Ceylon Press Take-Over Was “Very Popular”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29467, 20 March 1961, Page 14

Ceylon Press Take-Over Was “Very Popular”

The Ceylonese Government’s recent decision to vest the main daily newspapers in a public corporation was “very popular,” and earned “spontaneous applause,” Mr H. A. Abeywardena, an officer of the Ceylon Labour Department, said in Christchurch yesterday. This was not an attempt to muzzle the press but was a change in management only, Mr Abeywardena said. The takeover had become necessary because the papers were “exercising a wild-ass freedom as distinct from a democratic freedom.” Two newspaper groups were being nationalised, Associated Newspapers of Ceylon and “The Times of Ceylon ” Between them, these

companies ran the national daily and Sunday papers in all three main languages— Stnhala, English and Tamil. Independent weeklies remained unaffected The groups to be nationalised were owned by Ceylonese nationals, although “The Times of Ceylon” had originally been a British-owned company Langanage Issue The language issue had raised some problems in Ceylon, said Mr Abeywardena. but Sinhala was now settling down as the administrative language with Tamil rights protected and English a compulsory second language in all schools, primary as well as secondary. Sinhala became the official language instead of English in January this year, as the result of a law passed five years ago. Until the passing of the law, English had been the medium of instruction in secondary schools. English was still very important to the commercial community and its wide use in the island was an advantage in the great and growing tourist trade. Local Option Over recent years, there had been a general move in Ceylon to cut down the consumption of alcohol, said Mr Abeywardena. To help alcoholics reduce their intake, the price of alcoholic beverages had been raised by high taxation. No new licences were being issued for taverns, hotels, and bottle-stores, and wherever public demand for local prohibition was sufficiently strong local-option polls were held which, by simple majority, could result in the cancellation of existing bar licences. Most of the population was Buddhist, Mr Abeywardena explained. Although the Budda had not insisted on general prohibition, he had

advised his followers not to drink and most of them did so only sparingly if at all. Mr Abeywardena, who is in New Zealand for three months on a Colombo Plan scholarship for training in labour-inspection work, has two jobs at home. He is a senior labour officer in the Labour Department and the employment relations officer of the Ministry of Posts, Transport, and Works, in the latter capacity he maintains liaison between the Ministry and the unions which operate among its servants. As the Posts Department employees are organised into 64 unions and there are almost as large numbers in the other two departments, his job is sometimes complicated. Unionism is voluntary, but in the public service membership is about 95 per cent.