DS pilots ship of state, unlucky 13 at Senate refreshment room on Mar. 20, 1952

(Excerpted from the Memoirs of a Cabinet Secretary by BP Peiris)

It is time to get back to D.S. It was early 1950. The Prime Minister was firm that the de facto communist Government in China should be recognized. Some of his colleagues disagreed, but in the end gave way to the Prime Minister’s wish.

There then arose the controversy over the moving of a section of the Supreme Court out of Hultsdorp because of the congestion there. The Minister of Justice informed the Cabinet that he had consulted the Chief Justice, Sir John Howard, the General Council of Advocates and the Law Society. Only the Chief Justice had been helpful. The Minister had personally inspected many sites and had decided on a site at Bambalapitiya. A majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court were in favour of this site.

He had accordingly ordered that steps be taken for the acquisition of the land. Acquisition proceedings had, however, to be stopped when the General Council of Advocates and the Law Society made certain representations. The Council of Advocates had asked for an interview with the Prime Minister and, at this interview, had put forward a rebuilding scheme which the Public Works Department had described as an architectural monstrosity.

Apart from this, the scheme could not be carried out as the building operations would disturb the work of the courts. No alternative accommodation for the court building was available. As a compromise and a gesture of goodwill, he was prepared to retain in Hultsdorp the Assize Courts as well as the Election Courts in addition to the District Courts, and remove to the new site only the Supreme Court in its Appellate jurisdiction. In the end, the proposal was abandoned and the site used for the erection of flats to ease the housing problem.

In February 1950, Jayah, Minister of Labour and Social Services, left the Cabinet to take up the appointment as High Commissioner for Ceylon in Pakistan. He was succeeded by M. D. Banda.

There was much agitation at this time that education should be free, and the Cabinet was compelled to consider the problem and decide on the policy to be adopted. They came to several important decisions after many days of deliberation.

It was agreed that no tuition fees should be levied in Government Primary, Post Primary and Training Schools, in Government Vocational Schools, Training Colleges and in the University, In Primary Schools, the medium of instruction was directed to be the mother tongue, but English should be taught throughout the primary course as a second language. In Post Primary Classes of Sinhalese and Tamil Schools, as regards the medium of instruction, there was to be no change; but where it was not possible to teach certain necessary subjects through their existing medium, English might be used for these subjects.

In standards VI, VII, and VIII of English Schools, Sinhalese and Tamil, for pupils whose parents are Sinhalese speaking and Tamil speaking, should be introduced subject by subject, if necessary, as the media of instruction, in three successive years, as soon as the Government was satisfied that there was a sufficiency of teachers and books for carrying on the work adequately. Children were to be compelled to attend school from the age of five to 14, subject to exemption by the Minister in suitable cases after the age 12, and the exemptions were to be as few as possible.

Schools were divided into two grades – primary and secondary. Children assigned to post primary practical classes and those assigned to vocational schools were permitted to continue their academic education on payment of fees, if their parents wished, but were not provided for in the Government Schools. Scholarships and bursaries were to be provided in the University and other Government institutions for higher education.

The next important matter that the Government had to consider was the Report of Dr Cumpston on the Medical and Public Health Organization. Vital decisions were reached which gave rise to much agitation and controversy many years afterwards and had to be reconsidered by later Cabinets. One of the most controversial decisions was that all private practice by departmental doctors should cease and that all services given to the public by government salaried and pensionable doctors should be free.

This decision could not be implemented immediately. The Minister was therefore requested to formulate a scheme which would lead ultimately to the complete abolition of private practice for government doctors. At the date of writing, a half-hearted and unsatisfactory scheme of channeling a doctor’s practice is in force.

In August 1950, the Cabinet approved the National Flag. A Committee had been appointed to consider and report on this matter over which there were divergent views. Some sections did not approve of the predominance given to the Lion Flag. Hindus and Muslims wanted themselves represented in the flag In the end, to please all sections, different colours were added, as stripes alongside the Lion Flag to represent the different communities in the country.

In spite of the efforts of the Cost of Living Committee the cost of living was rising further, and the Government was compelled to increase the dearness allowance, and to subsidize rice to the extent of five cents a measure from December 1, 1950.

