GOVERNOR'S SPEECH (Debate on the Address)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [23rd April],

"That an Address be sent to His Excellency the Governor expressing the thanks of this Assembly for his speech delivered on Wednesday, 9th of April, 1958."-(The Chief Minister).

Question again proposed.

10.02 a.m.

The Assistant Minister to the Chief Secretary (Mr M. P. D. Nair): Mr Speaker, Sir, when the Assembly adjourned yesterday, I was mentioning about the Government's efforts to improve the living conditions of the people in the rural areas. I quoted two very outstanding efforts in this direction, namely, the road development plan and the Rural Development Panel. Besides these efforts of the Government to improve the lives of the people, Sir, the Hon. the Chief Minister has introduced the Factories Bill which is designed to protect the welfare of the working people in the factories.

All this is evidence to prove that the Government is quite earnestly endeavouring to bring prosperity to the people of Singapore. The hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar, Sir, referred in his speech - I quote the Straits Times of 23rd April:

"Referring to the Labour Front Government, he said the party had never grown up from what it was when a group of individuals got together to fight an election and got the surprise of their lives when they became Ministers. They never recovered from the shock."

I think all these achievements of the Labour Front go on to prove that the Labour Front Coalition Government - "the ship" he referred to is safe and sound, and that it is sailing along smoothly in the best interests of the people.

But while the Government is endeavouring to do that, the P.A.P. does not want to do anything about those achievements. They are only interested to know when the elections will be held. This means that the P.A.P. is not interested in the welfare of the people; it is only endeavouring to seek power. We know this; the people of Singapore know it; and I am happy indeed that there are signs to indicate that the people have realised fully the implications of the Member's speech.

Sir, the Government cannot easily give way to the political passions of the P.A.P. It cannot give up its duty to the public. If the hon. Member felt that the ship is sinking, and if the Member can contribute anything to make it safer, I would invite him to join the Labour Front. Failing that, I would request him to mind his own business in the P.A.P. and not try to meddle in the business of the Labour Front.

Sir, the hon. Member also mentioned the over-optimism of his Party's achievements in the forthcoming Legislative Assembly elections. Sir, if only the P.A.P. knew its weakness, it would not boast so much. I am hopeful that even the Member for Tanjong Pagar will admit that the P.A.P. policies have antagonised the people to a very considerable extent. Workers, farmers and hawkers - everybody in Singapore - are completely frustrated. The P.A.P. is gradually losing its faith in the coming elections. The people, too, have completely lost confidence in the P.A.P. For instance, the wise policy of the Labour Front Government has been responsible for winning over all the Chinese middle and primary school students who once backed the P.A.P. to its side.

The working population of Singapore are also dissatisfied with the P.A.P. Sir, the Labour Front Government has always tried to foster good relationships between the employers and the employees. It has been responsible for the promotion of genuine trade unionism in Singapore. Once, the P.A.P. said the same thing. That was when they were not in power either in the Assembly or in the City Council. They had been responsible for telling workers to demand more money and better conditions of service. But today what do we find? They shun trade unionism and they try to make use of the workers for their own interests. Sir, I am not making a guesswork of the whole thing; I have solid proof of this, and I think the people of Singapore also have evidence to prove this.

Sir, the first act of the P.A.P. Councillors in the City Council against trade union interests was this: when the City Council Labour Unions Federation started negotiations with the City Council, the City Council very willingly accepted but when it found that the Unions were not toeing their line, it decided to send its agents to individual workers to split the unity which was existing in the City Council Labour Unions Federation. As a result, P.A.P. agents went into individual houses of the labourers and asked them to accept the proposals put forward by the P.A.P. Councillors. Sir, I think this is a very bad act and I do not think for a moment that this kind of trade union policy is good for this country.

Again, there is evidence to show that the P.A.P. has tried to split the trade union movement in Singapore and to disrupt its unity. Sir, I am now reading a press release which was issued by the Information Bureau of City Hall, dated 22nd March. It states:

"The Chairman of the Labour Sub-Committee, Mr Ong Pang Boon, is happy to announce that 70 per cent of the redundant workers in the City Gas Department have today accepted the Council's ...".

Sir, this was an attempt to break "black legs" in the trade union movement, disrupting the trade union movement in Singapore. This is undemocratic.

