Putting up a fight for appointment as Cabinet Secretary

Excerpted from the memoirs of B.P. Peiris

T. D. Perera, Deputy Secretary to the Treasury, was appointed the first Secretary to the Cabinet in addition to his other duties. He was a mild man and rarely interfered with my work. He used to arrive at the Cabinet office at about 11 a.m. and, having seen the tappal and my orders thereon, leave about 10 minutes later. I was left more or less to act on my own responsibility.

But, in Cabinet, he was sometimes too talkative as Secretary and was snubbed on two occasions by the Ministers. Once, when he was arguing a point with E. A. P. Wijeratne, who was always polite, he was told by the Minister that the conversation would be carried on in that manner when the Secretary became a Minister. On the other occasion, G. G. Ponnambalam, in his usual bluntness, turned round to Prime Minister D.S. and said, “Sir, I am not prepared to carry on this conversation at this level”.

When I submitted a minute to T. D. that the Treasury connection in the Cabinet was undesirable, he disagreed and said it was most useful. It did not seem to strike him that in the Cabinet he was arguing the Treasury point of view and that he had already made an order against which the Minister was appealing. When the Minister started arguing, T. D. forgot that he was there in a dual capacity.

T. D. was succeeded by A. G. Ranasinha, who also held in addition, the office of Secretary to the Treasury. It was he, I heard, who expressed his amazement at the disrespect in the Legal Draftsman’s Department where assistants smoked in the presence of their Heads. I must confess I was a little nervous when his appointment was announced. I had not met him before and did not know him. Would he, I thought, object to my smoking in his presence when the Prime Minister had no objection to my smoking during a Cabinet meeting?

On the day of his appointment, he walked into my room and said, “I am Ranasinha. How do you run this office?” I told him that I attended to the work and seldom referred a paper to T. D. Perera. He said “Run it as before” and left. He was a charming man; my nervousness vanished. Here was a man, I thought, who has understanding and under whom I could work without friction. I am a very sensitive person and the slightest rudeness on another’s part upsets me.

Remember Mervyn Fonseka’s grilling. It has been my good fortune, during the period of my public service of 27 years, to have been stationed in Colombo in two departments and have had as my Heads five great gentlemen: J. Mervyn Fonseka, P. C. Villavarayan, H. N. G. Fernando, T. D. Perera and A. G. Ranasinha.

I mentioned to Ranasinha the slight friction which T. D. had with the Ministers after which he refused, as Secretary to the Cabinet, to be drawn into a discussion of Treasury matters. He used to say, and in my opinion quite rightly, that if any information was required, he would get his officials to come with the relevant files. Ranasinha did not come to office except on Cabinet days. He gave me complete administrative discretion.

I did not know that Ranasinha was a brother-in-law of Clement de Alwis of the Postal department, an old friend of mine. When the Government, in recognition of his services, conferred on him the titular rank of Mudaliyar, I received a special invitation from him to be present in the evening at his house at Kadawata. On my arrival, the Mudaliyar took me to the bar and, after a few ‘warmers’, I asked him whether a closed piano, which I saw, worked. The piano was so placed that a person playing could not see who was entering or leaving the house. When I had finished playing a piece, I heard Ranasinha’s familiar voice from behind saying “Play the Blue Danube”. The Mudaliyar kept filling my glass. It was past midnight.

My. boss probably thought I was ‘tops’. There was to be a Cabinet meeting the next morning and Ranasinha, on leaving, was gentlemanly enough to tell me not to bother to attend the meeting as he would “take it himself”. I do not remember at what time I left the party, but I did not want to take advantage of a man’s kindness. I was in attendance at the meeting.

In October 1954, the Post of Governor of the Central Bank fell vacant. Sir John Kotelawala was Prime Minister. At a Cabinet meeting he turned round to Ranasinha, and asked him immediately to resign his posts of Treasury Head and Cabinet Secretary as he was to be appointed as the Governor of the Bank. The Prime Minister also asked him to have L. J. Seneviratne appointed as his successor at both ends. I protested.

I said I had previously acted as Secretary, that I was on my maximum salary as Assistant and that I appeared to have no prospects if, every time the Cabinet post fell vacant, a Treasury official was to fill the vacancy. I heard Ranasinha’s voice in Cabinet, a rare occurrence. He said that since 1947 I had been doing all the work of the Cabinet Office without being paid for it, whereas T. D. Perera and he had been doing very little and been drawing the emoluments of the office.

