COMMUNICATION BY MR SPEAKER (

Mr Speaker: Before somebody moves the adjournment, I have a communication to make.

On The 25th of July in this Assembly, I was asked by the Hon. the Chief Minister to consider whether a report, which appeared in The Singapore Free Press of Friday, 22nd July, was a breach of the liberties and privileges of this House.

The report was headlined "Royal message attacked" and "MARSHALL: I FELL FOR IT", and reads as follows:

'The Chief Minister, Mr David Marshall, in the special Legislative Assembly meeting this morning said that his faith in the workability of the Rendel Constitution was strengthened by the messages of the Queen and the previous Governor, Sir John Nicoll.

'Referring to the sentiments of the Queen about the constitutional progress of Singapore, Mr Marshall said:

"It was full of promise. I fell for it - hook, line and sinker.

"I believed every word of it."

'Then after a reference to Sir John Nicoll's message, he added: "Now the claws of the beast show through the velvet glove."'

Hon. Members will remember that a Bill the short title of which is "The Legislative Assembly (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance, 1955" went through all its stages in this Assembly and is now awaiting the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure in accordance with section 62 of the Singapore Colony Order-in-Council, 1955.

Certain powers and privileges of this Assembly are defined in that Bill, and clause 24 (1) (c) makes it an offence for any person to publish "any writing containing a gross, wilful or scandalous misrepresentation of the speech of any member in the proceedings of the Assembly".

As I see it, it was perhaps unfortunate that the writer of the article should have seized upon a reference to the Royal Message and made headlines of it without regard to the context of the whole speech.

The Chief Minister appears to have assumed, as he was indeed entitled to assume, that the sentiments of Her Majesty the Queen were, in fact, the sentiments of Her Majesty's Government. To quote the words of Sir Thomas Erskine May:

"The Queen cannot be supposed to have a private opinion apart from that of Her responsible advisers."

The Chief Minister's "attack" (to adopt the word used in the report), as was apparent from his whole speech, seems to me, in fact, to have been an "attack" on Her Majesty's Government and the interpretation put on the Rendel Constitution by Her Majesty's Representative in Singapore.

This regrettably does not end the matter.

The writer, in the first paragraph of his article, has put words in the mouth of the Chief Minister, which I cannot find in the Official Report of the Chief Minister's speech made in this Chamber. In addition, the words in the final paragraph of the article were so taken out of the context of the speech that a reader might well consider that they referred to what is described in the article as "the sentiments of the Queen about the constitutional progress of Singapore".

With these additions, the impression must have been created in the minds of some readers, as pointed out by the Chief Minister, that the Chief Minister was guilty of casting some reflection on Her Majesty. This particularly is extremely unfortunate. I was and am entirely satisfied that no disrespect was shown or intended, and the Chief Minister has himself stated that he personally resents very strongly the suggestion that he should be capable of discourtesy to Her Majesty.

The inclusion of the words in the final paragraph of the article out of the context of the Chief Minister's speech resulted in misrepresentation, which is to be deplored.

But whether such misrepresentation was "gross, wilful or scandalous" is something, which, on the face of the article, is not easily apparent, and if the Powers and Privileges Bill had been law, the appropriate action would have been for me to refer the matter to a Committee of Privileges for further inquiry.

The Chief Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, may I just make a short statement on what you have just read out to the House?

Mr Speaker: Certainly, Mr Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am indeed obliged and very grateful to be vindicated from any charge of discourtesy to Her Majesty, and I feel certain that this House is happy that a charge of that character levelled against a Member should have been so clearly proved to be inaccurate.

Mr Speaker, Sir, representations have been made to me on behalf of the reporter concerned, suggesting that what appears in a newspaper is not always the fault of the reporter, because the manner in which his "copy" is treated is entirely out of his hands, and he is no more responsible for what appears in it than the photographer is responsible who sends in a dozen photographs of me with my hand open in salute and finds that just the one where I had it clenched unconsciously as I stood up is picked for front-page treatment!

I would like to say, Mr Speaker, that I have the highest regard for a very hard-working profession, and journalists work in usually very difficult circumstances, and in the light of the representations made, I am satisfied that, as regards this particular reporter, there was no malice intended; nor, as far as I can gather, was there any effort on his part to distort. I should also like to say that there was no personal reflection on the reporter intended by me in my complaint.