{"id":152259,"date":"2025-09-28T16:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=152259"},"modified":"2025-09-28T16:15:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T23:15:10","slug":"hsbc-withdraws-from-retail-banking-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/09\/28\/hsbc-withdraws-from-retail-banking-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"HSBC Withdraws from Retail Banking in Sri\u00a0Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 21-27 September 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

England\u2019s Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC<\/strong>) this week sold certain retail \u2018assets\u2019 in Sri Lanka to the Nations Trust Bank (NTB<\/strong>) for Rs18billion \u2013 so, the merchant media tells us. HSBC claims this \u2018exit from retail is part of a global retrenchment that includes several Asian markets\u2019 and \u2018reflects a wider shift in global finance as multinational banks scale back.\u2019 HSBC\u2019s origins can be traced to England\u2019s trading of opium grown in India & imposed on China through war. Many of England\u2019s leading agency houses, from 19th<\/sup> century Ceylon to this day in Sri Lanka, have been linked to HSBC & England\u2019s voracious opium business\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only in August that HSBC was \u2018recognized as the Best International Bank in Sri Lanka<\/strong> by Euromoney for the 2nd<\/sup> year in a row\u2019. They earlier won \u2018the 2025 FinanceAsia award for the Best International Bank in SL for the 8th<\/sup> time\u2019. We know these awards & attendant ceremonies and hoopla are fake. Yet if true, why are such worldly behemoths \u2018scaling back\u2019? Perhaps it was to hype their share prices. \u2018The proposed acquisition covers \u2018HSBC Sri Lanka\u2019s retail banking business including premium banking customers, credit cards, retail loans and accounts of approximately 200,000 customers!\u2019 And from where did NTB get this Rs18bn, in a supposedly \u2018bankrupt\u2019 economy? NTB claims the transaction \u2018will be funded by internally generated funds.\u2019 Yet, how does all this recall and mirror the colonial role played by Indian capital, as intermediaries for the imperialist exploitation of Sri Lanka?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     2025 marks the centennial of the crash in 1925 of a Nattukottai Chettiar moneylender in Colombo<\/strong>, which led to a larger banking crisis in the country, previewing the onset worldwide of the so-called Great Depression of 1929, which accelerated the march to Japan\u2019s invasion of China in 1931, and England\u2019s World War 2. After the 1925 Chettiar crash, the English banks stopped lending money to Chettiar \u2018firms\u2019, who then began demanding repayment of loans from \u2018Ceylonese clientele\u2019, who were themselves in financial straits. The \u2018Ceylonese\u2019 then defaulted and lost their properties, resulting in an intense anti-Chettiar campaign, accompanied by an outcry against toddy & arrack \u2018renters\u2019, who were also financed by Chettiar lenders<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Chettiar moneylenders were middlemen between the English banks and local people, because English banks refused to lend directly to Ceylonese. The crash inspired demands for a local bank, which resulted in the English creation in 1934 of the Ceylon Banking Commission (CBC, headed by Indian Parsi banker Sir Sorabji Nusserwanji Pochkhanawala, a founder of the Central Bank of India). The CBC supposedly \u2018favored a policy of industrialization\u2019 and recommended the formation of the state-sponsored Bank of Ceylon (1938). The state-sponsored Bank of Ceylon, & later Peoples\u2019 Bank, would however be sabotaged from operating as development banks<\/strong>, which were supposed to invest in modern production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1922 Industries Commission<\/strong> had baldly declared: \u2018By reason of natural resources Ceylon is destined to be primarily an agricultural country.\u2019 Meanwhile, England\u2019s Donoughmore Constitution<\/strong>, 1931-47, retained English control of war-making & external affairs, public service, finance & justice in Ceylon. It was a harbinger of the restrictions that would be retained after \u2018Soulbury independence\u2019 in 1948, that would impede & sabotage any attempts to industrially modernize the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The architects of such stunted independence had to act ignorant of the excellent example the USSR was at that time, showing throughout the 1920-40s, how a country could modernize in a short time. The USSR had learned the lessons from the examples provided by the colonies of \u2018new settlement\u2019 like the USA, Canada, Australia, etc, minus the stealing of lands from indigenous peoples. Yet, the whites\u2019 genocidal practices were solely projected falsely onto the USSR, to tarnish its industrial achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If money comes into the world<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

capital comes dripping from head to foot,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

