CO885-11 — Page 508

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.882/11

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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C. 83227/31 [No. 1].

70

No. 30.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

(Received 9.40 p.m., 30th July, 1931.) TELEGRAM.

[Answered by No. 31.]

30TH JULY. No. 163. Confidential. Your telegram of the 12th September, 1930. No. 117. Confidential.* State Council rejected by 37 votes to 14 Supplementary Estimate of rupees 50,000 required to finance passage scheme for public officers for remainder of current financial year. Reduced provision for passages voted by the late Legislative Council being almost exhausted in May last and deferment pending meeting of the State Council further expenditure being impracticable I issued Special Warrant for rupees 50,000. Board of Ministers approved Supplementary Estimate subsequently placed before them, but unfortunately this did not ensure favourable reception by the Council. Apart from Ministers only one Elected Member of the Council voted in favour. Acting under my authority and instructions, Financial I relied on Secretary made declaration under Article 22 (1) (b) Order in Council. your telegram of the 12th September as a decision within Article 87 (4) requiring continuation of passage privileges. Despatch follows.

C. 83227/31 [No. 2].

No. 31.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR.

(Sent 3.5 p.m., 7th August, 1931.) TELEGRAM.

No. 148. CONFIDENTIAL. Your telegram of 30th July, No. 163. Passage cheme. I approve your action.-PASSFIELD.

C. 83227/31 [No. 7],

No. 32.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 19th August, 1931.)

(Confidential.)

MY LORD,

[Answered by No. 33.]

Queen's House, Colombo, 7th August, 1931. I HAVE the honour to confirm the following telegram which I sent to you on the 30th July, 1931 :—

No. 163. Confidential. Despatch follows.

Your telegram

[See No. 30.]

2. The supplementary vote of Rs. 50,000 which was rejected by the State Council on the 29th of July last had been approved by the Board of Ministers on the 22nd of July and had appeared on the Order of the Day of the State Council for the 28th of July. During the short interval that elapsed between the approval of the Supplementary Estimate by the Board of Ministers and its submission to the State Council it was suggested to me, as a possibility, that the supplementary vote might be rejected by the State Council. Although there was no indication of a serious danger that this would happen, it was necessary to prepare for such an eventuality. Having regard to the reference made by my predecessor to Your Lordship in September last when the Select Committee on the Budget made the cut of 25 per cent. in the vote for Passages which created the necessity for presentation of the supplementary vote which has just been rejected, and the statement contained in Your Lordship's telegram of the 12th of September last, ‡ that in the event of this supplementary provision being refused when required you would be prepared to approve resort to certification, 1

‡ Č. 73363/30 [No. 7]: not printed.

* No. 26.

† No 30.

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instructed the Financial Secretary that in the event rejection of the supplementary vote he should make, on my behalf, the declaration referred to in the telegram which tlus despatchi contrms.

I

3. I have already explained that I had no reason to believe that rejection of the supplementary vote was a serious danger. It had been duly approved by the Board of Ministers and from no quarter had I received any information which could lead me to believe that the State Council within a few weeks of its constitution would adopt a course of action which could not fail seriously to embarrass the new Ministry had hoped too that the Council would have benefited sufficiently from the experience of its two immediate predecessors to avoid repetition of the mistake, disastrous alike to the political progress of the country and to the achievement of practical results, of Had I had making the pay and privileges of the Public Service a political issue. reason to believe that there was a serious probability that the State Council would reject the Vote I should have preferred to postpone its presentation until 1 had con- sulted Your Lordship, notwithstanding the instructions which you had sent to my predecessor in September last.

4. At the same time I felt that in what I then believed to be the improbable event of the rejection of the Vote it was absolutely essential that I should immediately make my own attitude clear and definite. If I had postponed making a declaration under Article 22 (1) (b) of the Order in Council until I had consulted you there would have been an interval during which serious alarm and unrest would have developed in the services affected by the rejection of the Vote. Moreover, it so happened that the rejection of the supplementary vote almost coincided with the completion of the business before the Council and the commencement of an adjournment of the Council for a period of nearly a fortnight. In view of this unavoidable interval I decided that an immediate declaration on my behalf by one of the Officers of State was preferable to a message from myself which could not have been sent to the Council until 11th August. 5. Turning now to the debate on the supplementary vote, eight members spoke against it. Most of these speakers appeared to be well acquainted with the history of the grant of passages for overseas officers. The fact that the Passage scheme was originally sanctioned as a temporary measure for a period of four years from 1st October, 1922, and had at no time since that date been approved either by the Executive Government or by the Legislature as a permanent scheme, was mentioned by several speakers. There was no very definite criticism of the details of the scheme itself or of its administration, but there was a general suggestion underlying the criticisms that the concessions now allowed are unduly liberal. One speaker in par- ticular made the point that it was unreasonable on the part of public officers to demand, and, on the part of the authorities, to continue the grant of these concessions in full at a time when there is so much poverty in the Island as a result of the economic depression, and when there is such urgent need for reduction of Government expen- diture. These criticisms did not, however, constitute the main lines of attack on the supplementary vote.

6. The outstanding feature of the debate was an expression of resentment on the grounds that the presentation of the supplementary vote was humiliating to the State Council. Speaker after speaker recalled the events of last year when the Legis- lative Council, with the avowed object of forcing upon the Government an alteration of the passage regulations which would increase the neriod of service qualifying for passages from 4 years to 5 years, refused to vote in full the sunt required to give effect to the scheme during the current year. The statement made on that occasion by the Colonial Secretary on behalf of my predecessor, with your consent, to the effect that no alteration of the passage regulations would be made in consequence of the reduction of the vote and that if the reduced sum proved insufficient a supplementary vote would be presented to the Council, was generally referred to, not, of course, without justi- fication, as in substance though not in form a threat of certification in the future. The dominant feeling appeared to be that this threat, originally directed against the late Legislative Council, had now been directed against the State Council which was left Some of the with no alternative to abiect surrender except reiection of the vote. speakers too, notably Mr. E. W. Perera, the member for Horana, a prominent onnonent of the Donoughmore Scheme, appeared to be influenced by the consideration that if a situation could be created in which the exercise of my reserve nowers became inevit- able an important political purpose would be served by the resulting revelation to the country of the limits which the Constitution places upon the nowers of the State Council. But it was clearly neither a desire to seize an onnortunity of throwing into strong relief features of the Donoughmors Constitution which have been renestedly discussed both in the late Legislative Council and on public platforms, nor any strong

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