"WILD WEST" METHODS IN CEYLON

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 84, 2 January 1918, Page 7

"WILD WEST" METHODS IN CEYLON

NATIVES SHOT WITHOUT TRIAL.

All amazing story of the shooting of Ceylon natives without any semblance of trial was told in a recent dispatch by General Sir John Anderson, Governor of Ceylon, to Mr. Walter Long, Colonial Secretary. The dispatch _ bears date of May 26 last.} Tho primary responsibility, the Governor says, rests on Mr. F. N. Sudlow. a member of the Colombo Town Guard Artillery. Ho was told by the Inspec-tor-General of Police to deal vigorously with actual disturbances, but seems, in the Governor's words, to havo construed his instructions "into a commission to administer lynch law throughout the area- prescribed- for his patrol and to have considered that their eirect was to make him the leader of a posse of vigilantes sent out to deal with desperadoes in the manner demoted m kinoma shows and dime novels of the 'Wild "West." , . ~„•,., Mr Sudlow communicated "what lie conceived to be his orders" to Major Bayly, who was in command of the district, and- started his campaign by shooting six natives. Major Bayly not only accepted Mr. Sudlow's version of the instructions, but proceeded to set on them himself, and communicated them .to his two.patrol officers, Mr. Baines and Mr. Sly. He'also had one man publicly shot. , The victims up to this point bad been actually engaged in the riots some days before, but the next execution was on a different footing. It was that of the TJduwa Arachchi, who had been made responsible by Mr. Sly for the detention until his return of some villagers who had been found with looted goods in their possession. No date Vws given for Mr. Sly's return. The natives remained, but when they heard the noise of Mr. Sly's motor they bolt ed into the jungle, and left theAracbchi to his fate. . Mr. Sly based Ins a proclamation issued by the Assistant Government Agent at Kegalla, which the Governor admits was badly drawn and technically covered his action. "But," he adds, "it is almost incredible that anyone, unless one who had been schooled by the Germans in Belgium, could-have honestly acted on Mr. bly s interpretation of it."