He said that he did not agree with T. D. Perera that there should be a connection between the Cabinet and the Treasury (Lord! What a grand fellow, I thought). Sir John was a man of quick decision. He ordered that L. J. be appointed to the Treasury post and that the Cabinet post should not be filled until he returned from a 10 day visit to Jaffna which he was making the next day. This gave me plenty of time to think and, with my inability to bend my knee, I decided to put my case down in writing. I made the following minute to the Prime Minister:

“I respectfully ask that my name be considered for the post of Secretary to the Cabinet which is now vacant. Next March, I shall be 47 years of age. I am an advocate of 23 years standing with 18 years of public service. In the public service, I am junior by one year to Justice H. N. G. Fernando and senior by four months to Mr T. S. Fernando, Q.C., Solicitor-General.

The late Prime Minister selected me in 1946, out of all the draftsmen, to draft the Constitution and Elections Orders in Council. I am unaware of the reasons for his choice. When the Orders in Council became law, the late Prime Minister ordered me, on the telephone, to take charge of the Cabinet Office. Since then, that is October 1947, there have been 385 cabinet meetings, and I have attended and done the work of all these meetings except one which I missed because I had to attend court on summons.

I have done this work throughout unaided and on my own responsibility, because Mr T. D. Perera and Sir Arthur Ranasinha gave me a completely free hand. Neither of them has had occasion to find fault with my work. In fact, during these seven years, not more than 15 or 20 papers have been referred by me to the Secretary for orders. It will be seen therefore that during the last six or seven years, I have been de facto Secretary without the emoluments of office. I have acted as Secretary to the Cabinet on three occasions.

I am not aware of any other Dominion where the Cabinet Secretary holds office in another Ministry. In the early days, the late Prime Minister asked me to ascertain whether there was a Treasury connection in the United Kingdom. The following is the telegram I received from Sir Norman Brook, Secretary to the United Kingdom Cabinet:

“Chancellor of the Exchequer as Minister responsible for Treasury is member of Cabinet and puts forward Treasury considerations stop very exceptional for treasury officials to be present stop.”

Sir Norman told me that in the United Kingdom, they made it a principle that the Cabinet Secretary should be independent of all Ministers because no Minister should feel that any other had any special pull in the Cabinet by reason of the fact that one of his officers was also Cabinet Secretary. You are aware that in previous cabinets, Ministers have said that they found it embarrassing to express themselves freely while a Treasury official was present as Cabinet Secretary, as it was the same officer who had overruled their proposals in the Treasury. Cabinet practice requires that when an officer is wanted on any matter, he should be summoned to be in attendance on that matter only.

May I therefore ask that the position be now regularized with my appointment. I have no other avenue of promotion and have been stagnating on my maximum salary since 1952.

At Sir John’s first Cabinet meeting after his Jaffna tour, he told the Ministers that there was an urgent item which was not on the Agenda, namely, that the Cabinet was without a Secretary and that an appointment had to be made. He asked me to leave the room for a few minutes. He had read to the Cabinet my minute reproduced above. I was recalled in about ten minutes and informed that it was the unanimous wish of the Ministers that I should be the Secretary and I was appointed on October 14,1954. On my appointment as Secretary, my ex-officio appointment as a Justice of the Peace for the Judicial District of Colombo while holding the office of Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet lapsed and a fresh appointment was made.

The Press now complimented me:

The appointment of a fairly senior lawyer, who gathered his experience in the drafting department, as Secretary to the Cabinet, is a step in the right direction, for such a post should be held by one with some legal experience.”

Another newspaper commented:

The separation of the posts of Secretary to the Cabinet and Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Finance had to come some time, and the appointment of Sir Arthur Ranasinha as the Governor of the Central Bank, has evidently provided the opportunity to make the change. The position now conforms to that in Britain, where the Secretary to the Cabinet is also head of a department—the Cabinet Secretariat or the Cabinet Office as it is known.

It is this office that is responsible for the coordination of policy at the highest level, besides keeping records of the Committees of the Cabinet and the Cabinet itself, and for providing information and advice to Ministers and for issuing directions and promulgating decisions of the Cabinet or the Prime Minister to the Departments concerned.

Our Cabinet Office has yet to acquire a similar character. This it will no doubt develop henceforward, now that it is in full charge of the officer who has been in immediate control of it since the new constitution came into operation. Mr B. P Peiris, the new Secretary to the Cabinet, has also the advantage of having been associated with the drafting of the Constitution, which in fact was the reason for his being appointed Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet on its first formation. He is thus in the best position to organize the Cabinet Office as a clearing house for the Ministers.

