CO885-(11-12) — Page 509

429

80

4

ing that the framers of the Constitution should have provided such a chairman for the State Council. To have done so in Legislative Session would have been to revert to the old system of active presidency by the Governor-an obviously impossible suggestion. To have laid down a different procedure when in executive session to that adopted in legislative session would have been difficult; even if it had been possible, who could have presided in executive session? Obviously not the Governor or the Colonial Secretary. Equally obviously, in my opinion, not the so-called Leader of the Council while the corporate responsibility of the Board of Ministers is so strictly limited. It is amazing to me that the Donoughmore Commission did not observe this fatal flaw in their scheme. They were insistent upon the necessity for drive at the centre" but their scheme has no centre, nor can it possibly develop one. That the State Council have no intention of the Board of Ministers developing into a central controlling authority has been sufficiently obvious. Nor indeed would it be possible for the Board to do so. The expression the Government" is still used in the State Council and the Press. But no one who uses it has any idea what it means; and in fact it has no meaning. The title "Leader of the House" connotes very little. The Leader of the House speaks for the Board of Ministers in the few matters where the Board has corporate responsibility; but in actual fact, even in this capacity he has to leave a good deal of his speaking to be done for him by the Financial Secretary. In other matters he speaks either for himself alone, or, in matters under the control of his Committee, for that Committee. His position is entirely different to that of the Colonial Secretary as the spokesman of the old central executive, and it is also entirely different to that of a Prime Minister under anv ordinary system of responsible Government. He is supposed to be the "Parlia-

" "Government in the mentary mouthpiece of the Government." But there is no sense in which the word is used in this expression. In short, decentralization without co-ordination can only lead to chaos. The fault of the old administration was that the centre was so occupied with numerous details that it had not sufficient time for important questions of policy. The fault of the new is that there is no centre, and through lack of a centre, co-ordinated policy, except (and that to a limited extent) in matters of finance, has become impossible.

11. SOME SUGGESTIONS.

I have endeavoured to show that the Constitution has three fatal defects:-

(1) The machinery is hopelessly cumbersome, and, with the best will in the world (which I fear is only partly present), cannot maintain a proper output.

(2) The granting of executive power to a body of the size of the State Council, because that body, though wielding responsibility, is hopelessly irresponsible.

(3) There is no central controlling executive authority.

This memorandum is intended merely as an appreciation of the first nine months of the working of the new Constitution, and I do not propose to embark upon the ambitious task of framing another. I venture, however, to proffer a few observations for such considerations as they may merit. It is obvious that the three defects to which I have referred above would be largely removed if we were to abolish the Committees and the executive powers of the Council, and to retain the Board of Ministers in its present form (the Ministers being selected by some other method), but with full Cabinet responsibility for the subjects and functions administered by the seven Ministers, as well as for the financial measures for which the Board is now corporately responsible. One formal objection to such a constitution is that it would savour too much of the dreadful word "diarchy." But precisely the same element of diarchy is present in the existing Constitution, and, in my judgment, some degree of diarchy is inevitable and unobjectionable. Let us examine the suggestion in the light of the Donoughmore Commission's strong objections to a mixed executive " (pages 34 to 36 of the Report). Their first objection is that it is impossible to imagine the smooth working of a system in which some Ministers are responsible to the electorate and some are not. But the situation in this regard would be exactly the same as under the present Constitution. The danger, which they foresaw, that the legislature might finance the departments in charge of the elected Ministers and refuse to finance those in charge of the Official Ministers exists to-day.

Their second objection was the disturbing influence of the presence in the legisla- ture of European Officials. Here again the position would be exactly the same as in their own Constitution. I do not of course suggest that the three Official Ministers

81

should have votes either in the Board of Ministers or in the. Council. Three official votes would be useless and a standing source of provocation.

More serious is their third objection stated on page, 36, which really amounts to this, that the elected Ministers would be given a task beyond their powers. The real question is whether any Board of Ministers could possibly obtain sufficient support in the Council to continue in office for more than a few weeks unless they were content to be mere puppets in the hands of the Council.

The answer to this question depends entirely on the possibility of the development of a fairly strong party system. The Donoughunore Commission held that there is at present not only no immediate prospect of the appearance of a party system, but a serious danger that in the formation of parties obligations of race or caste would be too insistent to be ignored." My own opinion is that the danger of parties developing along lines of communal cleavage has been much exaggerated. My own experience in 'Iraq, where communal differences in every way as formidable as those of Ceylon existed, and my own observations in Ceylon, lead me to support that parties would readily develop across those lines of cleavage. We certainly could not expect, for a long time, a development of very clearly defined party principles. We should probably get a moderate party, an extreme nationalist party, a small labour party tending to side with the extreme nationalists and a few independents with moderate tendencies. I feel convinced that the interests of the minority communities will be best served by the development of parties. Too small to form a party themselves their votes will be of too great importance to allow their claims for consideration to be ignored. Under the present system, with the complete absence of any cohesive central executive power, their votes are of no particular continuing importance to anybody. The non-existence of well-defined parties is so clearly due to the last Constitution, which forced all the irresponsible unofficials into one opposition camp, that it gives no sufficient reason for supposing that parties will not develop. I believe that they would develop, and there is a very strong feeling among the Ceylonese themselves that they would. The process would perhaps be slow, and it is possible that the first Board of Ministers would not last for long. It is of course essential that the English and not the French system should be adopted. Any possibility of a Cabinet "oing out of office without a dissolution would be fatal to the development of a strong central executive. The State Council has already shown a strong determination to stick to their seats, and that attitude, upon the persistence of which we may safely count, would considerably strengthen the position of the Cabinet. My own opinion is that the experiment would have far greater chances of success than the present Con- stitution; it has the added advantage that it would be a very much more ponular experiment at the outset.

I may conclude by mentioning five details in regard to which I think reform is

necessary; —

(1) The method of selecting Ministers must be altered.

(2) Appointments must be taken entirely out of the hands of the Committees. My reasons for this suggestion are given fully in another memorandum already submitted to Your Excel- lency.

(3) There should be a reallocation of duties among the seven Ministers in order, particularly, to relieve the Ministry of Communications and Works, which is heavily overloaded.

(4) The Governor, and perhaps the Board of Ministers, should be given the specific power to refer

any question of interpretation of the Constitution to the Supreme Court.

(5) The Governor should be given the power to reto any amendment of the Standing Orders. There is at present a serious danger that the Council may, even with the requirement of a two-thirds majority, pass an amendment in conflict if not with the letter, at any rate with the spirit of the Constitution.

B. H. BOURDILLON,

27th March. 1932

APPENDIX A.

Agenda for meeting of Executive Committee of Home Affairs on 1st October, 1931. 1. To confirm Minutes of the 10th Meeting held on the 23rd September, 1931.

2. To consider reports from the Government Agent, Southern Province. and the Land Commissioner dated the 28th August and 16th September, 1931, respectively, on the question of the continuance of the post of the additional Assistant Government Agent, Matara.

Decided to take no further action. The question originally arose in consideration of the Estimates. The suppression of the post was, from the beginning, obviously

1

PECORD OFFICE

Peference -

C.O.882/12

| ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BT REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHK-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT 10

| PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON