W.A. de Silva (1869-1942): politician, scholar, agriculturist, Buddhist leader and philanthropist

(Excerpted from Selected Journalism by HAJ Hulugalle)

To the present generation the late Mr. W A de Silva is a somewhat elusive figure in the national pantheon. Yet in his day he filled a significant role as a politician, scholar, agriculturist, trusted Buddhist leader and inveterate, almost reckless philanthropist. He died 21 years before this was written, before many of the voters of today were born, and his name is rarely mentioned even in what used to be his spacious home which is now a dormitory for parliamentarians.

It is not the fashion to praise famous men of the past, unless – by doing so we can improve our own positions or derive a political dividend. We leave it to the families of the departed to find the money for the statue or the oil painting, and to supply the annual garland to perpetuate the memory of the man or woman who has rendered signal service to the state.

Even when the golden crown of Rajasinghe II was being sliced like a fruit cake, and melted in pieces in Slave Island by cat burglars who had taken it out of the Kandy museum, there was scarcely a sigh.

Mr. W.A de Silva’s memory has recently had to compete with that of the popular novelist of similar name after whom Wellawatte High Street has been restyled. Future generations should be warned that the considerable body of exact scholarship in the leading journals contributed by W. A. de Silva, politician and man of affairs, should not be carelessly credited in the cultural ledger to the account of W.A. de Silva, the writer of romance and essays in Sinhalese which are currently in vogue.

Mr. W.A. de Silva may have been tempted to change his name for the benefit of posterity. But he was hardly the man to change his name, or his coat, usually of the finest quality of China silk, to gain the approval of posterity or the plaudits of the proletariat. His wide reading and travels made him a citizen of the world though he never ceased to be a Buddhist nationalist.

He came from the South, as many famous sons of Ceylon have done, and he was educated at Christian schools like most of our Buddhist leaders of the past. It was only at the tail end of his school career that he went to Royal College for a brief period. He thereafter joined the Bombay Veterinary College where on passing out he was offered a post in India under the distinguished bacteriologist, Dr. Alfred Lingard.

He returned to Ceylon, but the Government service could not confine him. Indeed, it soon became obvious that he was meant for other things than veterinary science, important as this branch of learning must be for the development of a country. He was in a position to please himself, for he had married a daughter of Mudaliyar Sri Chandrasekera, one of the leading businessmen of the day.

In any case W. A. de Silva was not the man to hide his talent wrapped in a napkin. He was one of the pioneer rubber planters in the heyday of the industry and as a scientific agriculturist of the same class as Sir Marcus Fernando, Sir Henry de Mel and Mr. C.E.A Dias. He planted nearly a thousand acres at Srinivasa estate, Waga, which is now the fully bud-grafted property of Mr. G.G. Ponnambalam, Q. C.

When Mr. de Silva entered on a political career he was already a rich man, broadcasting his bounty.

When I first knew him he was nearing 50 years of age. He was joint Secretary with Mr. D. R. Wijewardene, of the Ceylon Reform League, formed on May 17, 1917, six weeks after Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam, recently retired from the Civil Service, delivered his famous address on “The Political Needs of Ceylon”. The two secretaries were men of leisure and integrity, unaffected by the winds of rhetoric amply provided by some of their colleagues, and prepared to work unobtrusively.

The meetings of the Reform League was held either at “Rippleworth”, the residence of James Peiris, or “Ponklaar”, the residence of Sir Ponnambalam. I was taken to a couple of these meetings by Mr. D.R. Wijewardene who was then my boss, to keep a note of the proceedings for the official minutes and also prepare a press release.

The men I saw there – Arunachalam, James Peiris, D.B. Jayatilaka, W.A. de Silva, F.R. Senanayake, E.J. Samarawickrama, Francis de Zoysa, E.W. Perera and Dr. C.A. Hewavitarana – were not in their first youth. None of them were alive when Ceylon gained her political independence -“sic nos non vobis mellificatis apes.” (So we the bees make honey, but not for ourselves)

Jayatilaka, W.A. de Silva, Hewavitarana and the Senanayakes had been imprisoned during the 1915 riots without a tittle of evidence to connect them with the disturbances. The iron did not enter their souls, and they redoubled their efforts to make Ceylon a happier country for those who came after them.

As a school boy I often cycled through Flower Road and was fascinated with “Sravasti” just completed, and on the other side of the road, “Srimethipaya” the residence of Mr. A.E. de Silva, the father of Sir Ernest. Alas, they are no longer the stately and well-kept homes of the elite. They seem to say, in Omar Khayam’s words, “the lions and the lizards keep the courts where Jamshid gloried”.

Mr. and Mrs. W. A. de Silva were the great political hosts of the day. “Sravasti” was a salon as Londonderry House used to be under Tory governments in England. A report of the meeting of the Ceylon National Congress held in October 1920 says: “At the adjournment of Congress, the gathering -delegates, visitors and ladies-present, accepted the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. de Silva to a garden party at their spacious residence “Sravasti”, Edinburgh Crescent, where the host and hostess, assisted by many friends and relations, dispensed hospitality and provided the several hundreds of people so favoured with a most pleasant ending to a memorable day”.