I was privileged, on my appointment, to receive the following letter from the Chief Justice, the Hon. Hema Basnayake. I take the liberty of reproducing it in full:

“My dear Peiris,

“I am glad to hear that you have been appointed Secretary to the Cabinet. Let me congratulate you. Your office is one of great trust and responsibility. You have to keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut. I have no doubt that you will maintain the high traditions of your office and in due time become our Hankey.

“I think your office demands very hard work from you. Although you are not as a rule required to contribute to the discussions of the Cabinet, you should know all the Cabinet papers sufficiently well, so that, if members turn to you for guidance or help, you will be able to make some contribution to the solution of the problems before them. You should therefore keep in touch with the law, and I do not think you should give up your compilation of the Law Weekly Digest. You should not only know the judge-made law but you should also be conversant with the statute law.

“As you are the first holder of this office since its separation from the office of Secretary to the Treasury, the responsibility for creating the traditions of your office fall on you. You should set a very high standard to be emulated by your successors. I know that you are conscious of your responsibilities and I am confident that you will discharge those responsibilities with acceptance.”

I was fortunate to have the assistance and cooperation of a clerical staff consisting of honest, efficient and hard-working men who had been appointed by personal selection for their integrity and their loyalty to any Government for the time being, irrespective of its political colour, men who, as public servants took no part in politics except to register their votes at an election, men who were at the hub of Government, men who came to know all the secrets and who had no contact with the Press. Nothing leaked out from my office; and the newspapers called me the oyster in the public service.

I was unknown, unseen at public and diplomatic parties and unphotographed. I have been told by several Ministers that I have been a very efficient secretary. If that is so, a very large share of that tribute must go to my staff. I could not run the office unaided. When there was work to be done, they gladly did it, sometimes working till three in the morning. When there was no work, I did not bother if they disregarded the Government rule which demanded their punctual attendance in office at 9 a.m. They understood me and I understood my men. I should like to place on record my deep appreciation of the unfailing help I received at all times from every member of my staff.

Now, after many years in retirement, I ponder ‘Why was I liked, almost loved, by my men? Why was I respected? Why was I obeyed and my orders carried out loyally? Why were my punishments accepted without question?’ I could not answer these questions myself. But I put them to some of my men who still call on me sometimes in my retirement. They have all had but one answer: “Sir, your were human.”

The relationship between me and my staff was cordial. They were my friends and I always treated them as such.But Government requires a Head, in certain circumstances, to act according to prescribed regulations, and on such occasions, I have acted firmly with a sense of justice and fair play. I was never vindictive in any punishment I was compelled to impose and my officers knew and appreciated this.

I cannot close this Chapter without a reference to my friends, loyal servants of the Government, who are insultingly called “minor employees”. There was a great gentleman at their head, Arachchi Dissanayake. He was a rare type of gentleman, brought up in the ways of the bad old Colonial days. He was all courtesy. I have not come across another man like him. He was a podian in the Secretariat when my father was a clerk. When my father came to the Cabinet Office to see me, the Arachchi bowed low and greeted him, and my father remembered old times.

Mr Dissanayake retired from the public service after 43 years of loyal and honourable work. He had served a long line of distinguished Civil Servants including Sir Murchison Fletcher, Sir Bernard Bourdillon, Sir Graeme Tyrell, W. E. Wait, Sir Maxwell Wedderbum, W. L. Murphy, G. S. Wodeman, Sir Robert Drayton, Sir Charles Collins, T. D. Perera and Sir Arthur Ranasinha. Prime Minister Dahanayake made the following minute in his personal file:

Mr M. D. J. Perera Dissanayake, Arachchi in the Cabinet office, has had a most remarkable career. He had earned the trust and confidence of several superiors, who bear distinguished names, and his entire record is one of which anybody can be truly proud. His diligence, devotion to duty, loyalty and his general outlook towards work and responsibility is such as may be retold to all subordinate officers of the present and future as an example to be followed by one and all. I have great pleasure in recording my own high appreciation of his unique work.

When Mr Dissanayake retired, Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s Cabinet honoured him by posing for a photograph at Temple Trees, all standing. This was the first time that the Cabinet had posed for a photograph as a farewell to a public officer. The Ministers presented that Arachchi with a purse of one thousand rupees, a spontaneous gesture.