 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations present the Pacific story. This is the story of the Pacific. The drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of securing the peace. This is the background story of the events in the Pacific, and their meaning to us and to the generations to come. Tonight's Pacific story comes to you with drama of the past and present and commentary by Dr. Lennox Mills, professor of history at the University of Minnesota and author of the book, Ceylon Under British Rule. Ceylon, The New Day. The coast of India lies the island of Ceylon. The drums of the yellow-robed Buddhist priests throb in Ceylon today as they have for centuries. The elephants roam wild in the wilderness. The leopard, the wildcat, and the jackal. The mongoose and the sloth bear roam wild in the wilderness. The python, the cobra, and the crocodile slide on their bellies in the lushness of the jungle, and the birds by the hundreds sing in the tropical trees. But Ceylon is changed. The Ceylon of today is a different Ceylon, for war has come and gone, and Ceylon is coming into her own. Now in the front line of defense, this was 1942. Hong Kong and Singapore have fallen. Malaya and Burma have fallen. We must hold here. These were grave possibilities. Ceylon, as you can see on the map, is now the focal point of the westward drive of the Japanese. The commander pointed to the military chart on the table. Ceylon here at the southeastern tip of India is at the junction of the eastern oceans. Yes, and it commands the coasts of India. Right. If the Japanese should take Ceylon, they could use it for a springboard of attack against India. Yes, and not only that, Japan and Germany together might make it their plan to try to join forces across the Indian Ocean to the Middle East. We may expect attack at any time. War was coming to Ceylon. War to the beautiful tropical island of tea and rubber and coconuts, to the island of cinnamon and plum bagel and citronella, to the land of the Temple of the Tooth. Here in this temple reposes the tooth of Buddha. A real tooth of Buddha? The true tooth. It has been moved many times in all these years between Burma and Ceylon and Siam. May it be seen? It is locked in a wonderful casket. On the days when this holy temple is open, you may see the casket. War was coming to Ceylon, to the land of the king's pavilion. Well, yes, some of the staircases do disappear into space. It was never finished, matter of fact. The facade was finished and some of the interior, but, well, the first military governor rather unwisely drew up the plans and started building in what we call anticipation of command. But there were difficulties about money. So King's pavilion was left just as you see it now. War was coming to the land of the Buddhist priests. They sit there by the side of the lake, these ponjes, with their suffering-colored robes and shaven heads, and beat their sacred drums to drive the evil spirits away. They sit there covered by modern English umbrellas and solemnly beat their drums. Across the lake, other priests also beat drums, so there is no peace for the evil spirits here in Kandy. War had come before to Ceylon. My ancestors came here 500 years before the time of Christ. This is a Sinhalese. They came from southern India. The Sinhalese destroyed most of the people they conquered. In the central highlands of Ceylon, they formed the Kingdom of Kandy. 200 years later, also from India, came the Tamils, and they took possession of the northern part of Ceylon. And then in bold vessels came Greeks and Romans, Arabs and Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch. Each drove out and killed the ones there before them. The soil of the island and the waters around the island were colored with blood, and the blood of the conquerors mixed with the blood of the conquerors. The importance of Ceylon is such that if English troops should capture the island, its recapture would be more important than all the other conquests where with one could begin a war in India. This was the French commander, Admiral Suffren. In the Napoleonic Wars, the British lay siege to Trencromolee. After three weeks, it surrendered. Colombo surrendered soon after. By 1815, all of Ceylon was under British rule. On the opposite side of the island, facing the Indian Ocean, grew the great harbour city of Colombo, where British and French and Dutch and Portuguese had come halfway around the world to fight and die, where Sinhalese and Tamils, Chinese and Arabs and Greeks, had come to fight and die, where Buddhists and Mohammedans had come to worship and live, the British built a bastion on the island of Ceylon. By 1904, Trencromolee was a modern fortress. But the next year, where the world powers had fought for the control of this outpost on the Bay of Bengal, next year Trencromolee was abandoned. It's an exciting port. On the opposite side of the island, facing the Indian Ocean, grew the great harbour city of Colombo, ships from all nations and all rational. Actually, the harbours are artificially formed by three great breakwaters. The city crowds down to the waterfront where the great beffel stand in. The weather is hot. The teeming streets are filled with people perpetually smiling, though the murder ratio among the natives is one of the highest in the world. The war would come to these people of Colombo, and to the people of Trencromolee, and to the people of Kandy and Jaffna and Manar, and to all the other peoples of Ceylon. But long before that, there would be stirrings among them. We are the majority. Our four million comprise two-thirds of the population of