§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary for the Colonies if he is now in a position to say what the charge was on which Mr. D. B. Jayatiloka, B.A. (Oxon), a barrister, of Lincoln's Inn, was imprisoned for forty-six days last summer with about 800 men in the Welikada Gaol, Ceylon, a prison constructed to accommodate only 150 prisoners; whether he has read any Report of the sufferings endured by this and other gentlemen from the insanitary condition of that prison when so congested; seeing that those gentlemen had to be released without trial or even charge against them, will he say what, in the nature of reparation, has been made to them; and whether Sir Robert Chalmers, then Governor of Ceylon, now Under-Secretary for Ireland, has been asked for an explanation of his treatment of those gentlemen?
§ Mr. BONAR LAWMr. Jayatiloka was arrested on the 21st June, 1915, by order of the General Officer Commanding the Troops as a result of evidence disclosing seditious speeches and writings, and was charged under Section 120 of the Ceylon Penal Code and Section 41 of the Army Act. After being brought up on remand from time to time he was released on the 4th August, on entering into a bond to appear when called upon and to be of good behaviour. I have read his account of his experiences in prison, but the official reports which I have received of the prison in question do not bear out the statement that it was insanitary. I see no ground for reparation or for further explanation in this case.