Mr Lim Choon Mong (Serangoon): Yellow unions!

Mr Nair: Sir, I do not think that in the history of the Labour Front Government, it has ever engaged people to go out and see workers against a recognised trade union. We have kept our faith with the working people, but today the so-called champions of labour in Singapore are trying to disrupt the healthy trade union movement in Singapore.

Sir, there are also allegations which I received from City Council employees that P.A.P. agents are propagating communalism among the workers. I have heard it said and workers complain to me that the Chinese members of the trade unions have been told, "These 8,000 Indian employees have got an independent country and they can very well go off, and we are going to stick firm to our terms and if we win the day we will see that we will replace them with Chinese and Malay labour." I do not think, Sir, this is a very healthy sign in Singapore. This happened in the Naval Base; this happened in the Harbour Board; and this will happen wherever the P.A.P. has influence in the trade union movement.

All this, Sir, is proof to show that the P.A.P. has completely failed in its policy towards the labour movement in Singapore. Sir, the P.A.P. can only fool some people some time but they cannot fool all the people all the time. The people of Singapore, particularly the trade union people, now realise that all the empty promises all the empty policies which the P.A.P. normally urge before they get into power, will not be fulfilled when once they get into power. This is a solid and concrete example of its policy.

Briefly, Sir, I think the P.A.P. trade union policy is to enslave the trade union people on to its side and make them work as slaves. I do hope that those trade union people in the City Council, in the Harbour Board and in the Naval Base, who have suffered under the P.A.P. trade union policy, will realise where their loyalties should lie.

Sir, I have heard it said that even if the P.A.P. gets a few seats in the Assembly to form a government, it is not preared to form a government. It is afraid of forming a government and face the people. It prefers to continue in opposition and to do the same kind of talking as it is used to.

Sir, the activities of the P.A.P. in recent months have resulted in a genuine fear among the minority communities in Singapore. Recently, one of the P.A.P. leaders in the City Council asked a minority member - an Indian member - to pack up all his things and go to India if he so wishes. The P.A.P. has tried to meddle with the Malays. Sir, very many minority community members have approached me and posed me questions as to their future in Singapore. I have assured them that under a Labour Front Coalition Government, they have nothing to fear. But they are not satisfied. They are not satisfied because of the tactics of the P.A.P. in its treatment of minorities.

Sir, that genuine fear can be seen in writing if one goes outside the Victoria Memorial Hall. The Singapore Indian Congress has called out at a public meeting demanding reserved seats in this Assembly. I do not personally support reserved seats in this Assembly because I believe that communalism has no place in Singapore. But all these demands have now come out as a result of the fears of the minority communities in Singapore if a future government which is opposed to them gets into power.

Before I sit down, Sir, I have to reply to some of the remarks which the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar has made. Unfortunately he is not here to listen to me but I do hope that he will read my statements if the newspapers publish them. Sir, the hon. Member has referred to the sad sights he has seen in which the junior ministers of the Government throw stones at the sinking ship to make it sink faster. I have already told this Assembly, Sir, that the Labour Front ship is safe and sound; it is not sinking. And I would assure him that my relations with the Ministers and Party members are very, very cordial, and I would serve my Party and the Ministers loyally and faithfully for ever. I have been a front-line soldier in the struggle for freedom for this country for so many years, and I have undergone several sacrifices in the best interests of the people. I think the Member has tried to throw a spanner into the works and to disrupt the unity which we have achieved among us. Had it not been for the fact that the P.A.P. leaders waged constant war on individual leaders of the Front and poisoned its members against the Front, the P.A.P. would not have survived. The P.A.P. today, divorced from the anti-British supporters of the M.C.P. members and subversive elements is not worth its name, and all their hopes of winning the 51 seats in the Assembly will remain nothing but empty dreams.

10.19 a.m.

The Minister for Commerce and Industry (Mr J. M. Jumabhoy): Mr Speaker, Sir, whenever the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar speaks in this House, we can always rely on hearing something new. The day before yesterday, the hon. Member gave us a lengthy discourse on how to catch votes. He gave us a brilliant analysis of why, as he alleged, the Labour Front was on its way out. He accused the Labour Front, Sir, not of not doing enough for the people - he has admitted many times in the past that the Labour Front has done a lot of good things - but he accused the Labour Front of failing to capture the imagination of the people. Now therein lies the fundamental difference between us and the P.A.P.