Ceylon. Most of these Sinhalese are Buddhists. But we are the largest minority. There are a million and a half of us, and we demand our rights. Most of these Tamils are Hindus. And we claim our rights. There are half a million of us. Most of these Mohammedans are descendants of Arab traders. And what of us 40,000 burgers? These burgers are of Dutch ancestry. And there are Malays and Vedas and Europeans. And the struggle between them is centuries old. As the majority, we are entitled to the rights of the majority. But we of the minority also have rights. We demand equal representation with the use of Sinhalese in the legislature. But though the peoples of Ceylon have long been suspicious and intolerant of each other, yet they have one common desire. We want self-government. We want the right to govern ourselves. Let us run our own affair. Give us self-government. How can you people govern yourselves? How can there be any government among you with all your communal differences? You British have not solved the communal differences among us, and you have not properly tried to solve them. In the cities, they talked of government and of the rights of the people against the British and of the rights of the communal groups, against the other, and of the religions and which should be favored. But in the back country was still the old Ceylon. Drive them into the cross. Into the stockade. Get in there. Watch out for those elephants. They are wild. Get into the stockade. Same elephants are on here. Drive the wild ones into the cross. Some of the elephants, deprived of their freedom, soon die. The others are broken for the work and for the ostentation of man. Are they like the captured elephants, or will we forever bow to the will of our captors, like the others? By 1931, the people had won a constitution that gave them some measure of self-government. This constitution provides for a state council. There will be 50 elected members in this council and eight nominated by the governor. There will also be a board of ministers which in effect will be a cabinet in embryo. And who will be able to vote? Everyone over the age of 21. Will it be elected by communal groups? Election will be on a territorial rather than a communal basis. Almost immediately the defects of this constitution began to show up. Almost immediately agitation for reform started. In 1938, the governor made a recommendation. This method is cumbersome. It does not work for the best interest of the people or the government. It is my recommendation that it be abolished in favor of a system based on our own in Britain. So a board of ministers from among the people was elected. This is neither fair nor equitable. The minorities rose in protest. Too many Sinhalese have been elected ministers in the board. We Tamils have rights. And the Moors and the Burgers and the other minorities have rights. The principle of communalism grew stronger. People against people, religion against religion. Yet all united in one demand. We want self-government. We want the right to govern ourselves. Give us self-government. And run our own affairs. We want self-government. Self-government. We want self-government. We want self-government. Self-government. But by now things were happening outside Ceylan that affected Ceylan. This was 1939. On the other side of the world the sky was darkening over Europe. Austria had been annexed by Hitler. Czechoslovakia had been taken. And the long shadows were falling across Ceylan. The naval basings at Cómalee will be reopened. The garrison will be installed and an airfield will be built at once. The field will be built at once. Will you look the runway? You remember what happened to the governor who removed the banyan tree? We are to have an airfield here. If planes are to take off and land, the trees must come out. We Buddhists have your personal welfare at heart. My personal welfare? The governor who took out that banyan tree died violently. The tree must come out. British troops came to the fortress of Trincomelie. British men of war anchored in the spacious harbor of Trincomelie. And on the other side of the world, the blow fell. Hitler has invaded Poland. Great Britain and France are at war with Germany. For years here in Ceylon, we have depended upon merchant shipping to bring us a good part of our food. Now we are at war. In order to conserve merchant shipping, which now is as priceless as ships of war, we will immediately increase the production of food here in Ceylon. Turn to the soil. Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, Chinese burgers and all the mixtures. And the men of the many races marched away to serve in India and Syria and Libya and in the far off places. By the thousands they volunteered. In the light of what is happening in the Pacific, we must reserve Ceylon's manpower for the defense of Ceylon. If Japan attacks the empire in the Pacific, she most certainly must also fight the United States. Japan is now a member of the Axis. She has already occupied French into China and is within 600 miles of Singapore. There is also Hong Kong. The war was near, yet it was far away and the people were still stirring. What self-government do we actually have? How long are we to wait for self-government? Britain replied. Before making decisions upon the present proposals of reform, His Majesty's government would desire that the position should be further examined and made the subject of further consultation by means of a commission. This cannot be arranged under war conditions, but the matter will be taken up with the least possible delay after the war. Pearl Harbor. And the war had come to the