Solid partnership that straddled three centuries 

F. J. De Saram (Snr.,) founder of the oldest partnership firm in Sri Lanka applied to be a Proctor of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1843. The form of the notice has not changed much, in the intervening century and a half.

"It is my intention to apply to the Honourable the Judges of the Supreme Court of the Island, six weeks from this date to be admitted as a proctor of the said court. Dated at Colombo on this 14th day of July 1845. F. J. De Saram, Proctor District Court of Colombo.''

But, De Saram (Snr.) gave notice of his intention to marry a few weeks later, and the form of that notice seems to convey the cultural if not physical distance between the 21st century and the 19th. 

The letter of notice was sent through the father to the intended father - in - law, and states with a convincing lawyer's measured gravitas that, 

" My son, Fredrick having made a disclosure to Mrs De Saram and myself of the affection he entertains for your daughter, Ann Martensz, wishes that I should write and acquaint you and Mrs Martensz of it, which I do with the greatest pleasure, Mrs De Saram and myself perfectly approving of his choice.

I therefore on his behalf, now kindly solicit the hand of your amiable daughter in promise of marriage.

Hoping to receive a favorable reply form you, I remain,

My Dear Sir,
Yours Very Sincerely,
Sgd J. H. De Saram."

The letter was addressed to A. N. Martensz, who was a proctor and professional patron of F. J. De Saram, the young lawyer's Senior. Via that rather circuitous and ceremonious route, marriage was contracted. The Martenszes were to figure prominently in the future as partners of F. J. & G. De Saram, the law firm founded by the young suitor.

The De Sarams may have been Sinhalese, but the legal ethos at the time the firm was founded, was very much Dutch Burgher. There isn't any doubt that the De Sarams "as a firm had the interests of the British at heart'', and the Daily News for instance, queried how "Leslie De Saram, who was the head of F. J. and G. De Saram (who were legal advisors to the European Association , and many European concerns,) was head of the "Unionist Party.'' The Unionist Party comprised a Ceylonese elite who "represented minority views'' and its delegation which gave evidence before the Donoughmore commission consisted of pre-independence worthies such as Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranaike, Felix Dias and Sir Marcus Fernando. 

The attitude of the Unionists was conciliatory rather than adversarial, in contrast to that of the Congress which represented the radical front in the fight against colonialism. Leslie De Saram went on to lose the Nuwara Eliya seat, at the first elections after the grant of adult suffrage in 1931.

The point goes to show that the De Sarams were at heart lawyers, whether they serviced European interests or not in those early stages being an entirely different consideration. 

From this, the firm metamorphosed, through various stages, to become what it is today – a legal firm for everyman, and every company. The vicissitudes that F.J. & G. faced as a partnership of lawyers are such an interesting read, that it would be correct to say that it progresses as a rough sketch of mercantile lore in Sri Lanka through the prism of a law firm's fileladen offices. 

In 1970 for instance, much after the Daily News comment on being "a law firm to the English planters'', the firm suddenly had to retrench the major part of its staff because nearly two thirds of its clientele had been lost to land reform. But, the De Sarams had long reconciled to the fact that "European economic interests in the island were waning after independence was granted in 1948." 

In 1997 the firm launched its Corporate Law Office, signifying best that it was an outfit that had been amenable to moving on from the sumptuous and altogether more spacious era of plantations and land holdings, to the era of frenzied globalized corporate commerce. 

But yet, everything has changed, and nothing has changed. The top hats, the Daimlers and the European partners are gone, and that's a given. But law firms will be law firms, and they exist somewhat at the periphery of a nation's political and civic life, and adhere, at least from the point of view of detached observers, to quaint lifestyles, in which, normal living seems to be subordinated to files, aratchi's retainers and deed books; and of course the spirit of a stoic dedication to winning cases and securing clients.

"The introduction of a Western judicial system has encouraged lawlessness,'' it is noted in the book, in a quote from G .K. Pippet's "A History of the Ceylon Police". 

"Progress was retarded by a system which encouraged litigation and the exploitation of an agricultural people…'' Pippet noted. Litigation has certainly progressed. 

Any De Saram would have told you, that's what a law firm is all about. 

Correct the errors before it is too late

Well if you bet a couple of hundred rupees that it would be published the next Sunday, you would, sadly, have lost. For the newspaper in its journalistic wisdom chose not to publish it that Sunday and even the following Sunday, possibly because of the serious factual errors and other inaccuracies in Ms Colvin's articles and in the newspaper, raised in it.

In fact none of the letters written by Sri Lankans commenting adversely have been published.

Instead, it published two letters paying high tribute to Ms Colvin and The Sunday Times for taking on their weighty shoulders a great humanitarian cause.

Anyway, since The Sunday Times claims it has received many letters, I hope that we don't have to wait until all those are exhausted, before it considers correcting the factual mistakes.

One of the major factual mistakes made by Ms Colvin, as I pointed out is in claiming that the LTTE emerged in 1983. That too only after Sinhala mobs killed Tamils and destroyed their property.

Journalists have written this story. They know that the riots were sparked off by the LTTE killing 13 soldiers in Jaffna on July 23,1983. Anybody who covered the dreadful, traumatic riots as I did, knows the whole incident first erupted on late Sunday afternoon when the funerals of the soldiers at the Kanatte cemetery were delayed and the incensed mourners rioted.

When the riots broke out in earnest next day it turned out to be an orchestrated event.

But to claim as the award-winning journalist Marie Colvin does, that the Sinhalese suddenly turned on the unfortunate Tamils for no apparent reason, is a palpable falsehood, a travesty of the truth. This is one of the matters I raised with The Sunday Times.

If The Sunday Times refuses to correct the factual errors its writer has made, it would appear that it wants to hide from the public its journalistic shortcomings and is ready to compromise journalistic ethics to do so.

Or perhaps the factual errors were deliberate and possibly intended to give the world an entirely false perspective of the Sri Lankan conflict.

Whatever it is, Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry and diplomatic missions must act swiftly to correct such obvious and dangerous mistakes. There is no point in noting them and filing them for posterity.

The failure to do so gives credence to such errors and leaves a false impression in the public mind. To fail to act when such action is urgently required, is to fail the Sri Lankan people. For that they must be held accountable, now or later. 

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