The hon. Member believes in firing the imagination of the people to catch votes. He even cited examples of action which his Party has taken in the City Council, like the removal of the mace and perhaps the firing of crackers. Why, even the ex-Chief Minister goes about brandishing hammers all over the place, and he has got his henchmen shouting slogans, We are leftists! We are leftists!' - as if leftist is a pass-word to gaining access to this Assembly. We are leftists! We are leftists!' by people who depend on trade and commerce for their livelihood, who depend on the flow of trade; they go about shouting `We are leftists, we are leftists'! And brandishing hammers all over Singapore! All very well indeed, Sir, I say, to fire the imagination of the people, but what then? Will the people eat slogans? Do they live on slogans? Do they live on strings of crackers? Do they earn their livelihood by waving hammers in public places? We, Sir, do not believe in these empty things. In fact, that is the fundamental difference between us and the P.A.P. or the ex-Chief Minister's hammer brandishing "heroes".

We believe in serious work. We believe in doing things for the people, in providing education, housing, medical facilities, in broadening the basis of our economy, so that these slogan - calling people of today will find jobs tomorrow when their ardour for waving hammers and shouting slogans has cooled off and hunger gnaws at their insides.

Sir, it is time the people of Singapore are told the truth. It is time the people of Singapore realise that dark clouds are already looming on the economic horizon. It is time they realise that all this shouting of "isms" is not going to fill their stomachs. It is time they realise that if they follow this talk of right, left, left, right, they are very soon going to left, right, left, right themselves to destruction! Just as Hitler's army goose-stepped itself out to oblivion. It is time the people realise, Sir, that the only possible "ism" in Singapore is "practicalism", or "realism", if you like.

What, Sir, is the purpose of our politicians? Is it to gain seats for themselves in the elected Assembly? Is it to fill their pockets? Is it the lust for power? The hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar, Sir, says that it is to capture the imagination in order to catch votes. Then let the people beware of such politicians. For my part, Sir, I am proud to say that I am a businessman by vocation and that I am not a politician, because there is nothing so dangerous as a professional politician who will go to any length to retain his seat. He will not stop at anything. He will lie, he will plot, even betray his Party, his loyalty, just to keep his seat, because to him it means his livelihood - he needs his seat to earn his so many hundred dollars or so many thousand dollars if he becomes a Minister. But does it do any good to the country?

My Party, Sir, stands for Singapore, not for the reactionaries, not for the revolutionaries - these are hackneyed words, Sir, that can be twisted by politicians as they please - words which really have no meaning in an entrepot trading centre like Singapore. Sir, we believe in good government. As an example that anyone in Singapore can see - all the statutory boards and committees - we have not stuffed them with people just because they are loyal to the Labour Front. We have put people on these boards whom we consider are capable of running those boards and undertakings, not caring whether they belong to whatever Party, whether they are in the opposition, whether they wave hammers, or go about with lightning banners, or go about with torches.

Sir, there is an example which is fresh in the mind of everyone in Singapore. The Central Provident Fund - a few days ago we read that the City Council was floating a loan of $30 million and it was said that the Central Provident Fund has promised its support. Sir, if the Government wished it, it could have put pressure on the Central Provident Fund not to lend its money to the City Council, and thereby prove to the citizens of Singapore that the Central Provident Fund Board has no faith in the City Council. But for the sake of good government, we, Sir, do not stoop to such levels of pulling strings behind the scenes. We do not pack the boards with our Labour Front members. We let the boards operate of their own free will. Even, Sir, against pressure from the Member for Serangoon a few months back for the Beehoon Co-operative Society, asking me to put pressure on the Industrial Promotion Board - I point-blank refused to do so. It is true, Sir-

Mr Lim Choon Mong (Serangoon): On a point of clarification, Sir - I certainly have not been putting pressure on the Minister because pressure would not do any good, but it was persuasion on my part to see whether he would see the right path to fulfil a promise made by him.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Thanks to the Member, Sir, for clarification - "persuasion" can be in inverted commas. But, Sir, I have not made such a promise because in fact legally I have no right to ask the Board to fulfil any promises I make. Otherwise it could mean I could make promises to so many people: "vote for me and I will get all the money for you from the Industrial Promotion Board." If we come to that stage, Sir, then I say that Singapore is not worth living in, and therefore I refuse to meddle. When I set up a board, I say, let the board work according to its own conscience. We heard criticism yesterday of the Singapore Improvement Trust delays and I have all along personally been sympathetic with the criticism, because I myself have fought the S.I.T. for five years during my political career, over delays. And I say that just because a board is under the control of a particular Minister, that is no excuse for the Minister to defend it. If that board does things wrong, let it get public criticism.

