22nd February 1998

It was difficult and dangerous

By D.R. Wijewardene

In the heyday of constitutional achievement it is right and fitting that the leaders in the struggle for self-government should be remembered and acclaimed. The whole country acknowledges the inestimable services rendered to the national cause by patriots from the days of George Wall and Charles Ambrose Lorenz to the vintage years of Ponnambalam Arunachalam, James Peiris, E.J. Samerawickrame, F.R. Senanayake, D.B. Jayatilaka, J.W. de Silva and E.W. Perera, and at the present day Mr. D. S. Senanayake who has won the admiration of the people for the unflagging labours that have resulted in the granting of Dominion Status. The names of these men and the loyal associates who stood shoulder to shoulder with them will never be forgotten in any chronicle of the history of our times.

But there is another powerful force without which the work of these men would have been handicapped to an almost baffling extent. The Press does not, with a proper sense of self-discipline, blow its trumpet from the rooftops. Yet I think this is an occasion when the country should give due recognition to the part played by the national newspapers in the difficult and sometimes dangerous campaign for political reform.

No organised public opinion

The days are very far away now when George Wall and the Fergusons in their newspapers strove to safeguard the public interests to the best of their abilities and resources. There was, however, no organised public opinion in their time and the issues on which they threw down the gauntlet to the primitive all-powerful Crown Colony Government then in existence were necessarily narrow. On those issues they acquitted themselves with dignity and some success. But in those days the national consciousness was dormant and there was nothing in the spirit of the times to stir it to life and activity.

Reform League

That was to come later when, largely as a result of Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam's work, the fire of the national soul was quickened. When he delivered himself of that epoch-making address on "Our Political Needs" at the Masonic Hall, that leader of imperishable memory set in motion influences that were to change the history of his beloved country. The immediate outcome of that meeting was the formation of the Reform League. The National Association was anterior to the League and they held a joint national conference which gave birth to the National Congress.

It was then that the national movement which has brought Ceylon to the threshold of independence received its first stimulus; public opinion began to speak for the first time with a firm tone; and the early national newspapers like the "Dinamina" and "The Ceylonese" were established.

The other newspapers already in publication at the time were the old "Ceylon Observer" the "Morning Leader", the ' Times of Ceylon" and the "Independent". The "Observer "after the departure of John Ferguson declined and lost contact with public opinion till, like the "Times of Ceylon", it became the paper of the European merchants and the European planters.

The "Morning Leader," notwithstanding the able Editor who presided over it, tended to parochialise its politics. Mr. Armand de Souza preferred easy personal celebrity to the neglect of the big issues and he had many masters with private axes of their own to grind. These limitations were too pressing for him to overcome.

Not until "The Ceylonese" entered the newspaper field did Ceylon have a really national organ with a vigorous nationalist policy. It was well edited under the direction of Sir P. Ramanathan and Mr. Hector Jayewar-dene, that brilliant advocate, and at a later stage Mr. Francis de Zoysa, a man of sound and steadfast principles. Its forthright and fearless exposition of the country's political deficiencies rallied and stimulated public opinion. Unfortunately its business side was badly mismanaged and somewhere towards the end of 1917 "The Ceylonese" failed.

When I purchased the plant and goodwill of "The Ceylonese" in December of that year I hardly realised the magnitude of the task I was undertaking, of organising not merely a national newspaper but a campaign for the political emancipation of the country that was to continue unabated till victory was won and the building work could be commenced. "To organise," as a great man said, "is to set men free." In the first issue of the 'Daily News" on January 3, 1918, Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam wrote in a 'Special' Message:

New era

"The Daily News is fortunate in the time of its birth. New forces are at work among us, a new era is dawning for the country. She needs the devoted service of all her children and will, I am confident, find none more zealous than the new paper." Prophetic words indeed. In the thirty years since they were written Ceylon has progressed in almost every direction — socially, politically in the growth of a new realisation by the people of their own deficiencies, their powers, their birthright and the glory of their national heritage. This progress has been rendered possible largely on account of the increasing ability of men and women to discern and estimate with sound judgement both person and policies in the public life of the country.

The people can judge for themselves to what extent this new outlook has been moulded by the principles expounded unwaveringly by the "Daily News", by the "Dinamina" and "Silumina", and by (since it became an allied publication) the "Ceylon Observer."

From the very beginning of its career the "Daily News" fought for self-government for the people of Ceylon, not as a gift or boon but as an inalienable right.

It was not going to be satisfied with piecemeal concessions. It condemned the parsimoniousness of the Manning Reforms and criticised the shortcomings of the 1924 Constitution as an insult to the growing political intelligence of the people.

