“The usual 10%” on a government purchase

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

The Governor-General was requested to ascertain, if possible, which way the Chief Justice’s mind was working and the Chief, apparently, gave no indication at all. To avoid a stalemate, the Government was compelled to eat humble pie and restore to the Chief Justice the Judicial Power they had wrested from him. They came b efore Parliament again with the necessary amending Bill which passed into law as the Criminal Law Act, No 31 of 1962. Except for divesting the Minister of Justice of his purported judicial power, the later Act did not touch the obnoxious provisions of the earlier Act

The Chief Justice, in the exercise of the power lawfully vested in him, constituted a Bench consisting of Sansoni, H. N. G. Fernando and L. B. de Silva, JJ to sit at Bar. In April 1965, after a very lengthy trial, the court convicted the accused, and in convicting the accused, said ‘But we must draw attention to the fact that the Act of 1962 radically altered ex post facto the punishments to which the defendants are rendered liable. The Act removed the discretion of the court as to the period of the sentence to be imposed and compels the court to impose a term of ten years’ imprisonment, although we would have wished to differentiate in the matter of sentence between those who organized the conspiracy and those who were induced to join it.

‘It also imposes a compulsory forfeiture of property. These amendments were not merely retroactive: they were also ad hoc, applicable only to the conspiracy which was the subject of the charges we have tried. We are unable to understand this discrimination. To the courts, which must be free of political bias, treasonable offences are equally heinous, whatever be the complexion of the Government in power or whoever be the offender.’

The right of appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal having been taken away, the only remedy left to the accused was to appeal to Her Majesty in Council. In this appeal, Gratiaen, Q. C., H. W. Jayewardene, Q. C., and Dick Taverne appeared for the accused appellants. Tennekoon, Q. C., our Solicitor-General appeared for the Crown. The tomes of evidence were not read before the Board. Instead, a preliminary question of law was submitted by Gratiaen and upheld by the Privy Council. The appeals were allowed and the convictions quashed.

In holding the Acts, Nos 1 of 1962 and 31 of 1962 to be void as constituting an interference with the judicial power, their Lordships of the Privy Council said: ‘They (that is, the Acts) were aimed at particular known individuals who had been named in a White Paper and were in prison awaiting their fate… That the alterations in the law were not intended for the generality of the citizens or designed as any improvement in the general law is shown by the fact that the effect of those alterations was to be limited to participants in the January coup, and that after these had been dealt with by the judges, the law should revert to its normal state.’

And so, ended on an extremely happy note an extremely unhappy episode.

Our Ambassadorial post in Washington had been vacant for a long time and the Prime Minister informed her Ministers that the American Ambassador, Miss Willis, had suggested that an early appointment be made. The Prime Minister was again outspoken. She said it was time that they stopped appointing to top posts men of no ability merely because they were party men, that it was time they stopped the practice of appointing SLFP ‘nincompoops’ (her actual words) and that in this case a man of proved ability who could carry himself with dignity and bring honour to his country should be appointed. There was a dearth of such men in the country, she said, and she proposed the name of Shirley Amarasinghe, then Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Finance. The Cabinet unanimously agreed and the unanimous wish of the Cabinet was conveyed to Shirley on the telephone by the Finance Minister, Felix Dias. Shirley begged to be excused.

In July 1962, yet another Queen’s Speech had to be drafted. C. P. de Silva congratulated me on my draft and suggested that I should be given a knighthood and addressed as ‘Sir Bernard’. I replied that

if that misfortune ever befell me, I would be the most impecunious knight in the Island. My draft was mutilated in Cabinet and a fresh one had to be prepared according to the oral instructions of the Ministers. Each time the Ministers saw their draft, they changed their minds, with the result that the Speech was not finally approved until the Ministers had seen my fourth attempt. The Speech was read to Parliament on July 11,1962. It stated that a vigorous policy would be followed in the implementation of the Official Language Act. This line was added by Felix Dias. In view of previous experiences, I thought it would be wiser not to refer to this thorny problem. India was following a far more sensible course.

Rajagopalachari had said that if the all-India medium is given up in the universities and the various regional languages take its place, boys and girls will stand isolated into fifteen islands instead of being common citizens of all India. Calling upon the boys and girls in the universities not to fall into the trap laid for them, he said: You will not find easy scope for employment, which is the only way by which young men and women can serve their country.

Your present mobility will become a thing of the past and you will have to suffer the life of caste and other group preferences, within a narrow boundary. You may find it easier to pass examinations and tests with a regional medium but what will be the benefit that cheap degrees and diplomas will confer on you? It would be like becoming rich with debased money. Hindi cannot take the place of English as an all-India medium and even if it did, we would have surrendered all advantages to those whose mother tongue is Hindi.