from every pore, with blood and dirt.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Karl Marx, Capital<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>The 19th<\/sup>C English prohibition of chena cultivation<\/strong>, had taken place midst mass murder in Lanka, and the wholesale robbery & sale of chena lands & forests to expand the plantations, with the aid of an indentured system of unfree immigrant labor from India. Chena, also known as \u2018swidden\u2019, was given the English moniker \u2018slash&burn<\/em>\u2018 in Ceylon, to demonize an ancient practice<\/strong>, which had enabled the Sinhala cultivator to grow cash crops & earn cash, rather than just barter their harvests for imported industrial goods. The prohibition on chena then led to a \u2018liquidity crisis in the village\u2019. These changes in production relations soon resulted in \u2018the rise of merchant-cum-usurer class in the agrarian system\u2019. This alien class fraction provided loans to the peasantry within and between the harvesting periods of paddy, in exchange for a greater share of the total harvest. This created the socioeconomic space necessary for this usurer-cum-merchant class \u2013 mostly \u2018Chettiars\u2019 by the 20th<\/sup>C \u2013 to ascend in the English period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The import of rice to Sri Lanka from Burma had been monopolized by Chettiar & other Indian traders who controlled 40% of Burma\u2019s imports and 60% of exports. These regional Chettiar bankers later became the reason for the Bank of Ceylon to be set up, because the English banks would only lend to local people through them. Such crucial linkages explain why state & commercial banks simply refuse to invest in modern (machine-building) production. These Chettiar bankers grew to also control Tamil political parties as well as other politicians, and such media as MTV<\/em>, News1st<\/sup>,<\/em> etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Chettiar crisis led, in 1927, to Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s tour of Colombo, Kandy & Jaffna, organized by the Nagarathar Society of Colombo \u2013 powerful Nattukottai Chettiar financiers. These businessmen included wealthy recruiters of unfree labor from India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     ee<\/em><\/strong> earlier (17 July 2021) discussed the link between the first English (& gay) governor of colonial Ceylon in the 18-19th<\/sup> centuries and the resounding crash of England\u2019s Arbuthnot & Co in 1906. Funded by Nagarathar Chettiar capital, the Indian Bank (IB) was set up by Venkatarama Iyer Krishnaswamy. He had purportedly sued Arbuthnot, and ensured the principal English partner of the firm, Sir George Arbuthnot was imprisoned. The English then made Krishnaswamy a judge of the Madras High Court in 1909 and a member of the Executive Council of the Madras Governor. The IB then spread through Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Singapore, and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In 1932 the India Bank opened a branch in Colombo. It opened its 2nd<\/sup> Ceylon branch in 1935 in Jaffna, and later opened a branch in Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar). The Burmese government nationalized all foreign banks, including IB\u2019s branch, in 1963. In 1969 the Government of India nationalized 14 top banks, including IB. Assassination & sabotage would prevent Sri Lanka from making any such moves!  In July 1983 \u2018rioters\u2019 burned the Indian Overseas Bank Branch in Colombo, but the Indian Bank Branch, miraculously \u2018escaped unscathed\u2019, as did the gold shops of Sea Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Merchant- & moneylender-dominated media in Sri Lanka (see ee Finance<\/em><\/strong>, HSBC to exit retail banking in SL) claims HSBC\u2019s \u2018retail\u2019 sale to NTB, and this \u2018global rentrenchment\u2019 by multinational banks, \u2018creates space for local institutions to consolidate\u2019. What on earth could this mean? Concentrate? Create further monopolies?<\/em><\/strong> They compare the sale to Singapore\u2019s DBS Bank, which \u2018has emerged as the dominant player; in Sri Lanka, local banks are now filling the same role\u2019. Really? <\/em>Apparently, \u2018on the corporate side\u2019, the NTB \u2018continues to prioritise exporters, value-added manufacturers, and financial institutions.\u2019 This itself shows, there is absolutely no compare with Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 DBS<\/strong> (Development Bank of Singapore<\/strong>), the \u2018largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets\u2019, is controlled by state-owned Temasek Holdings<\/strong>, Singapore\u2019s 2nd<\/sup>-largest sovereign wealth fund<\/strong> after GIC (Government of Singapore Investment Corporation<\/strong>, which manages the country\u2019s foreign reserves<\/strong>, & is funded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore<\/strong>\/MAS, their central bank & monetary authority). Singapore is a modern industrial city-state<\/strong>. They invest in modern high-technology production, ie, machine-making machineries. They compulsorily retain 20% of workers\u2019 wages which are placed in a savings fund. They prevent \u2018sweatshops\u2019 from operating in their country, and demand they pay their workers high wages. How can they compare with Sri Lanka\u2019s banks, especially the so-called private commercial banks which are fronts for foreign multinationals? And why are media-promoted economists (especially from \u2018rule-of-law\u2019 Singapore, where former central-banker-on-the-run Royal College\u2019s Arjuna Mahendran is supposedly hiding!) promoting the so-called \u2018independence\u2019 of the Central Bank from political, ie, elected, oversight?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central banks were never neutral bodies<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

