Moving up the CCS ladder, the 1915 riots and war service

By Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore,
last British Governor of Colonial Ceylon
Excerpted from HAJ Hulugalle’s British Governors of Ceylon

(Continued from last week)

On arrival in Ceylon in 1910 I was attached as a Cadet first to the Secretariat and then to the Colombo Kachcheri. Sir Henry McCallum was Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, Colonial Secretary and Mr. E Bowes Principal Assistant Secretary. From such minute papers as came my way, it did not appear that Sir Henry and Sir Hugh were always at one in the views expressed.

Later, when in 1924 1 was posted to the Nigerian Secretariat, Sir Hugh Clifford was Governor and Sir Donald Cameron, Chief Secretary. They were a remarkable and highly gifted combination, both men of outstanding ability in their respective spheres. Sir Hugh was in my opinion quite the most outstanding personality under whom I have served despite his personal eccentricities of genius. It was a tragedy that they should have developed into a form of mental instability by the time he returned to Ceylon as Governor and then to Malaya. I will refer to this again later.

After my first year in Colombo I had been assured that I should remain in Jaffna for a year or more at least, and as stated earlier I had invited my sister to stay there with me. We were a happy party in the Jaffna Fort, which has been well described by Leonard Woolf in the second volume of his autobiography.It was much the same in my day. I also came to have a great respect and liking for the industry and sturdy independence of the Jaffna Tamil, and I was, therefore, very disappointed to have to leave it so soon to become an itinerating police magistrate up and down the Colombo-Kandy road. Before long I was back again in Colombo for a short spell as municipal magistrate, then to the Customs, finally as fourth Assistant in the Secretariat.

Colombo in the days of the Rubber Boom has in retrospect a very materialistic look. All communities were in a rush to get rich quick. Socially, wealth was the golden key to unlock the gate for the would-be social climber; and the Civil Service `caste’, as it had been described, could not compete, despite official prestige, with the Fort merchant princes. Up country. the planting industry was offering high prices for land which was disrupting the old aristocratic Kandyan feudal economy. while in Colombo the old caste distinctions in Sinhalese were becoming blurred by the wealth of a rapidly increasing middle class, which was also campaigning for a less paternal and more democratic form of government.

The Government and Assistant Government Agents in the Provinces and Districts were still left more or less undisturbed in the exercise of a paternal authority, and were genuinely interested in promoting the welfare and development of the local population with whom they were in close touch. Some viewed with reserve, not to say dismay, any attempt to bring political pressure upon them in the exercise of their duties.

Such an attitude is in no way peculiar to Ceylon. It is shared by the Civil Servants the world over, and as an old Civil Servant myself I have noted with regret the dissolution of the Ceylon Civil Service with a record over the years of which it had every right to be proud.

In 1914 with little or no warning Ceylon was overtaken by the War. At that time most believed it would be of short duration and unlikely to constitute any serious threat to British possessions East of Suez, though Ceylon was full of alarms and excursions so long as The Emden (a German cruiser) was at large. The Ceylon contingent of volunteers was quickly despatched to Egypt and the local volunteer regiments mobilized to defend our shores and in particular the Port of Colombo, which was the main port of call for Australian and New Zealand troops in transit to the battle fronts.

IV

At this time of crisis Sir Edward Stubbs, who had very recently arrived as Colonial Secretary, became acting Governor until such time as Chalmers (later Lord Chalmers) took over the administration. They were both men of great mental ability from the Home Civil Service, and had this in common that neither had had any previous Colonial experience. In the event, they were called upon to handle the delicate situation created by the 1915 Ceylon Riots before they had much time or opportunity to be in close personal touch with the different facets of Ceylonese public opinion of which the Morning Leader was the most forceful exponent.

Stubbs with his acid wit and somewhat gauche approach had no strong personal appeal, though his charming wife was soon deservedly popular. Chalmers seemed to be surrounded by a small circle with whom he could swap classical jokes or pursue his Sanskrit studies with scholarly members of the Buddhist priesthood. When the late Dr. Solomon Fernando died suddenly in the course of a political speech, the story, probably apochryphal was that he remarked on receipt of the news: I suppose the good doctor must have heard a still small voice saying to him ‘Fernando Po”‘.