The Speech also contained a line which stated that Parliament would be asked to consider a Bill for the removal of Press monopolies. The Government appeared to be determined to take over the Times of Ceylon and the Lake House newspapers. Resolutions were being passed by bodies all over the country against the proposed Press Bill.

One hundred and fifty editors from thirty-three countries urged the withdrawal of Ceylon’s lamentable Press Bill at a meeting in Paris. In due course, the Bill was introduced in Parliament, but had to be taken out of the Order Paper because the Minister introducing it did not follow the correct procedure. Sirimavo’s Government went out of office before further steps could be taken.

The “Daily News” critic severely criticized the Sinhala translation of the Speech. It was in fact a translation, because the Cabinet approved the English version. This was then translated into Sinhala by an officer of the Cabinet Office and into Tamil by Mudaliyar Sabanayagam, then of the Department of Information.

The critic said: ‘The people have a right to expect the Throne Speech to be flawless both in wording and phrasing. Like the Queen’s English it must possess an impeccability of diction. Yet, the melancholy fact has to be recorded that the Throne Speech read out by the Governor-General was anything but that. It was a clumsy piece of workmanship. That clumsiness arose from the fact that it was a mere translation, and as such it was an object lesson in the danger of allowing a task demanding the utmost care and precision of execution to be entrusted to the wrong hands.’

At about this time Sir Oliver, who was then in London, inquired from my brother G. S., who was our Ambassador in Burma, whether my brother would be kind enough to have him as a guest in the Embassy during a visit which he intended to make shortly to that country. My brother was very happy to receive a former Governor-General but, in the context of the past, had the sense to ask the Prime Minister for orders. Sir Oliver had obtained the necessary visas through our High Commissioner in the United Kingdom and the Burmese Ambassador there. The Burmese Government had been worried because they were unaware of the purpose of the visit. My brother was instructed to inform Sir Oliver, with much regret, of his inability to receive him.

Why is it that, with our representatives abroad today in so many foreign capitals, our Ministers fly across whenever a trade or other agreement has to be signed? It surely cannot be that our Ambassador is not competent to handle the matter. What exactly is he there for? And apropos of that, here is a story. My brother was the most senior official in one of our foreign missions at a time when Ceylon was desperately short of rice. After much correspondence between our Mission and the Ministry of External Affairs, a contract had been entered into between the Government of Ceylon and a private corporation in the foreign country for the supply of a specified quantity of rice at a certain price.

My brother had to sign the contract on behalf of the Government as our Ambassador was out of the Capital at the time. On the day of signing, the officer representing the corporation had met my brother and told him that the sum agreed to by the Government included the usual ten percent. My brother had inquired what that was and was told “Oh that’s for you. The usual business commission. You can take it or leave it”. And he left it. The contract was amended and signed for the reduced amount. The commissions or “cut” came to over two lakhs of rupees. He had a snorter from the Ambassador who had told him that he had no business to interfere with figures settled with our Ministry.

In July 1962, Felix announced his Third budget. He relieved taxpayers of a burden of filling several tax forms connected with the personal tax, the wealth tax, the expenditure tax, the capital gains tax and the land tax. This was a very popular move. The filling up of these forms had been a source of annoyance to many persons. A deficit of Rs 512 million had to be met. To cover this, he increased the rate of income tax and reduced the personal allowances previously allowed for wife and children. He reduced the rice ration by half a measure which was a very unpopular move, though a very necessary one. Fears were expressed that the move might affect the future of the party.

Customs duties were increased. Taxation had reached its maximum limit. There was still a gap of Rs 200 million to be filled. To find a little extra revenue, Felix Dias proposed to impose a sales tax on several articles like tea, coffee, Ovaltine, powdered milk and exercise books. The imposition of such a tax would have sent the very high cost of living still higher and the proposal was rejected. A sales tax on several other articles was therefore imposed. The sales tax was fairly high – 7.5% and naturally, the retailers had to increase their prices to the consumer, which they did.

The tax did not work out in the manner expected by the Government. Having raised the price to cover the extra amount paid to the wholesaler, the retailer and every boutique keeper added a further 7.5% to the consumer who therefore was compelled to pay 15% extra on the previous price. The businessmen were against the Government and consumers who protested were told “You put this Government in; go and tell your Government”.

The Government was extremely agitated, over the reaction of the “rural masses who are with us” to the excessive prices charged by the traders who put the blame on the Government. The Cabinet met on two successive days and, at the insistence of four of the Ministers, Felix was compelled to withdraw the tax within two days of its imposition, a most unusual step after he had announced it in his budget speech as one of his major taxation proposals. Opposition members said that such an important step should not have been taken without mature thought and called for his resignation; but Felix Dias, like Old Man River, went on.