designed to provide expert advice & decisions<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

on controlling interest rate, money supply &<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

affecting the wider economy. Central banks were<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

created as \u2018lenders of last resort\u2019 to ensure that<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the banking sector did not implode & would<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

continue to \u2018lubricate\u2019 the capitalist economy<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the post-1945 period, they morphed into agencies<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

for \u2018managing the economy\u2019 (with little success);<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& the neoliberal period saw a drive to establish<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

their \u2018independence\u2019 from any Leftist governments<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the interests of finance capital<\/em><\/strong>. \u2013 M Roberts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em> Immigration & the World Order<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Royal College hitman & former Central Bank governor, Indrajit Coomaraswamy was this week inducted as a Fellow of National Academy of Sciences<\/strong>. There he repeated his tired, utterly false & unscientific<\/em> mantra about the independence of the Central Bank and that \u2018at the time of independence Sri Lanka was second to Japan on almost any socioeconomic indicator in Asia;\u2019 and that Sri Lanka has \u2018very toxic combination of populist politics on the one hand and a deeply entrenched entitlement culture amongst the people\u2019. Again we ask, really? <\/em>Is it \u2018populism<\/em>\u2019 & \u2018entitlement<\/em>\u2019 that has retained the colonial import-export plantation fraud? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Fair Facts<\/strong> \u2013 John Keells Holdings is Nation Trust Bank (NTB<\/strong>)\u2019s largest shareholder with a 56.4% stake. Keells recently invested in a casino! \u2013 City of Dreams! <\/em><\/strong>Keells\u2019 largest shareholder is HWIC Asia Fund, a subsidiary of \u2018Canadian company\u2019 Fairfax Financial Holdings. A major financier of car imports, Fairfax, along with other foreign funds (World Bank\u2019s International Finance Corporation \u2013 IFC<\/strong>, Norways Norges, England\u2019s Aberdeen, & USA\u2019s Templeton) and foreign HNIs (High-Net-Worth Individuals, Mark Mobius etc) are big investors in the \u2018rigged\u2019 (according to UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe) Colombo S.tock Exchange (CSE). Fairfax\u2019s frontman Prem Watsa visited their Fairfirst Insurance offices in August this year to welcome Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018remarkable recovery\u2019 after opening the country to further car imports. Prabhat Patnaik, in a recent essay \u2018Is India Heading for Foreign Ownership of Banks?\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>) notes that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)<\/strong>, despite having a limit of 15% on ownership by non-residents of the equity of an Indian bank, has ignored the 2018 purchase by the Mauritius-based Holding Company of the Canadian company Fairfax<\/strong> of a 51% equity in the Catholic Syrian Bank of Kerala. So exactly who is Prem Watsa a laundering front for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Keells & World Bank\u2019s International Finance Corporation<\/strong> are also big investors in the Commercial Bank of Ceylon Group, comprising Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018largest private sector bank\u2019, and called the \u2018Best Bank in Sri Lanka\u2019 by the US-based Global Finance <\/em>magazine. Washington-based World Bank\u2019s IFC<\/strong> in 2023 gave a US$400million swap facility to the Commercial Bank of Ceylon, Sampath Bank & Nations Trust Bank, \u2018to help import food, medicine & fertilizers.\u2019 No wonder they vehemently oppose local production of these goods, and their merchant media, corporate & so-called \u2018social\u2019 media raised a ruckus over such \u2018import-substitution\u2019 in 2022, leading to the \u2018aragalaya\u2019 (see ee Quotes<\/em><\/strong>, Exploding Gas Cylinders?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Multilateral lenders<\/strong>, such as Asian Development Bank (ADB<\/strong>) [& the World Bank etc ee<\/em><\/strong> may add!] are \u2018forcing cooperatives & government-led credit programs to be weakened<\/strong> while promoting the commercialisation of microfinance<\/strong>\u2018. So says \u2018ADB Loan Condition Trumps Consultation with Communities Affected by Microfinance\u2019, by the Ekabaddha Praja Sanwardhana Kantha Maha Sangamaya, the Collective of Women Victimised by Microfinance and the Uva Vellassa Kantha Sangamaya (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>). These well-advertised institutions are \u2018as much to blame for the microfinance crisis in Sri Lanka\u2019, which the Non-banking Finance division at the Central Bank claims to be unaware, The \u2018independent\u2019 Central Bank is in fact refusing to regulate large finance companies. Many of these finance companies are fronts for agents importing the industrial goods of imperialist countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u2018Usury has been nurtured and reproduced by the household debt crisis caused by the profit-driven and extractive lending practices of big finance companies\u2026 Large finance companies, have contributed to and exacerbated the microfinance crisis.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     This critique does not discuss the role played by intermediaries, just like the Chettiar bankers, between the multilaterals like the World Bank, and the commercial banks, which are fronts for so-called Development Agencies<\/em><\/strong>. Nor does it discuss the need for nationalizing <\/strong>these banks. The first priority, as Lenin noted during the 1917 Russian Revolution<\/strong>, a lesson learned from the failure of the 1871 short-lived & pathbreaking Paris Commune, is to imprison these \u2018bankers\u2019 <\/strong>who if not held responsible, will finance mayhem again & counter-revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Bank loans to NBFCs & MFIs are now<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