With the benefit of hind sight it is easy to be wise after the event, but I am inclined to think it was a mistake to have declared Martial Law on the outbreak of the riots. It must be remembered that there was an atmosphere of war hysteria abroad which the mutiny of the Guides at Singapore had intensified.

The Attorney-General, Sir Anton Bertram, a fine lawyer and scholar, was a conscientious character, who could become jittery under pressure. He advised that as the Empire was at war, all Ceylonese could be regarded as “statutory camp followers” within the meaning of the Army Act, and as such amenable to trial by Court Martial. In effect this meant that the General Officer Commanding rather than the Governor became responsible for the maintenance of law and order, though the civil courts continued to function for less serious offences.

In the last resort the General confirmed the findings of the Court Martial though they were submitted to him through the Governor. General Malcolm, though a gallant soldier, had not the experience to fit him for the exercise of such a responsible task.

After the riots I was Secretary of the Commission of Enquiry into the action of the police, under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice, Sir Alexander Wood Renton. The Commission could find no positive evidence of conspiracy, though after the Singapore mutiny a few letters were found from Ceylonese in Singapore enquiring as to the local position. But in Ceylon itself the wildest rumours were circulating among the ignorant villagers suggesting that there was no longer any British Government.

The trouble started at Gampola with a Buddhist Wesak procession marching past the Mohammedan mosque, in which the Buddhists, were clearly the aggressors. As this was a trouble spot of long standing, action should have been taken by the local authorities to maintain order at the outset. This was not done and the trouble spread to Kandy, where the Police Magistrate and the Government Agent again failed to deal with the situation firmly and there was more rioting and shooting.

From Kandy it spread like a forest fire to Colombo and the coastal districts. A map of the affected areas showing the dates on which the riots broke out clearly indicated how it spread, and was suggestive that it was fanned, whether deliberately or not, by the rumours spread abroad. That the Buddhists, despite their non-violent creed, were the aggressors there can be no doubt.

After the sack of the Pettah I gained some notoriety in dealing with a vast crowd, that was trying to cross the bridge over the Kelaniya river to reinforce their fellow Sinhalese, who were supposed to have been massacred and raped by the Moors. In fact the exact opposite was the case. After long parleys with their leaders I had no alternative but to give the officer commanding about a dozen volunteers; whom I had hastily summoned to defend the bridge, the order to fire.

The first round was fired over their heads, but the crowd with cries of “his tuakuva” (empty guns) rushed to within about ten yards of us when they were dispersed by a volley which left one or two killed and a few wounded in their wake. Of actual numbers I have no record.

By this time I had been appointed an additional District judge for the Western Province and also a Special Commissioner under the Martial Law regulations with a few Punjabi soldiers to restore law and order in the area around Veyangoda, Heneratgoda and Minuwangoda. Mr. Fraser, the Government Agent of the Western Province, had obtained approval of a plan whereby the damage done to Moorish boutiques and property should be roughly assessed and the victims compensated by the payment of a collective fine imposed upon the Sinhalese villagers concerned.

Such a compulsory levy would, it was hoped, act as a deterrent to further rioting and at the’ same time provide speedy compensation for the losses sustained by its victims. If carried out as originally conceived the results might or might not have justified such emergency measures. But at the very last moment Fraser was told that the levy should be presented as a voluntary one, and that those reluctant to subscribe should be warned that, their properties would be assessed, and that it would therefore be to their financial advantage to make an immediate voluntary payment rather than wait till the necessary legislation was enacted.

I do not know who was responsible for this decision, but I suspect that Sir Anton Bertram was getting cold feet at the consequences of his Martial Law decision. The officers responsible for the collection of the levy were now presented with an almost impossible task which was a source of constant embarrassment.

It fell to my lot to prepare the dossier on which the Attorney General decided to bring a Mr. Bandaranaike for trial by Court Martial. Mr. Bandaranaike, an ardent Buddhist and temperance campaigner, became a convert to Christianity during his detention and there was much backstair missionary pressure to secure his, release. Eventually Mr. Eardley Norton came over from India to defend him, and secured his acquittal by the surprise production of an Indian tea maker, who provided an alibi.

