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Sri Lanka The Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms
In 1829 the British Colonial Office sent a Royal Commission
of Eastern Inquiry--the Colebrooke-Cameron Commission--to assess
the administration of the island. The legal and economic
proposals made by the commission in 1833 were innovative and
radical. The proposed reforms opposed mercantilism, state
monopolies, discriminatory administrative regulations, and, in
general, any interference in the economy. Many of the proposals
were adopted and helped set a pattern of administrative,
economic, judicial, and educational development that continued
into the next century.
The commission worked to end the protested administrative
division of the country along ethnic and cultural lines into lowcountry Sinhalese, Kandyan Sinhalese, and Tamil areas. The
commission proposed instead that the country be put under one
uniform administrative system, which was to be divided into five
provinces. Colebrooke believed that in the past, separate
administrative systems had encouraged social and cultural
divisions, and that the first step toward the creation of a
modern nation was the administrative unification of the country.
Cameron applied the same principle to the judicial system, which
he proposed be unified into one system and be extended to all
classes of people, offering everyone equal rights in the eyes of
the law. His recommendations were adopted and enforced under the
Charter of Justice in 1833.
The commissioners also favored the decentralization of
executive power in the government. They stripped away many of the
autocratic powers vested in the governor, replacing his advisory
council with an Executive Council, which included both official
and unofficial nominees. The Executive Council appointed the
members of the Legislative Council, which functioned as a forum
for discussion of legislative matters. The Legislative Council
placed special emphasis on Sri Lankan membership, and in 1833
three of the fifteen members were Sri Lankans. The governor
nominated them to represent low-country Sinhalese, Burghers, and
Tamils, respectively. The commissioners also voted to change the
exclusively British character of the administrative services and
recommended that the civil service include local citizens. These
proposed constitutional reforms were revolutionary--far more
liberal than the legal systems of any other European colony.
The opening of the Ceylon Civil Service to Sri Lankans
required that a new emphasis be placed on English education. In
time, the opening contributed to the creation of a Westernized
elite, whose members would spearhead the drive for independence
in the twentieth century. The Colebrooke-Cameron Commission
emphasized the standardization of educational curriculum and
advocated the substitution of English for local languages. Local
English schools were established, and the missionary schools that
had previously taught in the vernacular also adopted English.
Data as of October 1988
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