D.S., as I said before, was an amazing man. He was a hard worker and had no fixed hours of work. He forgot that the Government offices closed on Saturdays at 1 p.m. He did not know that a particular day was a Public Holiday. On such a day, he would arrive at his office to find it closed and would inquire, after getting back to Temple Trees, why the office was not open.

One incident, in which I was involved, is typical of the man. It was a Saturday, and I went to the Senate Refreshment Room for an aperitif. There were three others there – Senator Colonel T. Y. Wright, Senator Sarath Wijesinghe, my classmate at the Royal College, and my friend E. V. R. Samarawickreme, Clerk to the Senate.

I was making my way to another table when Col. Wright said, “Come and join us, young man”. I had a few drinks with my eye on the time. Even when one o’clock came along, I did not feel too easy because I knew that D.S. was working in his office. At a quarter past two (Saturday afternoon) we were still in the Senate when the Prime Minister’s peon walked in and said that I was wanted.

The Prime Minister had a problem and wanted my advice. In the Constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Order in Council, reference had been made to ‘British subject’. The Prime Minister desired to have this altered to ‘Ceylon citizen’ as regards the Election Order in Council, and wanted to know whether, if the amendment was made in that Order, a corresponding amendment would have to be made in the Constitution Order.

His purpose was to restrict the Indian estate labour vote. His difficulty was that an amendment of the Constitution required a two-thirds majority in parliament, and he had not the requisite majority. I answered “Yes, Sir” without reference to either of the two Orders in Council. He called for somebody’s opinion, which his secretary Atukorale brought in, and proceeded to read it out to me. The opinion was to the effect that the Elections Order could be amended without a corresponding amendment having to be made in the Constitution Order.

I said bluntly that the opinion was wrong. He said that I had given an opinion without reference to any books, and that what he had just read was the opinion of a King’s Counsel who had wanted a week’s time to give it.

I told him that, with all respect to the learned King’s Counsel, I was still of the view that the opinion was incorrect. He asked me for my reasons, and I said, still without reference to the Order in Council, that it was because of three words in section so and so in the Constitution Order (I remember using the words “umbilical cord”) which connected the two Orders, the significance of which the learned King’s Counsel had probably missed.

I also advised that if he was proceeding with the amendments, the Constitution amendment should be introduced first because it required a two-thirds majority to become law. “What do I do when you lawyers disagree?” asked the Prime Minister, and I replied that the question ought to be referred to the Law Officers of the Crown. Later, that was done; and the Law Officers agreed with me.

At that time however, the Prime Minister did not accept my advice. He introduced the amendment to the Elections Order first and got it through. He then introduced the amendment to the Constitution Order and failed to get the required majority. The result – the Elections Order today refers to ‘Ceylon citizen’ and the Constitution Order to ‘British subject’.

On another day, I went to the Senate Refreshment Room with Alexis Roberts to find a long lunch table laid for about 60 persons, and on inquiry, was told that it was the Judicial Officer’s lunch, that the Prime Minister was Chief Guest, and that he was due at 12.50 p.m. We drew two chairs and ordered drinks. The time was about 12 noon. The Judges were in conference upstairs. The Prime Minister had mistaken the time and arrived in the Refreshment Room at twelve-thirty.

There was no other guest present and we saw him approaching our table; he joined us and I introduced my friend. The Prime Minister inquired whether he was any relation of the late Dr Emmanuel Roberts, a general medical practitioner whose name is still respected and revered throughout the Island. When he heard that Alexis was the doctor’s youngest son, he was very happy because he had known the doctor well.

They talked of old times. We finished our drink but could not leave, as it would have been discourteous to leave the Prime Minister alone. I therefore asked him whether he could give me permission to order another drink (during office hours) and he said “Certainly, certainly, don’t mind me.” We took leave of him when we saw the Judges coming down the stairs to the lunch room and he thanked us for having kept him company all that time.

D.S. could be firm at times, but he was always polite. I once heard him tell a Permanent Secretary “If you can’t do your job, get out.” His telephone rang one day when I was doing some work with him and someone wanted to speak to one of his clerks, but, by a mistake, had dialed the Prime Minister’s direct number. Patiently, he put his work aside, turned up the directory and gave the caller the correct number. Can you imagine the Office Assistant to the Petrol Controller, referred to earlier, behaving in this dignified manner?

