CEYLON : THE SECOND YEAR
By STRATHEARN GORDON
WHEN, after marked loyalty during the war, Ceylon rather unexpectedly reached full Dominion status in February, 1948, people said that of course there was no question here of laboriously imitating our parliamentary methods, as in an African colony. Ceylon had an elaborate civilisation centuries before Christ. Her politicians, drawn largely from an ancient and cultured aristocracy and an intelligent professional class, had already plenty of practice in invigilated self-government. But how about a century and more of insulation from the shocks of war and famine, under British rule in its most benevolent form ? Ceylon was like a gentle and charming youth with his military service and all the rough-and- tumble of life before him. After the excitement of emancipation how would his stamina hold ? There were certain defects of character. . . . But then, battle-scarred veterans are apt to regard their wards like that.
I wondered, then, what this fabulous island was like, how the new wine of self-government, the ferment of trade and the gentle distilla- tions of Buddhism were interacting. First impressions are of a contented and happy people living in a land'of extraordinary•fertility. Everything is green and lush and burgeoning. Crops develop almost as one watches, as in an instructional film—bananas and pineapples (growing by the roadside), tea, rice, coconuts, cacao, teak and rubber. Life is therefore easy ; some say too easy, because initiative is stifled. iThe essentials of a simple existence lie to hand and make for a placid and kindly disposition. Politeness seems a national habit. The relaxed and friendly faces in the streets are the finest tonic for harassed and choleric Westerners. A request is generally greeted with a characteristic slow, smiling, deprecatory movement of the head which signifies willing assent.
Not that Ceylon is entirely a land of smiling, virtuous lotus-eaters. The police quote the paradox that there is nearly a killing a day in this island of seven million souls—and yet premeditated murder is almost unknown. A sudden quarrel over money or a woman ; a mother-in-law nags once too often—then the knife flashes or the axe falls. Moreover, the Bribery Commission and the lesser courts are fully occupied. Another dominating impression is of a nation determined to forget the recent past and to run its own affairs. " I rink," remarked my driver with the deprecating smile which abso- lutely precludes offence, " dat it was de British Government dat kept my country back," and his naked foot gave an instinctive push to the accelerator to show how Ceylon would now progress.
Londoners are well acquainted with Prime Minister Senanayake. Essentially a peasant farmer, with his sympathies and interests rooted deep in the soil, he is also a leader of vision and an astute politician with thirty years' experience. He remains the indispensable kingpin of the administration—I almost said of the constitution. His principal lieutenants are still with him. Mr. Bandaranaike, Minister of Health and Local Government, rated the best orator in the House of Repre- sentatives, which he leads, is an unforgettably vivid and vital personality. The Minister of Transport and Works, Sir John Kotalawela, has the reputation, invaluable to a politician, of getting things done. Mr. Jayawardene, the Minister of Finance, is a scholar whose six-year economic plan is firmly launched and whose annual Budget speech describing the economic state of the nation is a delightful model of clarity and compression.
The Prime Minister strives for racial amity, which may be the key to decisive success. Ceylon, with its four communities, he recently told a Moorish assembly, is like a Muslim with his four wives, all of whom must be treated with equal kindness. In Parlia- ment his United National Party (much strengthened by last year's significant accession of the Tamil Congress) holds with its allies a sufficient majority to govern with confidence but without com- placency in face of the disunited though by no means negligible Communists. The Ceylonese seem to have taken to British methods of parliamentary government as though reared therein for generations. 411oreover, they have come in at the top level of modern intricate legislation. Bills are being considered to set up regional councils, similar to our county councils, to discourage non-essential building and to aid middle-class housing by means of a Central Housing Board, and to establish Ceylon's new army. The educational system (free from kindergarten to university since 1945) is being overhauled ; and the intricacies of town-planning and satellite towns are being grappled with.
It is all a gigantic task. The economic position is at once promising and anxious. Until recently it was mainly a simple agricultural economy. Cinnamon, " the bride round whom they all danced " in the old Portuguese and Dutch eras, is a much-reduced dowager, superseded by tea, coconuts and rubber. But all dread competitors and veering world demands. Tea glances anxiously at Java and the shadow of over-production. Coconuts fear under-production and export duties. Rubber, in desperation, cocks an ear for the rumble of war. Much food has to be imported for the ever-increasing population ; and there is unemployment. The costs of government and of the social services are very high and require severe taxation.
What are the remedies ? Greater efficiency to cut costs, say the Government, and the energetic development of their plans to balance the economy. Huge schemes of irrigation will eventually double the present cultivated and pastoral area of four million acres. Pedigree stock and machinery have been imported. There are heavy factories for plywood, leather, steel, coir, paper, glass, acids and drugs ; and cottage industries for the lesser handicrafts. The hydro-electric scheme is coming into action. The Prime Minister spoke plainly to the people on Independence Day, when enthusiasm was at fever heat after the spectacular good-will marathon of boys had run in. There must be work, he said, hard, honest, untiring work.
Mr. Senanayake calls education Ceylon's greatest problem for this second year of independence. Let us glance at one of its aspects. On a plateau next the celebrated Peradeniya botanical gardens near Kandy the new university buildings, designed by Sir Patrick Abercrombie, are going up. There is to be a great hall of convoca- tion, joined by a lane of administrative buildings to the library, with outlying halls of residence and staff bungalows. The whole con- ception will take twenty-five years to complete, but to enable a start to be made in 195o the halls of residence are being pressed on. It is intensely hot, but work goes on all the time. The women plaster ; the men wheel cement. There is no standing about. All seem filled with a sense of urgency and hopes for the future of their own university which they themselves are building for their children.
The resident architect, Mr. Shirley d'Alvis, is a happy man_ He has set his heart upon a subsidiary scheme of landscape gardening. Whenever he can save small sums on the estimates and use surplus labour for an hour or two he works at a superb Valley of Rest running down to the river beside the plateau. When I was there the valley was being grassed and laid out with flagged paths. Hibiscus and oleanders, tulip-trees, temple-trees and bougainvillea showed vivid against the green lawn. The little stream which threads through the valley is caught in pools of water-lilies, and, as we watched, a brilliant kingfisher alighted on the rail of the bridge which spanned the pool below us and flashed back the light of the sun. Surely that is the finest university site in the whole world. How one envies the students who will wander in that valley, with all the knowledge of civilisation beside them, while just across the muddy Mahavele Ganga, where the elephants bathe, lies the wild jungle. Over the entire work we felt the pervasive spirit of Buddhism. Even as we left d'Alvis ran up to show us the vast, flat, carnivorous orchids which the gardener had slit to allow their fly victims to escape.
There is another side to Ceylon's affairs which her Government does not forget. It was only by a lucky quirk of the fortune of war that in 1942 the country escaped a bloody Japanese invasion. She must have a military insurance policy for many a year. Although her national debt is little more than a single year's revenue, financial facilities may be equally necessary. At the recent Commonwealth Conference Mr. Senanayake seemed content with Dominion status in its 1926 sense, and to continue to give Britain the first option whenever possible. During the last few years the relations between Ceylon and the mother country have shown mutual good-humour, gratitude and generosity. It is not too much to hope that they may prove a model for our dealings with other non-British Dominions in the future.
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