to the basis of full cost in fixing the maximum contribution. This conclusion is arrived at because, once more to quote Sir Edward Ward's words," the main question at issue has been whether the garrison of Trincomali should properly be regarded as part of the garrison required for the defence of the Colony; the Colonial Government holding that this port was defended, primarily at all events, as an Imperial coaling station, and that the cost of its garrison should be an Imperial charge." Trincomali having now been abandoned, it is suggested that the sole reason why the Colony should be exempted from payment of the entire cost of the garrison stationed in Ceylon automatically disappears.

3 With this conclusión. may state at once, that my advisers, equally with myself, entirely disagree. I may add that the proposal to force Ceylon to defray the entire cost of the military establishment will meet with unanimous opposition from all sections of the community in this Colony and will give a rude shock to public confidence. If your Lordship will read the debates in the Legislative Council on the introduction of Ordinance 2 of 1898, you will recognise that the principal reason which induced the Unofficial Members to accept it was the belief that the measure was the final settlement of a troublesome question.

4. I would respectfully point out to your Lordship that when the principle referred to in paragraph 2 of the letter from the Army Council was laid down in 1801 that the Colony would bear the whole cost of the garrison necessary for its defence--Ceylon was in a position altogether different from that which it to-day occupies. Only a portion of the island was under the dominion of the British Government. A native king still reigned over the Kandyan Provinces, and his power constituted a perpetual menace to the tranquility of the Colony. Internal defence from aggression, and not casual external attack from an enemy of the

• No. 126.

+ No. 125.

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Imperial Government, was the kind of danger which the Home and Colonial Autho- rities alike had in their minds when the principle alluded to was laid down by the one and acquiesced in by the other.

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At the present time, on the other hand, the danger then contemplated has longer any existence. During a period of more than 60 years no occasion of any kind has arisen for the use of Imperial troops to defend the Colony from internal attack, or to maintain peace and order within its juris- diction: and so thoroughly has the fact that the presence of the troops is not required for such purposes been recognised by the authorities at the War Office, that regiments stationed in Ceylon have been suddenly removed from the Colony for active service in China, in New Zealand, in South Africa, and in Egypt, on one necasion. Moreover, of recent years a strong force of volunteers has been organised, and the police force at the disposal of the local Government has been strengthened and perfected. The Imperial troops, therefore, are less needed for Colonial pur- poses now than they have ever been since first an Imperial garrison was stationed in Ceylon.

6 And here it becomes necessary briefly to examine the reasons which have induced the Army Council to abandon Trincomali, since it is the abandonment of this station which is put forward as a justification for imposing upon Ceylon the whole cost of the military establishment. If it can be shown that this action was taken in subservience to the interests of this Colony, then, I freely admit, the rgument of the Army Council is sound, and their claim to an increased contribution is made out. If, on the other hand, the reasons which led to the abandonment of Trincomali were of a purely Imperial character, in which the Colony was not consulted, and with which it had no concern, then, I submit, that the accident of the abandonment of the port of Trincomali cannot justly be held to be in any way an affair of the Colonial population, and cannot therefore equitably supply a basis for a reconsideration of the agreement entered into in 1897-8, whereby the liability of Ceylon was definitely and, as the Colony had every reason to believe, finally determined.

7. In connection with this point, looking at Ordinance No. 2 of 1898 and at the negotiations which preceded it, I can find no indication that the agreement then arrived at was dependent on the Imperial forces of the island being kept on their then footing. No mention is made of Indian troops in substitution of European. On the contrary, the agreement was proposed, accepted, and embodied in an enactment as a permanent arrangement without any conditions whatever.

8. So far as I am aware, the reason for the abandonment of Trincomali is not disputed, and is to be found solely in the decision of the Imperial Defence Committee to substitute Colombo for it as the principal naval base in this quarter of the Empire. One determining factor in this decision, I believe, was the erection by the Colonial Government, at great expense, and only with the aid of a comparatively small contribution from the Admiralty, of a dry dock and workshops capable of serving His Majesty's ships in the Colombo Harbour, with a preference over commercial shipping.

9. In this connection I may here state that it is only recently that I have received from the Admiralty an application for storage room for 20,000 tons of naval coal. I may also quote the following passage from a speech delivered at the Colonial Institute on January 14th last by Admiral Sir N. Bowden-Smith, K.C.B. He is reported to have said: "It (viz., Trincomali) is, however, off the trade route, and therefore of no use as a coaling station, and there are no docks or machine shops for executing repairs. It has therefore been abandoned in favour of Colombo, although we had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in fortifying it. Colombo is much preferable.

However,

It was therefore a wise decision on the part

of our Government to make Colombo our naval port in that part of the world."

10. It will be noted by your Lordship that no suggestion is made that the decision in question was arrived at out of consideration for any interests in which the Colony can be supposed to have an immediate concern; nor indeed could such a contention be for a moment sustained. The only local effect of the decision is that this Colony is now defended at one instead of, as formerly, at two points. I must confess to your Lordship that this fact hardly appeals to me as a sound or logical reason for asking the Colony, thus deprived, without its consent asked or given, of one of its main defences, to pay an enhanced contribution for that which still remains to it.

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