CO882-10 — Page 222

.77

221

76

of vast experience and knowledge of the country; trusted men, trusted both by the men of the country and by the authorities, and such men may be willing to be members of the Executive Council. At the same time I should very much like to see some of the members of the Legislative Council elected members also in the Executive Council, or as a compromise, I would suggest to your lordship, that at least two of those unofficial representatives should be from the elected Legislature of the country, and that the other two should be nominated by the Governor out of either members of the Legislative Council or from outside. Anyway, those are matters of detail. The principle we are seeking to press upon your lordship is that there should be adequate representation in this advisory body, this Executive Council, of native interests, and, therefore, that the Council should be remodelled so as to admit of these alterations.

Those, my lord, are the only facts I need mention to your lordship. I am very much obliged to your lordship for the kind attention you have paid me, and for the time you have given me for submitting our case. I know the difficulty your lord- ship has in giving us any time at all in these strenuous days, and it was very kind of your lordship to receive us.

VISCOUNT MILNER: I do not know if any other member of the deputation wishes to say anything. You have made a very full statement, both as to the history and about your present wishes. I do not know if any other member of the deputa- tion wishes to add anything?

MR. PEREIRA: No.

VISCOUNT MILNER: There is nothing more to be said?

You will not expect me, on this occasion, to enter at any length into the matter you have brought before me. I have listened very carefully to all you have said, and I will give it further consideration in connexion with the papers, which are here on the subject, and which, as you know, are voluminous.

I was glad to hear what you said about the progress of the country, indicating, as it does, that whether the system of Government which has existed since the British took over the island is or is not the best, at any rate it is one which has heen favourable to progress.

I am anxious to get at what you are really aiming at, and, as far as I under stand, your principal proposal, without going into details, is that there should be an elected majority in the Legislative Council.

MR. PEREIRA: Yes.

VISCOUNT MILNER: And that the election should not be according to classes. but should be in local constituencies, I suppose, of equal size, in which all enfranchised citizens should have an equal vote. I do not know whether you mid

anything on the question of the franchise; you may have done so, but I did not specially observe that you said how far you would be prepared to go in the matter of the electorate. Perhaps you regarded that as one of the details which it was not desirable to go into now.

MR. PEREIRA: That is so.

VISCOUNT MILNER: I would rather like to know what you think about it. MR PEREIRA: As regards the franchise!

VISCOUNT MILNER: Would you have an educational franchise, a property franchise, or manhood franchise, or manhood and womanhood franchise?

MR. PEREIRA: Manhood franchise has been given to the Burghers, as your Jordship knows, and the Sinhalese and Tamils are as well educated as the Burghers. We know what Knox said in his history of Ceylon years ago concerning the Sinhalese. He said that the villager taken from his plough and washed and cleaned was fit to mount the throne and rule a kingdom, that he had the natural manners of a gentleman.

Viscount MILNER: That seems to point in your opinion to manhood suffrage. Mr. Pereira: Personally I think the country is fit for manhood suffrage. VISCOUNT MILNER: I am not arguing the case: I merely want to have your

views.

MR. PEREIRA: The Associations which we represent do not go so far; they are only asking for a restricted franchise on both property and education.

VISCOUNT MILNER: On a property and education basis?

MR. PEREIRA: Yes, that is so. That is a matter of detail which I did not want to trouble your lordship with just now.

VISCOUNT MILNER: There are details and details. I would not go into minor details, but I regarded this as almost more than a detail. it. I only want to gather your views.

I am not arguing about

MR. PEREIRA: As a matter of fact forty per cent. in Ceylon are literate and the remaining sixty per cent., although not literate, are as good as literate. Per- sonally I know the Sinhalese villager, and I do not think there is a more intelligent man to be found in any village in any other part of the world.

VISCOUNT MILNER: There is another point of detail which again is of great importance; I should like to know whether you have considered that, and that is if communal representation is given up and the population is distributed, mixed very much in the same proportions all over the country, how you would meet the case of the representation of minorities! district you might have an assembly in which in every district there was a majority I mean, if you had an equal electoral of the same class. I do not know if that is so, but, in that case, you might have this brought about, an assembly of about fifty or sixty drawn from a population of which two-thirds were of one race or category, and one-third of another which consisted entirely of representatives of the larger race. You may say that

is a danger which exists everywhere under any electoral system, but it is one which it is specially necessary to guard against in countries where there are different races and different religions everywhere mixed up. As you know, it is a matter which has received a great deal of attention in European countries of late years. I de not know whether you had given your mind at all to that point.

MR. PEREIRA: I think, my lord, that is why I suggested that in places like Colombo, the Western Province and the Central Province the two Provinces where there is a very large English and Burgher element (practically they are con- fined to those two Provinces; in the other Provinces their numbers are infinitesimally small, in fact they might be said to be negligible)--it should be provided that, of the candidates elected one or two, as the case might be. or more, should be either English or Burgher, as the case might be, so that they would be represented. They would be elected by the whole electorate, and there is this advantage, that it will not be a communal representation, or a racial representation; they will repre- sent the whole electorate, but they would belong to a particular nationality, which would form a minority of that electorate.

VISCOUNT MILNER: It might meet the case of a small minority. I will not discuss it any further now, but I was simply wondering what you thought about it, because if I am right, for instance, the Tamil population is a very large one, is it not?

MR. PEREIRA: It is about one million.

VISCOUNT MILNER: As against two-and-a-half millions of the Sinhalese or something like that.

MR. PEREIRA: That is so.

VISCOUNT MILNER: You would not regard it as a satisfactory representation to have an assembly consisting, we will say, of ninety-five per cent. Sinhalese and five per cent. Tamil, would you?

MR. PEREIRA: That could never happen, my lord, as suggested in our memorial; the details are there, and I do not want to repeat them, but the suggestion is that the country should be divided into so many Provinces as they exist now for electoral purposes, and those Provinces are all well settled.

VISCOUNT MILNER: We will leave that point. Now, first of all, you are asking for an elected majority in the Legislative Council. You are not asking that the Council should be entirely elected.

MR. PEREIRA: No.

VISCOUNT MILNER: And then the abolition of communal representation, and, lastly. I think, other members of the Executive Council. follow by whom they were to be appointed.

I did not quite

Mr. l'EREIRA: The Governor.

VISCOUNT MILNER: From the elected members?

MR. PEREIRA: From the elected members, and also from the general community. VISCOUNT MINER: From the elected members of the Legislative Council? MR. PERFIRA: Yes.

VISCOUNT MILNER : I ɑnite understand; but the members of the Executive, who were not official, would necessarily be according to your scheme. taken from the elected members of the Legislative Council

F

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :→→

CO. 882/10

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON |

78