Without fear or favour

When the Donoughmore Scheme became an established fact the "Daily News" once again led the agitation for the removal of its inherent defects - notable among these the Committee System which rendered nugatory even the few liberal features of that Constitution as an instrument of responsible government. With persistent endeavour and tireless insistence the "Daily News" pressed the demand for a system of government on the Parliamentary model with Cabinet responsibility. While keeping a sharp eye on the administration in the island and denouncing wrong and injustice without fear or favour, the "Daily News" never lost sight of the cardinal issue, the right of the people of Ceylon to govern their own affairs.

It was inevitable that in pursuing such a policy the paper should make enemies. When the "Dally News" castigated the bureaucratic government of twenty years ago, it retaliated with pinpricks like the withdrawal of advertising. That mattered little to a paper run for considerations of principle and not of pecuniary profit though no paper can long be run at a loss. Yet the pettiness and spite of the Government's action provoked questions in the House of Commons and they had to come to the "Daily News" again for advertising space.

When the "Daily News" in 1922 published, to the consternation of those who concocted it, the infamous Secret Minorities Memorial to Downing Street it was not loved by the conspirators it exposed.

But the "Daily News" never cadged for official patronage or capered for the plaudits of partisan cliques. It was not there to further the political ambitions of its proprietors — they had none. Its mission, its lodestar, was the political emancipation of the people of Ceylon so that they could meet and move among the peoples of the Commonwealth, among the nations of the world at large, as free and equal men.

Can anyone grudge the pride the "Daily News" takes today in its record of service to the country, service that has contributed so much to the Independence Ceylon has now attained?

And when freedom came

The few days be fore the 4th of February 1948 were agonising ones at home. My father was far from recovered from the stroke he had suffered earlier. He was however determined to attend the Ceremony for the granting of Independence to be held in the precincts of our present Independence Square.

My father's friend and physician Frank Gunesekera was equally determined, though with a heavy heart, that he should not go, as he was simply not well enough to do so. Eventually my father accepted his friend's decision with a surprising equanimity and suddenly, I was to accompany the other family members to witness a historic event.

It was an impressive ceremony, but a little tedious for a 10 year old. Our seats were more towards the rear of the Hall and I spent a good part of the proceedings on my feet to get a better view of what was going on.

There was no mention of my father in the speeches that day (as indeed there was not, fifty years thence). But the commentator for Radio Ceylon on that great occasion was Mr. Bobby Weerakoon, formerly a journalist at Lake House, who paid brief but fulsome praise to his "old Boss who had worked tirelessly behind the scenes" to bring about what was being enacted that day.

When we returned home, my father, clad in his sarong and his face grizzled with a day's beard, was seated in the verandah, close enough to the HMV Radiogram (a curious instrument which combined a radio and a gramophone) over which he must have heard Bobby Weerakoon's brief eulogy and which I suspect would have brought him much pleasure.

Somehow I do not recollect any of us offering to relate our impression of the event, nor do I think, he asked. We were all instinctively silent, sensing that he wished to be alone with his thoughts. In a little over two years time, he was dead, old beyond his 64 years.

Family members of his special Editorial team, even today, and perhaps understandably, feel that he paid scant attention to their need for a family life and that he was unconcionably demanding of the services of those who worked closest with him.

If indeed that were true, he drove himself no less, nor did we see much of him either. He rarely returned home before 8 p.m. and he was up by 6 in the morning reading through all the newspapers, correcting and annotating ceaselessly.

Only those who live under the pressure of a deadline can understand what an uncompromising taskmaster a newspaper is. When it combines with a cause and that within a time frame, the stress must have been daunting. The demands on him and on his own personal life once so exasperated him that he reportedly exclaimed referring to Lake House, which he had so painstakingly built, "I feel like burning the place."

Today a fashionable "riposte' (because it is usually asked as a question) is "What Independence?"

British Rule may well have been comparatively benign from time to time and the Democratic traditions of Westminster did filter through to Britain's colony.

But to those who lived their lives under an all-powerful governor and were in no doubt about being 2nd class citizens in their own land, there was only one answer to the question.

The leaders of Sri Lanka in 1948 had been in the prime of their lives during the martial law period in 1915 and the wounds inflicted during that period ran deep and were not to be forgotten or forgiven easily. To them and to many others of the time, Independence was a real and palpable emotion.

Dr. Andreas Nell, E.W Perera, Sir Mohamed Macan Markar, S. Mahade-va, Sir Oliver Goonetilleke and D.S. Senanayake were frequent visitors at home.

They may have been a part of a westernised elite but they cared passionately about their country and were impatient to nurture its re-awakening.

Time however moves inexorably. These gentlemen were already advanced in years as a new era was ushered in. It was left to the generations that followed to be profligate with the gift bestowed them.

– R.S.W.

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