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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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EPLENIC.O.882/11

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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Clause 110.

8. I consider it of importance that the election of Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of Committees should take place after the election of Ministers. This pro- cedure will avoid the necessity of a second election of either of these two officers in the event of one of them being elected as a Minister. These two posts are obviously of far less importance than that of Minister.

Clauses 112 to 114.

9. These Clauses, and the ninth and tenth Schedules, are of considerable impor- tance. The allocation of duties to Executive Committees proposed in the Donoughmore Commission's report deals in some cases with Departments, and in others with subjects or functions. I have considered whether it would be possible to secure a suitable allocation merely by laying down the Departments which each Executive Committee should control, but have decided that an allocation of subjects and functions would be preferable. Moreover, it will be observed that in the first place in the draft Order when the transfer of executive functions is mentioned, they are conferred upon the Council as a whole with the object of indicating the Council's overriding authority. I will indicate later how I propose that provision should be made for control by the Committees over the Departments concerned with their respective subjects and functions.

In his Confidential telegram of 11th March,* Sir Herbert Stanley suggested that the allocation of duties to Executive Committees should be effected by Proclamation by the Governor. Upon consideration 1 have found it desirable that this allocation should appear as a schedule to the Order in Council. I have, however, preserved the principle underlying Sir Herbert Stanley's proposal by permitting the State Council to amend this schedule, subject to the approval of the Governor and the Secretary of

State.

The Donoughmore Commission, in the headings of their proposed allocation, designated the group of duties assigned to each Committee as a Department. I have, in the proposed schedule, avoided the use of this term. In view of the present connota- tion of the word Department,. which, subject to the remarks contained in paragraph 3 of this despatch, I propose to conserve, it would tend to confusion to use the same term to denote also the group of subjects and functions allocated to each Executive Committee.

Your Lordship will observe that the allocation which I propose (and which has the approval of my Executive Council) differs widely from that suggested by the Special Commissioners. In his telegram of 11th March Sir Herbert Stanley asked for permission to use his discretion freely in this regard, and that permission was accorded in your telegram of 21st March.† The allocation now proposed is the result of pro- longed and careful consideration. I have endeavoured, in so far as possible, to include in one group all Departments whose policies are in any way interconnected. It has, however, also been necessary to distribute the volume of work as evenly as possible. Not only is it desirable to avoid overloading any one Committee, but it is also necessary to bear in mind that any Committee which is not given sufficient work to do may tend to find an outlet for its energies in undue interference in matters of detail. In making the allocation I have taken into account the fact that the administration of certain subjects, such for example as Electrical undertakings and Posts and Telegraphs, involves comparatively few questions of policy, while in other cases, such as those of Health and Education, problems involving questions of policy are of frequent occur- rence. It is by this criterion rather than by the extent of the activities of a Department, or the amount of expenditure involved, that the volume of the work which an Executive Committee will have to perform in respect of each subject or function allotted to it must be estimated.

The most heavily loaded Committee will be that of Agriculture and Lands. It is for this reason that I have felt compelled to place Co-operative Societies and Veterinary Services under other Committees, in spite of the clear advantages of having them closely associated with Agriculture.

The Committee of Local Administration may appear to carry a light burden. But the constructive work which this Committee will be called upon to undertake in con- nexion with the development of local administration recommended by the Donoughmore Commissioners will be considerable.

* No. 51.

† No. 52.

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The subjects and functions allocated to Executive Committees in the ninth and to Officers of State in the tenth Schedules will need detailed elaboration in order to ensure that no minor subjects or functions are left unprovided for. This elaboration will be provided in the statements of procedure which will be prescribed under Clauses 117 (1) and 117 (2) respectively.

The proviso attached to Clause 112 (1) is of great importance. It appears to me to provide the only practicable means of continuing executive authority during the interval between the dissolution of one Council and the first session of the next. The provision for the appointment of Acting Ministers contained in Clause 115 (2) I consider necessary in order to secure representation of a Committee on the Board of Ministers in the event of the absence of a Minister for a considerable period.

Clause 117.

10. The question of how to provide for the general supervision over Departments by Executive Committees mentioned in paragraphi 7 on page 45 of the Donoughmore Commission's report is one which has given myself and my advisers much food for thought. The detailed relations between Executive Committees and Heads of Depart- ments will be laid down in the Statement of Administrative Procedure referred to in the seventh paragraph of Sir Herbert Stanley's despatch No. 261 of 31st March.* But I have met with considerable divergence of opinion as to what should be specified in this regard in the Order in Council. It has been suggested to me that the term general supervision" is dangerous in its ambiguity, and that the fact that Executive Committees will exercise some sort of control over departments is so essentially inherent in the Constitution that an explicit mention of it in the Order in Council is unnecessary. I cannot agree with this view. In paragraph 5 of Sir Herbert Stanley's despatch of 31st March, which has been published as a Sessional l'aper, it was definitely stated that the power of the Executive Committee to exercise general supervision over the depart- ments entrusted to it should be laid down in the Order in Council. That Order will be critically examined in Ceylon from the point of view not only of what it contains, but also of what it omits, and I believe that the absence of any specific provision giving the Executive Committees control over the machinery by means of which alone they can carry out their duties would be regarded with considerable suspicion. The ambiguity of the phrase general supervision is all in its favour. It will be elaborated in the Statement of Administrative Procedure, and a measure of elasticity in any provision in this regard contained in the Order in Council itself is not only inevitable but desirable,

At this point I fear that it will be necessary for me to deal with an important question which does not come within the ambit of the Order in Council itself. By far the most difficult problem which has arisen in connexion with the general supervision to be exercised by Executive Committees over public officers is that created by the special position of Government Agents. These officers were, as Your Lordship is aware, in origin, the local agents of a highly centralized administration, and were responsible in the first instance for the carrying out within their respective provinces of practically the whole of the functions of that administration. The development of a system of Departments and the growth of the number of representatives of those Departments in the provinces and districts, has shorn the Government Agent of many of his functions. But even in regard to activities which he no longer administers or controls. he continues to advise. He is the expert in what, for lack of a better term, I may perhaps describe as the " local aspect," and his advice is often an invaluable corrective to that of the purely technical expert. It appears to me to be essential that we should do all that we can to preserve his utility in that regard, and to induce the new Government to continue to benefit from his experience and advice to the same extent as does the present Governinent. Unfortunately opponents of the Govern- ment Agent Raj are many, and several unofficial members of the present Council have expressed to me their pleasurable conviction that the new Constitution is the first step towards placing the lid upon the coffin of an official whom they regard as a moribund survival of bureaucracy. Any action which will foster a suspicion that the Government Agent is outside the new Constitution and will be used to hamper rather than to support the authority of the Executive Committees will be fatal. I have con- sulted the Government Agents in this matter, and the majority of them appear to faveur a scheme by which they should be responsible to all Executive Committees alike. 1 consulted on the other hand a carefully selected and representative body of unofficial

* C. 73230/8/30 [No. 6]: not briated,

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