Pacific. Prince of Wales in Asia must repulse a man sunk off the coast of Malaya by a Japanese plane. Hong Kong has fallen to the Japanese. Malaya has fallen to the Japanese. Singapore has fallen to the Japanese. Burma has fallen to the Japanese. We have intelligence that a strong Japanese task force with aircraft carriers and battleships has steamed through the Straits of Malacca into the Bay of Bengal. It will, in all likelihood, base on the Andaman Islands which now are in Japanese hands. Ceylon is now in the front line. We may expect attack at any time, make all preparations, that is all. The word came on Good Friday, 1942. A Japanese task force is heading for Ceylon. Anti-aircraft guns were readied. Combat planes stood poised. At 8 a.m. on Easter Sunday, the Japanese struck Colombo. Here they come, sir. There are 75 of them, all right. The half of them seem to be dive bombers and the rest of them fighters. Our anti-aircraft guns have opened up on them. Yes, our fighters are up there after them. Look out, sir. One more diving on us, sir. Get down. You all right, sir? Yes, I'm all right. Look at that. Look at that, sir. Our anti-aircraft has winged one of them. It's coming down. It's coming down. Our fighters have engaged them. Look. He's knocked that one down and there's still another coming down. Look out, Captain. The fighters are coming down to strafe us. Get down. Yes, sir. The Japanese attacked the harbor, the railway works and the airfield. The anti-aircraft scattered them. The British fighters blasted them out of the sky. Of the 75 Japanese aircraft that attacked us, 57 were either destroyed or damaged. You've had your first raid and the people of Colombo set an example of courage and calmness rivaling that of the people of Great Britain. It is not a matter of luck that we got off so lightly. We were prepared ourselves to meet this danger. A few days later, the Japanese were back. This time at the naval base at Trincomblee. 37 enemy aircraft were destroyed or damaged. In these two raids, the enemy has lost probably one-third of his total raiding force. The defenses of Ceylon are still intact. Ceylon braced itself. The Japanese were now in the Bay of Bengal where a Japanese task force had never before dared to venture. The Germans were hammering through North Africa toward the Middle East and the possible juncture with the Japanese. Ceylon remained except for Bombay, the only British naval base between Arden and Australia. The war had come to the gates of Ceylon. The island bristled. Burma, whence most of Ceylon's rice had come, was in the hands of the Japanese. Malaya, whence most of the world's rubber had come, was in the hands of the Japanese. Ceylon put more land under cultivation. In her fields, she fed her people. From her forests, she produced as much crude rubber as all the other supplies available for the United Nations. The British Ministry of Supply bought her entire production of cobra and coconut oil. Worked together, the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Moors, the Burgers, and all the others, but they did not forget constitutional reform. We ask a constitution under which we will govern ourselves. The British of His Majesty's government took out full responsible government under the crown in all matters of internal civil administration. What of the constitution? Your Board of Ministers may draw up a constitutional plan. The plan must have the approval of three-quarters of the members of the Council of State. It will then be examined after the war via commission. The Board of Ministers of Ceylon drew up the plan and submitted it to the British government. Now it was 1944 and the tide had turned. The Nazis had been blasted out of North Africa. The Nazis had been stopped at Stalingrad. Mussolini had fallen. Italy was being won inch by inch. The Japanese had been thrown back in Burma. The Americans were advancing across the Pacific. Australia was secure. And in the gathering allied strength in the east, Mount Batten moved the headquarters of the Southeast Asia command to Ceylon and prepared for the drive that would break the back of the Japanese water of the globe. Hey, look out! Look out for that jeep! Holy, look at that guy come! Oh, look at him burning up the road. That was Supreme Lord. Uh, Mount Batten himself? Mount Batten himself? Well, he ought to be more careful. Kill himself up here on these mountain roads. Doesn't he know there are any guardrails in the drops a couple of thousand feet? Good Lord, I was just going to thumb him for a ride. Something else will come along. There never was a country like this. Hodderland, Kansas, down below there in the low country and cool up here in the mountains. Uh, new hill left in it? Yeah. Everything here appears to be on a scale model. The houses are small, the people are small. Even the bullocks that pull the carts and the elephants that work in the fields are small. But the army that Supreme Lord commands from here is not small. No. And I've never seen so many different kinds of troops. Geckers, Sikhs, Bengalis, Marathas, Gawamis... Yes, and Chins, Burmese, Look, what I'd like to know is what happened to the second floor of that building Mount Batten took for his base? King's Pavilion? Well, I don't think he just ends up in the air. Uh, here comes the truck. We'll come a ride. It'll stop for us. Oh, boy, what a broken down dilapidated wreck. Uh, he's stopping for us. You already got some guys aboard. Come on, Kevin. Holy old macro. Three, six, seven, eight. Get in. What's the matter? Twelve brigadiers. Me, I'm only a lieutenant. Ceylon, the land of the wild elephant, the leopard, the