Mr Lim Choon Mong: Abolish it!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: It is going to be abolished.

Sir, in short we stand for Singapore and the good of the people of Singapore, and we will go to the people, Sir, on the past performance of the Labour Front. We will go to the people, Sir, telling them honestly what the future is, and what the remedy for the future is, and how far that remedy can succeed, and what are the pitfalls in the future. In these days, Sir, of dishonest, power-seeking, budding dictators, this may sound unbelievable, but it is true. We are not going to thrust ourselves on the people with lies and slogans to fire their imagination. We are going to be frank and honest with them. If they still wish to choose dishonest slogan-shouting fanatics, it is their funeral. They can have the choice and they are welcome to it. I for my part, Sir, am entirely against politics as they are today, with all the dishonesty that is going on in politics today. And it is not only our misfortune, Sir, that politics are dishonest; it is the misfortune of many other countries in Asia today, where there are politicians who are out for power and for personal gain. I, Sir, quote what the President of the Republic of Pakistan said on 23rd March. This is what he said:

"Pakistan is riddled with insincerity, disloyalty and lack of consistency. Self is universally above service."-

How true also of Singapore-

"All that matters is the craze to make money or gain power."-

And I can tell the House one thing: the man who holds my seat in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry can make a fortune if he wishes to; and perhaps there are many who are after it just for the sake of making money. [Interruption].

Mr Speaker: Order.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: It is true. I am not speaking of any particular person, but there are many; I can see on the political horizon many figures who are just out to fill their pockets if they can get hold of that ministry.

Then the President of Pakistan goes on to say - no - the Prime Minister of Pakistan has this to say, Sir:

"I cannot help reminding you that the economic difficulties with which the country is faced are due to a large extent to unstable political conditions."

Again how true of Singapore; not because this Government is unstable because it has not got an elected majority. That is a lie. Stability is not the word. This Government is quite stable. It has carried on for two years and it is going to carry on for another year. But it will not, if as the Chief Minister said we find that our purpose for governing is over. We are not going to occupy those seats if we are not wanted. Instability here means instability created by these budding dictators who shout their heads off with leftism, rightism, this-ism, that-ism.

"The paramount need" - I quote again, Sir, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, "The paramount need of the moment is sound and stable political conditions within the country, and unless we have such conditions, it is futile to hope that we can bring about balanced economic conditions." Hear, hear, I say! "Politicians are perpetually engaged in unprecedented political manoeuvring." How true! We have people crossing the floor of this House left and right, right and left, and who even will bring in a hammer if Mr Speaker will allow so.

"This absorbing game of permutation and combination in which various political groups have been indulging in with such abandon must cease. We should know that this pastime no longer evokes any response except one of disgust at home and amusement abroad." In our case, Sir, it is not just amusement abroad, it is our livelihood; it is cutting off our stomachs.

Mr Speaker: Will the Minister identify those papers?

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Sir, this is from a Pakistan press release dated 23rd March - both of them are dated 23rd March - and this was quoted in the local newspapers but I could not lay my hands on the local newspapers.

