SHADOW DEMOCRACY IN CEYLON
By PHILIP JORDAN
THAT the shadow of democratic government which has been granted to Ceylon is more displeasing to back-bench politicians at Westminster and to irrespon-: sible newspaper proprietors than it is to the British community who dwell under it, is the first impression which the student of government receives on stepping ashore at Colombo, and the one that most permanently remains with him after a thorough investigation con- ducted in the island itself. There is no historic precedent for the new form of government, although in broad outline it follows the constitution of the L.C.C., but because it is a unique experiment in British imperial policy it deserves a closer and a more sympathetic study than its detractors will allow.
Ceylon is administered by a State Council of sixty-one members : three of these, the Chief Secretary, the Attorney-General and the Financial Secretary, are British Civil Servants who by virtue of their respective positions are ex-officio members of the legislative body : eight members have been nominated by the Governor to represent the interests of the minorities ; and the remaining fifty have been elected under the universal franchise which was granted suddenly in 1931 to a people who had hitherto been remote from the problems of democratic government. Of these fifty elected members, one is deputed to act as speaker, two arc women and two are Englishmen.
For the purposes of convenient administration these members are divided into seven executive committees whose functions are to deal with Home Affairs ; Agricul- ture and Lands; Local Administration ; Health ; Labour, Industry and Commerce ; Education ; Communications and Works, and to make recommendations to the full State Council. Each committee elects its own chairman, and the member so elected becomes. the Minister for his particular department. The chairman of the executive committee for Home Affairs, Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka, is the Leader of the House.
While it is still far too early to judge of the success or failure of the State Council as a responsible administrative body, there can be no doubt that the local verdict of all communities is that it is working out a great deal better than anyone ever expected it would. In a very extensive survey of the island, which I was able to make early this year, I found that this opinion is held by all classes and races, both official and unofficial ; but such general endorsement does not, of course, mean that Ceylon has solved its problems, or even that a more substantial measure of self-government would result in a solution of them, for its problems, like those of so many eastern countries, are permanently linked to and pivot on the vexed question of minorities.
More than 5,000,000 people live in Ceylon, approxi- mately fifty per cent. of whom are Sinhalese. There are about 7,500 Europeans, preponderantly British, and this, the smallest civilized minority, is also the most important homogeneous group in the island, for the major part of Ceylon's productive wealth is in its hands ; and on the competence of its personnel and their immunity from hampering legislation much of her material prosperity depends. Tamils, Moors and Burghers (descendants of the Dutch colonizers) form the more inaiwartant " of the other minorities, whose combined representation in the State Council does not equal that of the Sinhalese. For this reason, and because their individual problems differ too widely to allow them to make a close and permanent alliance in the State Council, the minorities would not altogether view with disfavour a return to a nominated Legislative Assembly where the balance of scats was more evenly held. Now that so retrograde a step is no longer either possible or desirable, it is the minorities who, in concert with Whitehall, will act as a check on any further immediate demands for greater autonomy, for whatever racial, religious or material differences may keep the individual minorities apart, it is generally believed that complete Dominion status would result in their claims and their interests being neglected and over-ridden by the Sinhalese.
At the present time the Government is indeed but the shadow of complete autonomy : the Public Services, defence, police and certain fiscal matters remain the perquisites of the Imperial Government, and until their control is handed over to the State Council the shadow will in no way yield to substance.
In spite of all this, however, the State Council performs with considerable dignity the administrative and legis- lative functions which have been assigned to it. It was created in a year of unprecedented economic depression, when the island's treasury was empty : its last budget showed a genuine surplus, and there is every indication that next year's figures will be even better. Much of the credit for a phenomenally rapid rise to an acceptance and understanding of responsibility is due to the Ministers of State, all of whom have proved themselves strong enough to carry their quite unaccustomed burdens, and of sufli-: ciently vivid personality to keep their back-benchers in comparative quietude, for back-benchers in Ceylon arc.'. no more and no less irresponsible than back-benehers in older and more experienced parliaments. There have been frictions, naturally ; Ministers of State in Ceylon, like Ministers of State in England, arc elected by popular vote, and consequently have to consider the wishes of the con- stituents who return them as well as to frame policies for the benefit of the community as a whole. The difference, perhaps, lies in the fact that parliamentary tradition in Ceylon is not yet sufficiently well-established for Ministers to disregard with impunity the solemn pledges which they give at a time when they are courting the favours of the electorate.
At the present time, Ceylon's State Council is being urged either to impose a very high tariff on Japanese cotton and other goods or to regulate their import by means of quotas ; and the appeal is being made largely on the grounds of sentiment. Although none of. the elected representatives of the people has been sent to Colombo, to put into execution the views of the Lancashire cotton manufacturers, the question is, I know, exercising the minds of the State Council, and it would not therefore be out of place to remark that Japan supplies a need at a price which the consumer can afford to pay, something which the British manu- facturer does not and can not do ; and that, to take but one example, the incidence of hook-worm, once almost permanently endemic, has fallen since Japanese manufacturers introduced rubber shoes into Ceylon at a price within reach of the labourers' and peasants exiguous purses. Any artificial barrier to their growing use means a poorer quality of human being, to put the matter on its lowest and most material level.
On the other hand, the State Council already allows preferential duties on many British commodities, notably silk, without itself receiving in return those concessions which it feels to be important. Ceylon is one of the few plumbago producing countries in the world ; Great Britain is a large consumer of plumbago ; yet we in this country buy our stock almost exclusively from Madagascar, with the result that Ceylon is forced to sell her output to Japan, where it is largely used in the manufacture of armaments.
In Ceylon the soya bean industry is growing rapidly to a position of first class importance, and Ceylon would like to sell her crop on the London market with the aid of an imperial preference. She is unable to do so because Japanese soya beans are allowed a free entry into this country. he State Council knows these things, and. is not likely to be into submission by vocal members of parliament here who, either through ignorance or malice, use her weak points to drive home reactionary views about the India White Paper which are held by no person who knows India well. Ceylon has no connexion with India : her people are different, her problems are different ; and the efficiency of her government is in no way improved by using her as an oblique target off which verbal and happily ineffectual bullets may ricochet into India. She is no more a part of India than Great Britain is of the United States of America.
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