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POLITI

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

C.O. 882/10

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON,

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

1

40

STATEMENT OF FIGURES OF INDIAN VOTERS IN URBAN AND Rural Areas.

Division,

URBAN.

Colombo Municipality

Kandy Municipality Galle Municipality .....

RURAL.

Estate Population.

Estate Labourers —

(a) Ordinary Coolies

(c) Tea makers, Conductors,

Estate clerks, Dispensers,

etc,

(d) Sub-kankanios

Non-Estate Population.

2 Non-Estate Labourers

(a) Ordinary labourers (not

(b) Kankanies

·

Indian Mains in

Municipalition and

Rural Assas

Total Indian Malen

Total Indian Mala Adults.

Percentage of Voters among Male Adults.

Probablo Number

of Voters.

52,162

8,179

495

55,819

89,300

20

7,880

926,790+

115,000+

2,000* 2,000*

260,790

10% of80,000*

34,000

49,925+

employed on the Estates)

(b) Skilled workmen

1,185*

8 Business men

1,500*

80,897

4 Clerks, Accountants, Bales

2,000*

men, etc., in the employ

61,065

of Business man

Professional men such as

600°

Doctors, Clergymen, Teachers, etc.

6 Miscellaneous people

6,995+

891,897 | 46,897

In the whole of the Island

• All are qualified voters in Rural Areas.

877,664

16%, of 80,897 19,13

285,809

18,995

In calculating the strength of voters in Rural Areas, the ordinary Estate and Non-Estate Labourers and Miscellaneous people have not been taken into account,

45858

No. 34.

I. X. PEREIRA,

T. G. VIJIANDRA RAU,

Secretary.

President.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 17th September, 1923.)

(No. 583.) MY LORD DUKE,

Ceylon, 27th August, 1923.

WITH reference to my despatches Nos. 556 and 557 of the 14th August, 1923. relative to the seat to be allotted in the new Legislative Council to the Tamils of Colombo, I have the honour to transmit a copy of a letter, dated 11th August, which has been received from the Indian Association of Ceylon (alluded to in paragraph 3 of my despatch No. 545 of the 8th August§).

2. It will be seen that the Association opposes, in the interests of "Indian Tamila," the proposal made by certain parties that the Tamil seat for Colombo should be suppressed, and that in its place an additional seat should be given to the community elsewhere.

I have, &c.,

W. H. MANNING.

The Honourable

SIR,

41

Enclosure in No. 34.

THE INDIAN ASSOCIATION OF CEYLON.

The Colonial Secretary,

Colombo.

34-35, Chatham Street, Colombo, 11th August, 1923.

THIS Association begs leave humbly to express the hope that the request made by the Congress Delegation in London that the Tamil Seat for the Western Province be suppressed, and an additional seat granted to the community elsewhere, will not be approved of by the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, for the following among other reasons advanced by organizations which have already petitioned Government for the ratification of His Excellency the Governor's bene- volent proposal for the institution of the seat:-

1. Tamil is the mother-tongue not only of the Ceylon and Indian Tamils proper, but also of the Ceylon and Indian Moors and the Malays who profess the Mohammedan faith, and of certain numerous classes of mixed Tamil and Sinhalese descent resident in the Western Province. It is also the customary medium of com- munication employed by non-Tamil Indians in their intercourse with other sections of the general population. These non-Tamil Indians comprise the very important communities known as the Malayalis, Cochinese, Moplahs, Borahs, Memons, Khojas, Parsis, Sindhis, Gujeratis, Telugus, and others, all of whom are chiefly concentred in the Western Province. Linguistically, therefore, even more than racially, the reservation of a seat for Tamils in the Western Province is not merely desirable but absolutely necessary in the interests of efficient Legislative representation for very large and important sections of the population.

2. The allocation of two seats to the Indian community, although a substantial concession to those who were, until quite recently, not represented at all, is inade- quate for the growing needs of a community which takes equal rank with the Euro- pean community in respect of commercial importance, and forms nearly one-sixth of the total population of the Island. The provision of a seat for Tamils in the Western Province, among whom Indian Tamils will doubtless largely bulk, will thus adjust in an appreciable degree the aspiration of the community to be represented in the Legislature by more than two members.

3. For obvious reasons, the Tamils in the Western Province are by far the largest contributors to the public revenue of all Tamils in this Island; while, if the Tamil-speaking sections in the Province are collectively taken, they will be found to bear, under one head or another, the incidence of considerably more than half the taxation in the entire Province. The justice of according them the right of direct representation is, therefore, not open to question, and His Excellency has well recognized its necessity in the most sympathetic recommendation he has made.

4. The adoption of the elective principle in respect of the Western Province Tamil Seat will assist those Indian Tamils who are qualified to exercise the franchise, and are anxious to do so, to realize their wishes, while it will enable the overwhelming majority of other Indian Tamils forming the labour population and not so qualified, as well as other non-Tamil Indians who constitute small but pro- gressive and enlightened minorities, and are generally opposed to the principle of election, to be represented in accordance with the proposals already submitted by the Association to His Excellency the Governor and the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

In this connexion, the Association humbly desires to suggest that the purely statistical distinction between "Ceylon Tamils and "Indian Tamils," made by

Mr. Denham at the Census of 1911, be abolished, in order that qualified persons of Indian origin and descent, not already registered in any other communal electorate, may be eligible to vote as Indians if they choose to do so, providing, of course, that plurality of votes is disallowed. The association respectfully invites your atten- tion to page 202 of Vol. I, Part I, of the Report on the Census of Ceylon, 1921, where Mr. L. J. B. Turner, the Superintendent of Census and the present Director of Statistics, very rightly points out that "stock, and not birthplace, determines race," an excellent formula which has been recognized in the definition of the Euro- pean constituency in the Order in Council of 1920, and has been unfortunately dis- regarded in the definition of certain other constituencies. The Association, there-

Nos. 31 and 82.

No. 80.

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