Sir, even the Prime Minister of India, the man whom every Asian today respects as one of the biggest leaders of Asia, he, speaking of his own Congress Party, one of the biggest political parties in the world, said this, "We are worried about many things and most of all about the lowering of standards of political behaviour." This is from the Straits Times of 5th April. What matters to us, Sir, is that Singapore has the same problems. Democracy unfortunately is probablly not as suitable here as it is suitable in some countries in Europe. Perhaps we start with democracy but we might end up with dictatorship - with these goose-stepping, left-right, left-right, slogan-shouting, hammer-waving fanatics. Let us hope that democracy is not killed at the inception.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng (Changi): I endorse it.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Sir, in Singapore we have people who are out to exploit emotions. Emotionalism is their stock-in-trade for they have nothing better to offer. You have the hammer-waving ex-Chief Minister calling loudly for trade representation in China - an issue that is calculated to arouse the emotions of the Chinese people: Our motherland, our fatherland, we must have trade representation.' Naturally they will support the man who says, We must have trade representation in China.' Then somebody else starts shouting, `Minority seats for the Indians' and so on. Does the ex-Chief Minister justify the need for trade representation in China? What likely benefit is this going to bring to Singapore? He does not state that our trade, our imports are much more than our exports to China. He does not state that the Chinese Government's policy is to purchase direct from producing countries and therefore since we have nothing of our own to send to China she is not going to buy from us more. The only profit will be to China to sell more consumer goods to us, goods which are not costed, which are produced with cheap labour, like the eggs, and dumped on our market. And that will mean that in the end our labour will have to cut down its wages and lower its standard of living. Then what happens? This is muddled thinking, muddled thinking which is misleading the people of Singapore.

Then we also have this hysteria about the postponement of general elections by a few months, if compulsory voting was introduced. Sir, we have waited one hundred years to get rid of colonialism, but these hammer-waving fanatics, and even for that matter the hon. Member for Telok Ayer, cannot even wait a few months more in order to ensure that the democratic right of voting is exercised by everyone who is eligible to exercise such a right. Sir, the Member for Telok Ayer and the hammer-waving fanatics are at one with each other in this respect.

Mr R. Jumabhoy (Telok Ayer) rose -

Mr Speaker: Is it a point of order?

Mr R. Jumabhoy resumed his seat.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: This is not the first time, Sir-

Mr Speaker: Order. No point has been raised. Please continue.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Sir, these people have no patience. They want to get at the plums of office immediately but they have no constructive economic policy. Sir, I challenge the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar - I am sorry he is not here but I am sure that it will be conveyed to him by his colleague (the Member for Ponggol-Tampenis) - I challenge him, Sir, to come to this House and debate the economic policy of the P.A.P., what the P.A.P. is going to do on the economic front if it gets into power. So far the P.A.P. has talked in broad outlines, but what is its true economic policy? It has never publicly announced, "We are going to do this, we are going to do that." In fact, most of these Parties, what they do is they talk in broad outlines and just in order to get into power, play on the sympathies of the people on emotional issues, shout about colonialism which is a dead horse already and flog it. That is all they can do.

Let me warn the House, Sir, and let me warn the people of Singapore, that the future is bleak as far as economic conditions are concerned, and that that is going to affect every man, woman and child in Singapore. It is not just a matter for those sitting in this House or for those who carry on trade. It is a matter for every man, woman and child. They earn their livelihood because of the economic prosperity of the colony. If that prosperity goes, they are sunk. And I am not going to be a partner, Sir, to that sort of destruction.

Sir, in England when the Nazi bombers were hammering away at England in the battle of Britain, Sir Winston Churchill said all that he could promise was blood, sweat and toil. Blood we have had, Sir. Not much, some; but if we are not going to sweat and toil from now on and forget all this nonsense about isms and slogans, we are going to get more blood, Sir, more blood - secret society activity, gangsterism, murders and, possibly, riots, because when men's stomachs are empty they will go to any length to fill them.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng: Then the P.A.P. will come into power.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I say, Sir, let us forget all this nonsense. Let us get together. The time has come for all good citizens who are honest to get together in saving Singapore from dishonest politicians.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng: Hear, hear!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Coming down to more mundane affairs, Sir, of day-to-day administration - the hon. Mr Sutherland piously hoped that every Party will improve and encourage capital investment. It is with tongue in cheek, Sir, that politicians talk of encouraging capital. I remember, Sir, a delegate from Hongkong to the ECAFE Conference went to see his Lordship or Worship - I do not know the right term - but he went to see the Mayor, and the Mayor agreed with him that we need more capital here, we need industrialisation. Yet - I am sorry, Sir, that the Member [for Tanjong Pagar] has just come in - yet what is his Party doing? What steps is it taking to see that capital investment is encouraged? All the actions that it takes and all the actions that its rank and file take - some even following hammer wavers of another Party-

Mr Speaker: Order. The Minister is perhaps getting a little too excited. I cannot allow pointing at Members, at the same time using the pronoun "his" - I think it is the Member for Tanjong Pagar.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I am sorry, Sir, but when I think of the damage that is being done to Singapore, I cannot contain myself.

