Ceylon's Government, Old and New1

The government of Ceylon presents several points of interest to the student of political institutions. The island is the most important of the British crown colonies, and has been governed in recent years under a dual system, with an appointed executive and a legislative council, a majority of which is elected. A new constitution, which will go into effect during the present year, provides for a novel system with a very large measure of responsible government, on the basis of universal suffrage, for a population overwhelmingly Asiatic, but of several stocks, and with a small European element. This experiment should throw light on the larger problem of the government of India.Some data—geographical, historical, economic, and social—seem essential to an understanding of the political situation. Ceylon is an island of 25,000 square miles (about half the size of the state of Illinois), lying south of India and just north of the equator. The largest element in the population is the Sinhalese, descendants of an Aryan race that came from North India about the sixth century B.C., became Buddhists in the third century B.C., and retain that religion. Later came other peoples (Tamils) from South India, Hindu in religion, who occupied the northern part of the island. In the sixteenth century, the Portugese gained control of the coasts; and in the seventeenth, the Dutch conquered the Portugese districts. In 1796, during the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch sections were conquered by the British; and after a brief period under Madras they became a separate colony in 1802. After a war with the Sinhalese in the interior hill country, the whole island came under British control.