The Newest Dominion
On Tuesday the Duke of Gloucester read the King's Speech at the opening of the first Parliament of the Dominion of Ceylon. Thus finally Ceylon shed the last trace of its colonial status, and the atmo- sphere of dignity and goodwill with which the change has been accomplished is a tribute to both the people of the island and the British Government.. It has been Ceylon's misfortune in the past to be always overshadowed by India ; to be unjustly regarded as part of a neighbour from which she differs at least as profoundly as Eire differs from Britain. But now that Ceylon is equal in rank with the Dominions of India and Pakistan we may be able to give the separate attention which it deserves to this intensely individual island. The fact that our attention will in future be guided by the loose but friendly ties of the Commonwealth should make relations between the two countries more, and not less, close than they used to be. Ceylon has many problems of her own which will not be solved by the bare fact of independence. She will have to grapple with all the social and economic difficulties endemic in oriental countries—poverty, housing, sickness and so on. These are not made any easier by the religious and political divisions which break up the country, or by the high prices which the war has left as a legacy here as elsewhere. At the moment it is fortunate that the main division in Parliament is along political and not religious lines —the Government includes Tatnils and Moslems as well as Sinhalese, and the opposition consists for the main part of small groups, doubtfully united by their various interpretations of the doctrines of Karl Marx. But there is bound to be sooner or later a reaction from the first enthusiasm of independence, and it will requite all the statesmanship of .Ceylon's new rulers to keep their country as united as it is today.
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