“Sravasti” also welcomed distinguished visitors to Ceylon, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Jawarhalal Nehru, Srinivasa Sastri, B.G. Thilak, Bepin Chandra Pal and Sir Jagadas Chandra Bose from India and Ramsay MacDonald and Josiah Wedgewood, British parliamentarians. At “Sravasti”, Mr de Silva had the best private library in the. island. It was modelled on Sir Walter Scott’s library in Edinburgh and had a unique collection of books on Ceylon including some 1,200 ola manuscripts which he presented to the Colombo Museum.

He did not merely collect books. He read them and enjoyed them, and gave many excellent lectures which are preserved in the Journals of the Royal Asiatic Society and other publications. Like his life-long friend, D.B. Jayatilaka, he was able to find refreshment in these studies while engaged in the hurly-burly of politics. He was twice President of the Ceylon National Congress and his addresses were models of sober thinking, moderate speech and grasp of the practical problems of a changing society. They show remarkable foresight and anticipate many of the issues which engage the politicians of today.

The varied interests of Mr. and Mrs. de Silva took them to many countries and it was always a delight to talk to them about their travels. Sometimes travel was mixed with business. In 1919 Mr. de Silva was a member of the deputation which met Lord Milner, then the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs. It was led by Mr. H.J.C. Pereira, the brilliant advocate, and included D.B. Jayatilaka, W.A. de Silva, Father Nicholas Perera O. M. I., Dr. V. Gabriel and Professor D.M. de Z. Wickremasinghe of Oxford.

D.B. Jayatilaka, writing about it to Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam said: “The interview with Lord Milner on the 15th instant (October 1919) was a success. He was very courteous and affable and gave us it patient hearing. Mr. H.J.C. Pereira was splendid. He put the case for Reform its strongly as the most enthusiastic of us could desire. Mr. W.A. de Silva will remain in England till the end of March. I shall place him in touch with everything before I leave. I have not the slightest doubt that he will do the needful to the satisfaction of all”.

Mr. de Silva entered the Legislative Council in 1924 as a Member for the Central Province and continued there until the Legislative Council was replaced by the State Council in 1931. He then became the Member for Moratuwa and held the seat up to his death on March 31, 1942. He was Minister of Health during the six years from 1936 to 1942.

Towards the beginning of his career as Minister, Ceylon was visited by a virulent malaria epidemic. Malaria was a subject on which Mr. de Silva had much experience for he was the pioneer and probably the most successful large-scale entrepreneur in the malaria-ridden dry zone. After the first world war there was an acute shortage of rice in the island and the Government decided to give large tracts of land for paddy cultivation to joint stock companies, syndicates and individual capitalists.

The Ceylon Mills Ltd, took a lease of 5,000 acres of jungle land. European planting interests, forming themselves into a public company under the name of the Minneriya Development Company, took a lease of 9,000 acres. The Low Country Products Association leased 2,600 acres under the Kirindi Oya. All these projects folded up within a few years, defeated by malaria and lack of labour.

Mr. W. A. de Silva in 1920 took a 99-year lease of 1,169 acres under the Nachaduwa Irrigation Scheme. This land named Sravasti estate, was fed from the Nachaduwa tank which the Government had restored in 1914. In the same year the Government had settled a hundred families in a block of 500 acres which formed the nucleus of the Nachaduwa Colonisation Scheme. However the Government had to abandon their colony as the people could not stand up to the repeated attacks of malaria which sapped their stamina and left them physically debilitated.

Mr. W. A. de Silva persevered. He opened up 750 acres in paddy and on the high land he grew coconuts and dry zone vegetables. These were no tractors and earth-moving equipment then. The entire land was cleared, irrigation and distribution channels constructed and a network of roads laid down entirely by manual labour. A resident apothecary, well provided with drugs looked after the health of the workers. Labour was recruited through advertisements in the newspapers. The Ratmale railway station was established on the estate.

The financial strain of these efforts impoverished the patriotic benefactor but their results are seen today in smiling fields and trim cottages. His work in many fields has borne rich fruit, as in the hundreds of Buddhist schools throughout the island, but his pioneer work in the dry zone was perhaps his most notable contribution.

One is reminded again of what the late Pope is alleged to have said about his peasant father. ‘There are three ways of losing money: wine, women and agriculture. My father chose the dullest way of the three”. Agriculture had made Mr. de Silva rich and agriculture ruined him financially when he turned from self-interest to the public interest. But it did not make him unhappy.

Owing to the diversity of his interests it is not possible to rubber stamp Mr. W. A. de Silva and say he was essentially this or that. All the causes he served were worthy ones, and he succeeded in most of them to an outstanding degree. But above all he was a man with a humble and contrite heart and it was a rare experience to converse with him in his declining years as he sat in the armchair at the foot of the grand staircase at “Sravasti”. He had faith, hope and charity – above all, charity.