{"id":113432,"date":"2021-04-11T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T05:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113432"},"modified":"2021-04-13T15:58:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T22:58:57","slug":"the-general-election-of-1956-part-5e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/11\/the-general-election-of-1956-part-5e\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1956 Part 5E"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

REVISED 12.4.21<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1956\nachievements are popularly credited to SWRD.  Ananda Meegama rectified this and showed that\nit was Philip who was behind most of the changes. It is now acknowledged that\nPhilip was responsible for most of the progressive measures instituted in the\nMEP regime, said WTA Leslie Fernando. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip\ncontribution to the 1956 MEP government cannot be overestimated. \u2018Philip\nprovided the necessary backbone to the government. His very presence on the\nfront benches made opponents wary, said Meegama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Till 1956\nthen he was seen as an agitator against capitalism and colonial rule after 1956\nhe     surprised everybody by his\nperformance as Minister of Agriculture and Food, his clarity of thinking his\ndynamism, information and his implementing programme earned him the respect of\nall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meegama says\nthat for initiative, hard work, and successful implementation very few\nMinisters in Sri Lanka could matchup to Philip\u2019s performance. Others were CWW\nKannangara and DS Senanayake in land settlements. These two had about 15 years or\nso to do this, Philip made an impact in just three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meegama says\nPhilip was the most colorful personality thrown up by the revolution of 1956.   Philip was featured in the TIME magazine as\nthe strong man in the Bandaranaike government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip vision was long range. Philip saw\nthe potential of China. Like SWRD, Philip too spoke out in favor of China. Philip, as Ceylon\u2019s Minister of Agriculture, addressed the\nFAO conference in Tokyo in 1958. He spoke of the absence of China at this\nmeeting. He said China should be in UN before the next FAO meeting. Within the\nnext 15 years, China will be the industrial and agricultural giant of the\nworld, declared Philip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip\nand William Silva visited China in 1958. Bandu says that the high regard in\nwhich Philip was held could be seen from the fact that Pm Chou en Lai accepted\na luncheon invitation from Ambassador William Gopallawa despite a busy schedule\nthat day in connection with the national day celebrations said diplomat Bandu\nde Silva.  It was 4 pm when the guests\narrived for lunch. During that visit Philip manage to settle a demurrage claim\nagainst the Chinese Oils and Fat Corporation, which had been there for some\ntime. Bandu says \u2018the Chinese understood Philip contribution and settled the\nclaim immediately.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandu\nde Silva said it was Philip who ensured that the trade agreement with China was\ncontinued, Bandu who was a ringside observer in these negotiations states that\nthere were strong forces in the government which opposed this and it was due to\nPhilip\u2019s effort that the trade agreement was renewed for a second time. The\nconditions now were different to what they had been before, when it came to\nrice and rubber production, but Philip insisted on going through with this. Bandu\nsays the decision was not unfavorable. Bandu handled this agreement and says\nthat China gave better quality rice than what we asked for.  Shipments came regularly without a break and\nthe result silenced critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip wanted a mixed economy with checks and balances. Philip\nthought that joint stock companies of state and private sector could be created\nto utilize the excess capacity in paddy milling, coconut oil and desiccated\ncoconut industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip\nbelieved in developing the public sector and entrusting it with responsibility,\nsaid Garvin.  Philip wanted the CCS and\nthe DROs brought together in on unified administrative service. He\nsaid the DROs were the most experienced and reliable of the rural\nadministration. They should be promoted to the CCS.  It is not the GAs sitting in the Kachcheri\nwho do the rural administration work. If\nclerical servants are given the right of promotion to CCS why not the DROs,\nPhilip asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philip in a hectic three year tenure during the MEP government brought\nchange to every subject under his ministry. There was dynamism in the\nplantations industry with replanting programme during Philips time said Ananda\nMeegama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started programmes to increase paddy yield, and this was\ncontinued by later governments. FR Dias Bandaranaike said, later that the\nbeginning of agricultural growth in Sri Lanka  stemmed from the 1956 period. It is from this\ntime that we have recorded a steady 6% growth per year in paddy production. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Chandra\nArulpragasam  supported this. It is\nimportant to recognize , he said,  that\nthe Green Revolution could not have taken off in Sri Lanka around 1967 if the\ninstitutional support structure for small-scale paddy farming had not been laid\nin late 1950s.  This was provided by the\nestablishment of the multipurpose cooperatives, agricultural credit for\nsmallholders, a fertilizer subsidy, a guaranteed price for paddy and a pilot\ncrop insurance scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandu\nde Silva thought that the Paddy Lands Act was the most progressive piece of\nlegislation after the Free Education Bill. The\nPaddy lands Bill gave security to the tenant farmer ant the multipurpose Coops\nand the proposed cooperative bank were to provide the farmer with the much\nneeded services and credit. Because of the revolutionary impact of the Paddy Lands Act Philip\nbecame a legend in rural Sri Lanka <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paddy Lands Bill was nowhere as drastic\nas the land reform of Japan, Taiwan and India, said Meegama. The Paddy\nLands Bill was emasculated by vested interests even before it reached\nParliament. (Continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS REVISED 12.4.21 The 1956 achievements are popularly credited to SWRD.  Ananda Meegama rectified this and showed that it was Philip who was behind most of the changes. It is now acknowledged that Philip was responsible for most of the progressive measures instituted in the MEP regime, said WTA Leslie Fernando. Philip contribution to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}