counted as part of priority sector lending.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic purpose of bank nationalisation,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

which among others, was to make bank<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

finance directly available to marginal borrowers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in sectors like agriculture, small industries &<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

small businesses, bypassing all intermediaries,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

has been undermined.\u2019 (see <\/em>ee<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Patnaik)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, rather than nationalizing banks, the Economic Development Deputy Minister AJ Fernando is dreaming of using the Stock Market to shakedown<\/strong> \u2018domestic savings\u2019<\/em><\/strong>. He says such savings remain are scattered & fragmented, limiting their impact on development. \u2018Scattered, insignificant capital cannot make a big push for economic development. We need to pull them together, and the stock market is the platform for that.\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Govt says capital market reforms critical)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>This week saw the Sri Lanka Banks\u2019 Association (SLBA<\/strong>) submit proposals for the 2026 budget complain about  \u2018Excessive taxation, currently at 53% for domestic banks & 65% for foreign banks\u2019 They claim it\u2019s \u2018a barrier to competitiveness & capital formation\u2019. Really? <\/em>What kind of capital? Usurer? Mercantile? Industrial<\/strong>? <\/em>\u2018A fairer regime\u2026 would allow banks to direct resources towards lending for critical infrastructure & priority sectors.\u2019 What are the priorities for the SLBA? Only their lame history can tell us. The SLBA meanwhile wants a level playing field, \u2018by applying VAT on global digital services, such as Google, Meta, PayPal.\u2019 They also want to remove cash, and advance digital transactions by capping large cash payments and mandating electronic settlement of supplier, tax and utility bills.\u2019 (see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, Budget 2026: SLBA present proposals)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>SBD de Silva <\/strong>constantly pinpointed the media\u2019s incessant call for investment, \u2018FDI! FDI!<\/em>\u2019<\/strong> and always asked, \u2018Investment for <\/em>what?\u2019 <\/em><\/strong>To splash on more luxury imports? ee<\/em><\/strong> continues Chapter 2 of SBD de Silva\u2019s 1982 classic, The Political Economy of Underdevelopment <\/em>(PEU<\/em><\/strong>). SBD compared \u2018investment patterns in the settler & nonsettler colonies, and the resulting economic underdevelopment in the latter\u2019. The last ee<\/em><\/strong> described the \u2018deviant cases<\/strong>\u2018 that did not readily fit SBD\u2019s settler\/nonsettler model, where he pointed out that the economic structures that emerged in the underdeveloped countries seem to be connected with the type of colony which they represented.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     SBD\u2019s Chapter 2 seeks to explain \u2018the relative economic viability of the settler colonies, & the politico-economic impulses to their development\u2019. He critiqued \u2018the perceptions of a few earlier writers\u2019 as to the \u2018developmental significance of the settler\/nonsettler distinction\u2019. Countries with settlers, both \u2018European & alien Asian\u2019 were more \u2018intensely colonized\u2019 than those with expatriates & (non-resident) investors based in metropolitan centers. He described the greater industrial &\/or urban growth<\/strong> and diversified agriculture<\/strong> in settler colonies<\/strong>, whose internally oriented <\/strong>development involved reinvestment of profits<\/strong>, with production for local or regional markets<\/strong>. These settler communities mimicked the socio-political structure<\/strong> of the imperialist homelands, and had a far greater social heterogeneity<\/strong>, particularly a white working class. He exposed the racist claim that only Black people can \u2018face the sun\u2019, and suggests that the non-presence of settlers in certain countries was actually due to the strong resistance to white intrusion by Indian & Chinese merchants. SBD also suggested:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eclipse of the resident investor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