By 1916 1 had had some five and a half years service and was granted my first leave on condition that I got a commission in the Army on arrival in England. I had been refused permission to join the Ceylon contingent in 1914. In London I found that direct, commissions were no longer given, so I enlisted as a gunner and driver in the Royal Horse Artillery.

After three month’s in the ranks I was gazetted a Lieutenant and sent for a month’s gunnery course at Shoeburyness. Eventually I joined a 60-pounder battery of the RGA. and volunteered to go as an officer reinforcement to Salonika, as my own battery was not yet ready to be sent to France. I was eventually invalided from the Struma Front with malaria, and after a short spell at home was posted to a battery in France in time for the final German defeat.

After the armistice we were 24 days in the saddle taking part in the triumphal advance and formed part of the army of occupation outside Cologne. Eventually I was demobilized and returned to Ceylon in August 1919. I was posted again to the Secretariat as Fourth Assistant Secretary to find Sir Graeme Thomson recently appointed as Colonial Secretary and Sir William Manning as Governor. He was an old friend of my future wife’s parents. He had been Inspector-General of the East African Rifles before his appointment, as Governor of Nyasaland, where his first wife had left him, so that both in Jamaica and on his first arrival in Ceylon, Government House was without an official hostess.

The Bensons, had stayed with him in Jamaica and after the war were invited to do so again in Colombo. Mrs. Benson and her daughter stayed on at Queen’s House for some time when Mr. Benson had to return to London where he was the Manager of the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Coy. He had received a CBE. for his work with the Ministry of Munitions.

As a junior Secretariat officer I did not move in Queen’s House circles, but one morning I was exercising my polo pony before breakfast on the Galle Face green when a runaway horse came charging down with Miss Benson in the saddle. It was a big Hackney mare which Mr. Bawa, KC, had lent her, and I soon discovered that as the saddle had slipped and both bit and stirrups were maladjusted the mare was unmanageable.

So we changed mounts and I escorted her to the Garden Club for repairs. We were destined to see much of each other later, as she stayed on with Sir Graeme and Lady ‘Thomson for some weeks when he was acting Governor and I became his Private Secretary during Sir William Manning’s absence in London to discuss the Manning Constitution.

This was the subject of much deliberation in which the very able Attorney-General, Sir Henry Gollan, played a leading part. As Collins, later Sir Charles Collins, was seconded for special duty over its preparation, there was little or no record of it in the current Secretariat files, and I do not think that Sir Graeme, as a newcomer, played a very active part.

He had made his name during the war as Director of Admiralty Transport, and was referred to by Lloyd George as the greatest Transport expert since Noah. His services were rewarded by the promise of a Colonial Governorship, and when British Guiana became vacant he was offered and accepted the post.

In Ceylon he was much interested in the extension of the Railway from Anuradhapura to Trincomalee, which was carried out despite much initial opposition. His foresight was amply vindicated by the part it played in the Second World War. He was somewhat shy and reserved, sparing both of the spoken and written word, but deliberate in judgment and most kind and considerate. Lady Thomson had abounding energy and never spared herself in social work of all kinds in which she was deeply interested. Sir Graeme was a first class shot especially with a rifle and also a keen fisherman. My main recreation was to combine some form of shooting with his official circuits in the country side.

Sir William Manning, during his visit to London, met Miss Olga Sefton-Jones in Mr. and Mrs. Benson’s house in London. The Sefton-Jones’s were a Quaker family and friends of the Bensons. On the return of Sir William to Ceylon I was posted to Trincomalee as Assistant Government Agent. It was in many ways my most enjoyable post in Ceylon. I was responsible for the acquisition of all the land required for the Trincomalee railway station and the naval oil installations at China Bay. In addition there was the normal work of the Assistant Government Agent. The visits of the Admiral at Admiralty House and of the Navy when their ships came in for gunnery practice provided an agreeable interlude on return from a fortnight or more on circuit through the villages and village tanks of the countryside.