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(Confidential.)

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Enclosure 1 in No. 40.

RIOTS IN GALLE DISTRICT, June, 1915.

I LEFT Nuwara Eliya by the night mail on 31st May, reaching Colombo after the 7.30 a m. train to Galle had started; I had, therefore, to wait for the 12.30 p.m. train.

2. While driving to the fort from the Maradana Station I witnessed some of the rioting a small crowd, consisting mostly of youths. were throwing stones at a closed shop opposite the Pettah Railway Station. I stopped to look on, no one taking the slightest notice of me. A Town Guardsman came up in a car, and a few stones were thrown at him; he pointed his rifle at the crowd, which gave way, but re-formed and seemed to be threatening. I joined the Guardsman, and called on

A few ' the crowd to disperse. They ceased throwing stones and did not attack us. minutes later a body of police arrived and the crowd scattered.

3. The Fort Station, when I went there to take the 12.30 p.m. down train, pre- sented a curious spectacle. The platform was crowded, the majority of the passerigers. being Sinhalese women of the better, class, most of whom got out at the suburbs.

4. This train stops at every station, and at every suburban station there was a rush of excited boys and youths from the train, who ran shouting out of the building. Any chance Moorman on the platform was more or less good-humouredly ragged by these people; pushed about; his turban or hat knocked off. He took it well, smiling, and looking surprised.

5. In a third class carriage next to mine were several young men who noisily encouraged this treatment of the Moormen, shouting "catch that tambi," "knock his hat off," etc. At each station they excitedly inquired from porters and others what was being done, how many boutiques had been broken down, etc. These peoplu got out at Panadura.

6. From this point the excitement in the train and at the stations, the sensation of unusual restlessness, which had marked the journey so far, began to die away, and before Bentota (on the Southern Province boundary) was reached had quite disappeared. The stations in the Galle District were absolutely normal, Moormen and Sinhalese walking about together and fraternizing, as they always had done; there was nothing to suggest impending trouble.

7. I arrived at Galle at 5 p.m., and found several of the leading officials, to whom I had wired to meet me, at the Residency: the Police Magistrate, the Super- intendent of Police, the office assistant, the Gravets Mudaliyar, and the head clerk of the Kachcheri (one of my few Buddhist officials). They informed me that nothing unusual had been noticed in my absence. In view, however, of the disturbing news from Colombo we decided on precautionary measures, though all were agreed that there was no reason to apprehend the spread of the disorders to this Province.

8. Next morning I made lists of persons suitable for duty as special constables, and summoned them to attend the Kachcheri at 9 a.m. next day to be sworn in. made, with the Superintendent, all arrangements for the disposition of the police, and interviewed some of the leading Buddhist and Moorish unofficial residents.

9. Of the former the most important and influential were Messrs. H. Amarasu- riya, J.P., and Wickremesinghe Muhandiram. Both assured me that there was no reason to apprehend any disturbance in the Galle District. Mr. Amarasuriya promised me his active assistance in the unlikely event of trouble. Wickremesinghe Muhandiram had to go to Colombo to visit a sick daughter.

10. In the course of the day rioting was reported at Alutgama, in the Western Province, just beyond the Southern Province boundary, also at Welitara, in the Bentota Wallalwiti Korle. We only had a force of about sixty effective police, and a dozen of these had to be sent there by motor-car. I called out the Ceylon Light Infantry and the town section of the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps.

11. In the evening rioting broke out at Magalle (Galle Town); the efforts of the police could not save the Kachchiwatte mosque, which was burnt. I went there with some constables and Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps men, but was too late to do any good. We went on to Katugoda, where the Moors were in a state of great excitement. There had been a fight, and we removed three injured men to hospital -two Moormen and a Sinhalese.

12. On our way back we heard of disorder in China Garden, and went there. The place was in a ferment, a large crowd of Sinhalese gathered at one end, and of Moormen at the other end of the main street. I addressed them, warning them to

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get into their houses. Here occurred the only act of violence directed against our- selves a bottle, filled with sand, was thrown, either from over a wall or the upper story of a house; it fell in the centre of our little group and burst with a noise of a bomb. No one was hurt. We moved about the town till 2 a.m., when things seemed fairly quiet.

13. Early on the 3rd I, with the aid of two Justices of the Peace, swore in about seventy special constables; they were paraded, officers elected, and instructions given by the Superintendent of Police.

14. An hour or so later report came of trouble in the bazaar, and the Super- intendent and I went there at once. We found a threatening crowd at the Triangle (at the centre of the bazaar), where there is a large mosque. Mr. Amarasuriya, J.P., arrived at the same time in a car with two Moormen. This seemed to excite the mob, and we had great difficulty in getting the Moormen away. Mr. Amarasuriya harangued the people, trying to persuade them to disperse, and the Superintendent and I did the same, but without success.

15. Word then came of a gathering at Kong Tree Junction, and Mr. Amarasu- riya went there. Our mob at the Triangle seemed quieter. The police, who had been on duty all night, had been relieved here by special constables, who moved quietly among the crowd doing all they could to disperse it. Suddenly a stone was thrown--I am not sure whether from the mosque or from the crowd--and in a moment the air was full of stones and brickbats, hurled at the mosque; only a few came from that direction.

16. The Superintendent and I did our best to stop it, but were powerless. We were, however, offered no violence. I would go up to a particularly active stone- thrower and order him to desist; he would obediently drop his stones; I would turn to another man with the same order and the same result; in the meantime No. 1 had recommenced throwing, and so it went on. Then the door of the mosque was burst in and the contents wrecked.

17. Finding we could do nothing by personal influence, the Superintendent went in a car to the Fort and fetched the Volunteers, to whom word had already been sent, and an armed party of police. In his absence I had to watch the firing of the mosque. Two Moormen's boutiques close by were broken open, looted, and set fire to. I was unarmed on this occasion, so that forcible intervention was impossible. The special constables were of little use at this stage.

18. Mr. Roberts, Police Magistrate, arrived while this was going on, and in due course the Ceylon Light Infantry (a weak section of seven or eight men under Lieutenant Durham), followed by the Superintendent with a body of armed police, and the local Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps (five men). We at once advanced on the rioters, but they scattered in all directions, and only a few arrests were made. We extinguished the fires in the mosque and boutiques, and removed a few men injured by the stones to the hospital.

19. Messages now came in of disorder in all parts of the Gravets, and I wired to Government for military aid.

We

20. In company with the Superintendent of Police, the Police Magistrate, a few special constables, and five armed constables, I motored round to all the dis- affected localities. The same discouraging experience awaited us everywhere. would come upon a gang of Sinhalese looting à boutique. The Criminal Procedure Code precludes firing until the order to disperse is pronounced, and we never had the chance to give such an order. The crowd melted away before we got near enough. As soon as we passed on they reassembled and resumed looting. With our small force of police picketing was out of the question, except in the bazaar.

21. At Piadigama, a Moorish hamlet on the borders of the municipality, con- sisting of a mosque and about thirty houses and boutiques, we found the mosque damaged and two or three houses blazing. The Moormen stated that the rioters had scattered on hearing the cars. The women, some fifty in number, had been collected in a large house off the road; the men, about twenty-five, were too weak to protect them. We helped to extinguish the fires, and had hardly got the cars in motion when we heard shrieks from the house where the women were, and the noise of the stones rattling on the roof. We made a dash for the spot, only to see the rioters disappearing among the trees of the surrounding gardens. 22. We could not leave these people to their fate. Morgan Crucible Company, who was with us as special constable, kindly offered his Mr. Bailey, manager of the stores at Gintota, one-and-a-half mile away, as a refuge. The Moormen jumped

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