& the growth of absentee capital<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

are connected with the growth of<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

corporate ventures financed<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by the capital market in England.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absentee ownership in the colonies<\/strong>, the foundation of the company form of organization<\/strong>, began after 1880 when metropolitan capital<\/strong> became \u2018increasingly mobile<\/em> \u2018, enabled by new telegraphic communication<\/strong> and by advances in financial machineries & institutions<\/strong>\u2018, which \u2018superseded the small promoter\u2019 as a channel for investment funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> also continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 History of Tammany Hall<\/em>, which exposes the New York \u2018charity\u2019 that was a front for the political machinations of the USA\u2019s foremost municipality. Here we find how intermittent \u2018commissions\u2019 and investigations into corruption, including movements for \u2018good governance\u2019 (yahapalanya!), rather than changing the capitalist structure of a rising imperialist power, result only in further concentration and monopoly entrenched in big bosses. Here we learn how fraudulent \u2018democratic\u2019 elections, municipal and national, are enabled through the \u2018active cooperation and connivance\u2019 of the police, who get their jobs via \u2018forced contributions\u2019 to the \u2018charity\u2019. Corporations, real-estate, roads & railways, also pay large sums to maintain their control. Myers spends little ink on fully explaining the uppermost role of these corporations in the game, with only faint references to the role of public displays of \u2018charity\u2019 to the \u2018poor\u2019 and the \u2018Cuban cause\u2019, behind the \u2018millions\u2019 derived from rents, fees, fines, interest, assessments, bond sales, premiums, contract juggling, legislative \u2018goods\u2019, in order to control of an army of 60,000 employees\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Barclays Bank Pulls out of Financing Israel\u2019s Genocide<\/strong>? England Barclay\u2019s Bank was created out of the compensation paid by the Rothschild bankers, to the English slave owners to abolish the incessantly system of enslaving Africans as chattel, and its replacement with indentured enslavement mainly of people from Asia (\u2018coolies\u2019<\/em>). Apparently, \u2018the question is no longer about profit margins or Zionist enthusiasm in the boardroom \u2013 it\u2019s about reputational survival. Barclays, a bellwether of the English establishment and Anglo-American banking, is voting with its balance sheet, and its verdict is a blow to Israel\u2019s financial capacity to win its long war against the Palestinians, the Arabs, Iran and Turkey.\u2019 (see ee Sovereignty<\/em><\/strong>, John Helmer)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Regarding this week\u2019s reader\u2019s comment on ee\u2019<\/em><\/strong>s discussion of the origins of Thurstan College<\/strong>: In 1859, Anglican missionary A J Thurstan had set up a \u2018private technical school on former cinnamon estate (later, Colombo 7\u2019s Cinnamon Gardens). Kumari Jayawardena<\/strong>\u2018s The Rise of the Labor Movement in Ceylon<\/em> (1972) recalls the school, thus: \u2018It is not possible to precisely determine when the first strike occurred in Ceylon<\/strong>, for stoppages of work by groups of unorganized workers were not unknown in the 19th<\/sup> century. For example, around 1860 the carpenters & teachers<\/strong> at the Industrial School<\/strong> run by Mr Thurstan went on strike because they had not received recognition in the form of \u2018native rank\u2019 which they had expected from the government.\u2019 In 1884, the English colonial government had set up an agricultural school set up where the technical school had been, \u2018to promote the cinnamon industry\u2019 (Wiki). As with all such mistaken uses of the term \u2018industry\u2019, it is unclear what exactly was being taught there: was it for research into the growing of cinnamon, or for processing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     What may be of interest is that the 1884 setting up of an agricultural school, in the aftermath of the devastation caused by the coffee blight, took place midst the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank. London\u2019s Oriental Banking Corporation (OBC<\/strong>, main bank in India & China), one of colonial Ceylon\u2019s early ventures in banking, actually a \u2018Scottish concern\u2019, was then closed down and most coffee planters ruined. Food riots almost took place. Armed force prevented depositors and \u2018note holders\u2019 from battering down doors: governor then guaranteed payment of bank notes. OBC was then reconstituted as New Oriental Bank Corporation, and OBC Badulla manager Harley Lowe began the Bank of Uva.\u2019  In 1910, the agricultural school closed down\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

__________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
HSBC Withdraws from Retail Banking in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/blockquote>