The Government had now to take some positive steps to deal with the problem of the rising cost of living. Several measures were considered. As a first step, it was decided to take over the control and distribution of essential foodstuffs like rice, flour and sugar. This was, I believe, the beginning of what later turned out to be virtual monopoly vested in the Co-operative Wholesale Establishment over the import and distribution of the Island’s principal essential commodities.

Came 1952. On February 6, I was attending a funeral at Kanatte when I heard someone, whom I did not know, say that the King was dead. The news had been announced from Radio Ceylon. The Prime Minister was a patient in the Merchant’s Ward of the General Hospital. I left the funeral and hurried back home as I knew that there would have to be an emergency meeting of the Cabinet. I called on the Prime Minister at the hospital and was directed to summon the Ministers to meet in his hospital room at nine o’clock the next morning.

There is no fixed place of meeting for the Cabinet. It has, apart from the Cabinet Room, met in the Prime Minister’s bedroom at Temple Trees, at Kandawela, at the Senate, in the Prime Minister’s room at the House of Representatives, and the Lodge at Nuwara Eliya.

Next morning, all the Ministers were present at the General Hospital. In attendance, there were Basnayake, Attorney-General, Sir Kanthiah Vaithianathan, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and External Affairs, Sir Ivor Jennings, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and the Clerks to the Senate and the House of Representatives.

On behalf of his colleagues and on his own behalf, the Prime Minister placed on record their sense of the sad loss suffered by the death of His Majesty George VI. He had already dispatched a message of sympathy from the Government of Ceylon. The Cabinet recognized the succession to the Throne and agreed that the following Proclamation should be issued:

Whereas by the decease of our late Sovereign Lord King George the Sixth, the Crown is by our laws solely and rightfully come to the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; We, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and other Ministers of the Crown in Ceylon do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart, publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become our Sovereign Queen by the name and style of Elizabeth the Second, to whom her lieges do acknowledge all faith and constant obedience with hearty and humble affection.

On previous occasions, the Proclamation acknowledging a new Sovereign had been signed by the Governor and ‘Other gentlemen of Quality’. On this occasion, it was decided that it should be signed only by the members of the Cabinet. The Governor-General, Lord Soulbury exercised his right to head the proclamation with his signature.

The Proclamation was read from the steps of the House of Representatives on February 8. In recording the minutes of the meeting held at the hospital, I marked the attendance of the lawyer Ministers as being Queen’s Counsel, instead of King’s Counsel which they were the previous day, and asked Sir Ivor whether I was correct. He said, “Yes. See the Demise of the Crown Act.”

March 20, 1952, was Mr D.S. Senanayake’s last Cabinet meeting. On that day, after the meeting, he entertained the Ministers and the Secretaries to lunch in the Senate Refreshment Room. Some Ministers were absent and I pointed out that 13 were sitting to table. I was sent out to bring somebody, some extra person, to make the number 14, but everyone I met appeared to have had his lunch. And so, 13 of us sat down to lunch. Minister Nugawela did not like it at all and said so.

Next morning, while on horseback, the Prime Minister fell off his horse although he was a good horseman. He had apparently had a stroke. He passed away the next day. Her Majesty the Queen was one of the first persons to send a message of sympathy.

Ceylon had lost the Father of the Nation. His wise leadership gave us peace and prosperity. There were no communal differences and controversies in his time. He had Muslims and Hindus in his Cabinet. He was not out for cheap notoriety. There was nothing mean or common in his nature, and his qualities of sincerity, good faith, and love of his native land have generally been accepted by the country. I have attempted to draw a vignette. Some future historian or research worker must give us his biography.

J. L. F.’ writing in the Ceylon Observer of March 23, 1952, said:

“Mr Senanayake was not merely a Prime Minister of a country: he was a leader of men. It was this quality both inborn and matured by experience which gave our country stability when he piloted the ship of state. His was not the leadership buttressed by bayonets and concentration camps in a country’s hinterland. The people followed him, and even his political critics admired him because he was known to be just. And a country of different communities, different religions and different castes needs at the helm someone whom they can all trust as a just man.”

Sir Alan Rose, Acting Governor-General, said:

“During my seven years in this country I have had the opportunity and happiness of seeing Mr Senanayake at very close quarters and from a variety of aspects. Quite apart from his many personal kindnesses, his inflexible courage, his power of mind and his breadth of outlook have combined to create an impression of greatness which I shall always remember.”