jackal and the wild cat, the land of tea and rubber and coconut, of sinhalese and tamil and moor, Ceylon became a bastion of military power. From Trincomalee, the Royal Navy hit the Japanese on their stolen islands. From Kandy, Supremo directed the 14th Army against the Japanese on the mainland and cut them down by the hundreds of thousands. Ceylon became a springboard for the offensive in Southeast Asia. War is done and the people of Ceylon have won a victory. It is the wish of His Majesty's government to enable the peoples of Ceylon to attain self-government as early as possible. The proposed constitution provides full responsible government in all matters of internal civil administration with safeguards only in respect of defense, external affairs and the right of minorities. It is therefore the hope of His Majesty's government that the new constitution will be accepted by the people of Ceylon with the determination to work so that in a short time a dominion status will be evolved. The drums of the yellow-robed Buddhist priests throb in Ceylon as they have for centuries. New blood has come to Trincomalee and Colombo and Kandy to the high country and the low country. New blood to mingle with the blood that has been here a thousand years. The old Ceylon is passing for war has come and gone and Ceylon is coming into her own. This is the story of Ceylon and its people. To tell you the significance of what has happened in Ceylon, the national broadcasting company presents Dr. Lennox Mills, professor of history at the University of Minnesota and authority on Ceylon. The next voice you hear will be that of Dr. Mills. We take you now to St. Paul, Minnesota. When the British conquered Ceylon in 1795, there was not a mile a road on the island. There were practically no schools or hospitals and the death rate was very high. For 2300 years the people had been under despotic rule. They were so accustomed to oppression that they actually approved it. The British realized that they must bring in reforms slowly and not move too far in advance of public opinion. There was a second stumbling block. There was an unlimited need for social services but no money to pay for them. Expenses had to be cut to the bone in order to reduce the annual deficit. The problem was not solved until British investors put their money into plantations. First of all it was coffee. Now it is tea and rubber. The government treasury was filled by taxing the British investors. For over a century the tea and rubber plantations have provided the bulk of the revenue. The Ceylonese themselves paid little in taxes. At last there was money for social services. There was a rapid increase in the number of schools. Out of this came the demand for self-government. The British schools taught the people to want democracy. By about 1900 the Ceylonese who had graduated from the British schools began to demand self-government. The British policy was the same as that of the Americans and the Philippines. It was self-government on the installment plan. Power was gradually transferred from the British officials to the elected representatives of the Ceylonese people. Under the Constitution of 1931 the Ceylonese controlled about 80% of their own affairs. The great obstacle to democracy is communal hostility. The Ceylonese are not one people, they're half a dozen. They differ in race and religion. There is strong economic rivalry. There are charges and counter charges. For the last 15 years communal bitterness has got worse. All the peoples of Ceylon want to govern themselves. But they cannot agree on how they're going to do it. Racial and religious hostility is not as savage as in Palestine or India. But it has led to something of the same refusal to cooperate. The Sinhalese are 66% of the population, they're Buddhists. They insist on straight majority rule and no special rights for minorities. In practice this means that the Sinhalese run the whole show. The minorities make up 33% of the population. There are Hindu Tamils from India. There are Mohammedan Warmen, Dutch Burgers and others. The minorities demand that 50% of the legislators and half the cabinet ministers must always come from their groups. The Sinhalese majority absolutely refuse to agree. In 1945 Ceylon was given another installment of self-government. The British government will share control of defence and foreign policy with the Sinhalese. The British also have the right to veto any law which would be unfair to a minority community. Apart from this the Sinhalese now control all their own affairs. Great Britain has promised that complete self-government will be given in a short space of time if the peoples of Ceylon work their new constitution successfully. The difficulty is going to be communal hostility. The minority communities have not been given the special rights that they demanded. They have protested against the new constitution. Unless some compromise can be worked out Ceylon will have self-government but it will not have unity. Thank you Dr. Mills. We now return you to Hollywood. You have been listening to the Pacific story presented by the national broadcasting company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific basin. For a reprint of this Pacific story program send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. May I repeat? For a reprint of this Pacific story program send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific story is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. The principal voice is that of Ian Keith. This program came to you from St. Paul in Hollywood. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.