CO885-11 — Page 319

317

4.

SIR,

8

Enclosure 6 in No. 1.

CEYLON PUBLIC SERVICE ASSOCIATION:

Colombo, 12th September, 1927. WITH reference to the confidential memorandum prepared by the Ceylon Civil Service Association on the proposed amendments to the Pension Minute as published in Sessional Paper No. XIV of 1927, which memorandum was recently forwarded to you by that body, I am requested by my Association to inform you that the Ceylon Public Service Association desires to be identified with the Civil Service Association in the submission of the memorandum, wth the terms of which it entirely concurs.

I

am,

&c.

T. E. DUTTON,

Ceylon Public Service Association.

President,

9

subject, he should have consulted the Executive Council, and, subject to their advice, have inserted the necessary provision in the Annual Estimates, and left it to the Legislative Council to raise the question if they thought fit. Strictly speaking, I apprehend that there is no necessity for a formal vote for the amount provided under the Head Pensions."

5. There remains for consideration the position of Civil Servants in relation to Fensions legislation. I think that the claim of the Ceylon Civil Service Association goes too far. It is open to Civil Servants to claim that Pensions Regulations should not be amended so as to prejudice existing or acquired rights, but it cannot be admitted that they have the right to demand that there shall be no amendment of the Pensions Ordinance even though that amendment expressly safeguarded existing or vested rights. I can give no undertaking that I should in all circumstances resist the demand of the Legislative Council for the enactment of an Ordinance applying new or different regu- lations to future Civil Servants.

I have, &c.,

1. S. AMERY.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference:-

C.O.882/11

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON |

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

The Honourable

The Colonial Secretary,

Colombo.

C. 53268/28 [No. 2].

No. 2.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR.

(Confidential.)

Downing Street, 29th February, 1928.

SIR,

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Confidential despatch of the 28th December last* on the subject of the position of the Legislative Council in regard to the provisions of the Pension Minute.

2. I am advised that, under a strict interpretation of the Pensions Ordinance No. 6 of 1905, the Governor is empowered without any reference to the Legislative Council to grant such pensions and gratuities as may be covered by any minute which he may see fit to issue, and it is not necessary for him to inform the Legislative Council, or to obtain a vote from the Legislative Council for the sums so expended. The Ordinance fully empowers the Governor to issue Pensions Minutes covering all the proposed amendments now under consideration. There can be no doubt that the question of partial commutation of pension, and of the age of retirement, are fully within the competence of the Governor to decide under the Ordinance, while the expression gratuities in the Ordinance would empower the Governor to authorise the issue of the proposed death gratuities, and the only question that arises is whether it would have been expedient for him to do so, without any reference to the Legislative Council, in view of the sums involved in the grant of these death gratuities. This question can only be decided by consideration of the relative amounts at issue, and of the possibility of the Legislative Council pressing for an amendment of the existing Ordinance in the event of any considerable additional burden being thrown on the finances of the Colony.

"

3. In my opinion, the change in the Constitution of Ceylon, since the passing of the Pensions Ordinance, in no way compels the Governor to consult the Legislative Council as to the exercise of any statutory powers granted to him by Ordinance. I consider that there is no justification for the practice which has grown up of consulting the Legislative Council or the Finance Committee before exercising administrative powers which the Government is fully competent to exercise without such consultation. Wherever the existing instruments of Government require the Governor, before taking administrative action, to consult any outside body, it is the Executive Council that he should consult. The practice of ignoring the Executive Council, and treating the Finance Committee as the body responsible for advising the Governor on administrative action is one that should, in my opinion, be strongly deprecated.

4. For these reasons, I cannot fully endorse the view of Sir Hugh Clifford which you quote in paragraph 10 of your despatch under reply. In my opinion, the Governor had full power to amend the Pensions Minute in accordance with any directions given by the Secretary of State. If he considered it necessary to take any advice on the

* No. 1.

C. 53318/28 (No. 1].

No. 3.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 6th March, 1928-)

(Confidential.)

SIR,

Queen's Cottage, Nuwara Eliya, 15th February, 1928. I HAVE the honour to transmit the enclosed despatch on the subject of an over-

seas allowance, which was addressed to you by Sir Hugh Clifford from Malaya on the 14th July last. I attach copies of memoranda by Mr. Tyrrell, Controller of Revenue, and Mr. Fletcher, Colonial Secretary.

2. Since my arrival in Ceylon I have given much anxious thought to the questions raised in Sir Hugh Clifford's despatch, and even now after some five months' residence in the Island, it is not without considerable diffidence that I venture to formulate my conclusions.

3. You will appreciate how reluctant a newcomer, such as I, must be to dissent from opinions so strongly held by a predecessor of such great ability and experience, but nevertheless I feel constrained to say that, while I am fully sensible of the force of Sir Hugh Clifford's argument as a theoretical proposition, I doubt whether, under present and prospective local conditions, a policy based upon it would be tenable in practice. My own conclusions, generally speaking, accord rather with the views expressed by Mr. Tyrrell and Mr. Fletcher in their memoranda.

4. My impression is that opinion in Ceylon recognises, or could without much difficulty be brought to recognise, the expediency of a differentiation between the emoluments of officers recruited locally and those of officers brought in from Europe, and I think it probable that a majority of the Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council would have supported Mr. Tambimuttu's motions, marked (a) and (b) in the third paragraph of Sir Hugh Clifford's despatch No. 766 of the 9th December, 1926,* if the Governinent had advocated their adoption.

6. The reasons which in principle justify such a differentiation are sufficiently indicated in the enclosed memoranda, and I need not, therefore, recapitulate them here. They seem to me incontrovertible. The practical application of the principle, however, is not an easy problem. The difficulty of fixing a Ceylon standard of salaries was pointed out by Mr. Tambimuttu, when speaking on his first motion. It is, of course, impossible to define, otherwise than by a process of broad generalisation, an even approximately correct ratio, but it may, I think, be fairly said that a European officer requires a differentiation of hetween 30 and 40 per cent. in his favour, in order to place him upon terms of financial equality with a Ceylonese officer of similar standing. personally think desirable, the oversea allowance should take the form of a pensionable addition to the basic rate of salary and should be exclusive of any payments in respect of passage privileges, I should be inclined to fix the ratio of the oversea allowance at 33 per cent. of the basic rate of salary

If, as I

6. Up to this point Mr. Fletcher and I are in complete agreement. Beyond this point, however, his views do not entirely coincide with mine, and as it seems to me

* C. 23756/26: not printed.