FORTHCOMING OVERSEA VISIT (Statement by the Chief Minister)

The Chief Minister (Mr D. S. Marshall): If it please you, Mr Speaker, Sir, I should like to make a statement on my forthcoming visit.

Sir, I have received an invitation from the Government of Ceylon to visit Ceylon, and I shall be their guest on the 2nd and 3rd of December. I have also received an invitation from the Government of India, and with my colleague the Assistant Minister for Commerce and Industry (Mr J. M. Jumabhoy), will be their guests in Bombay on the 5th, and we will be in New Delhi between the 6th and the 9th of December. I am scheduled to be in London with the Minister for Labour and Welfare (Mr Lim Yew Hock) and the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing (Inche Abdul Hamid Bin Haji Jumat) between the 9th and the 16th of December. Although the suggestion, Sir, originally came from the Secretary of State that it would be helpful if we were to visit England towards the end of this year, there is no indication as yet that we will be the guests of the United Kingdom during our seven-day stay in London. We will, however, be the guests of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State at official functions. On our return journey we have been invited by the Pakistan Government to be their guests, and it is probable that all three Ministers will be in Karachi for one or two days.

I should like to indicate briefly the reasons for these courtesy visits and the London visit. During the many functions that attended the Colombo Plan conference, Sir, here in Singapore, I became conscious of feelings of friendship for Singapore and strong sympathy for its political aspirations from many countries, both inside and outside the Commonwealth. The visits to Ceylon, India and Pakistan are intended to strengthen this friendly feeling and this sympathy. I would add that I expect to learn a great deal from the leaders of these countries who have arduously blazed the trail to independence, a trail which we are now following. All Singapore, I am sure, is proud of the honour India, Pakistan and Ceylon do us in extending these official invitations.

On the visit to London, I wish to reiterate that, apart from seeking to obtain clarification of the British Government's attitude to the Labour Front's citizenship proposals, we shall seek officially only to fix a date for a constitutional conference and to agree on an agenda. For the rest, Sir, during those seven days my colleagues and I will be addressing a large number of gatherings. We will seek to make England conscious of the fact that in this lovely island of ours there are more than 1,200,000 human beings with a human being's primordial urge and moral right to be free from subjugation.

There is one other matter that I would like to touch on. The Government of Thailand has extended an invitation to us to visit Thailand on our return journey. It is our view that the first visit to a close trading neighbour should be of a fuller character than would be possible in this hurried visit. Many of us are conscious of the impetus of the goodwill mission to Indonesia not only in the realm of commerce but especially in the realm of friendly relations which will be an important factor in our future. I have therefore indicated to the Thai Government, Sir, that we are grateful for the honour they do us, but are unable to accept the invitation at present. We look forward with pleasurable anticipation to the possibility of an invitation for a full mission from Singapore to visit Thailand in the new year.