Mr Speaker: Address the Chair, Mr Minister.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Yes, Sir.

Sir, all these politicians who talk with tongue in cheek of encouraging capital, of encouraging investment in industry - are they really doing it? They are killing all initiative for capital to come here.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Incentive; the Member has got it mixed up.

Mr Speaker: Order. Let us not have unnecessary interruptions.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I am not an expert in the colonial language, Sir, as the Member for Tanjong Pagar evidently seems to be, together with other colonial addictions like golf, and beer and Studebakers.

The hon. Mr Sutherland expressed another hope that the Industrial Promotion Board should develop now into something bigger than what he called "a pilot scheme". Sir, let me remind him that I wanted to set up something bigger from the very beginning. This Board is just an apology, because I could not get the bankers and insurance companies to come in and participate with Government on a fifty-fifty basis for industrial development. If the hon. Mr Sutherland can use his good offices I will be very happy to sit down and discuss and find ways and means of enlarging this proposition.

Sir, the Member for Ponggol-Tampenis suggested that the Labour Front has gone all-out to achieve a lot during its fourth year, and he asked why could it not have done this before? Perhaps, Sir, that is lack of understanding. There are many things which need a lot of time in planning, and when the planning stage is finished, then only can you bring it to accomplishment. And therefore the first few years have got to go into planning these things. When things are ready, they appear on the stage. The appearance on the stage is always at the last minute. The planning takes a much longer time than the showing on the stage.

The hon. Member for Queenstown, Sir, was shouting at the portion in His Excellency the Governor's Speech which said that the Government, with the assent of the United Kingdom Government, would decide on trading relations with other countries - or words to that effect. He was not aware, Sir, of this portion in the White Paper which was published when the All-Party Delegation returned - perhaps I may quote it for his benefit:

"We recognised, however, in our discussions on this subject that international law made it impossible to create an `international person' responsible only for certain specific fields of external affairs of any one territory, with the result that so long as the United Kingdom Government remained responsible in international law for the external affairs of Singapore, they could be held ultimately responsible for any agreements made by the Singapore Government." And so on; then it continues:

"We therefore agreed, particularly in order that the exercise by the Singapore Government of the powers delegated to them should not be called in question by other Governments with whom they might negotiate, that the Constitution should provide that the Singapore Government would act in these matters with the assent of Her Majesty's Government.

"We therefore agreed that the Constitution should contain a provision on the following lines:-

Her Majesty's Government to have the conduct of external defence and external relations, provided that the Government of the State of Singapore, acting with the assent of Her Majesty's Government, shall have the power to initiate and conduct matters ..."

That, Sir, is part of the agreement. It is nothing new that has popped out of Pandora's Box.

The Member for Queenstown goes on to talk about our fishing industry. "How can you encourage local fishermen when you also encourage foreign fishing companies?" Sir, fisheries is something different from many other things. Fish is the cheapest form of protein that could be made available for the people in general. People like the Member for Queenstown could probably go and buy more expensive types of proteins like pork or mutton or beef, but the poor people have to depend largely on fish for their proteins. And therefore it is Government's duty not to restrict activities just for the sake of safeguarding the livelihood of 4,000 inefficient local fishermen. It is Government's duty to see that the catching of fish-

Mr Lee Choon Eng (Queenstown): Has the Government done anything?

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: -is efficient. It is true, that the supplies of fish are thereby increased so that the price of fish comes down but people in general can now get a type of protein which is available at prices which they can afford to pay.

Mr Lee Choon Eng: They are inefficient because -

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the habit has arisen of unseemly interruptions. If the hon. Member for Queenstown thinks he has been misunderstood, then he can rise, and I am sure the Minister will give way for an explanation. But a murmured interruption, I think, is disorderly.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Sir, he said that the training scheme we have cannot succeed because of inadequate salaries, and he suggested pre-sea training schools. Sir, pre-sea training schools are a costly affair, and I do not think that we have the right kind of material for those schools yet. But we are planning to have courses in our village schools now, schools in the rural areas, on fisheries, on agriculture and so on. That is being prepared now and I hope it can be put into operation shortly.

But as regards the salaries paid by the Japanese companies to local trainees, he said they were inadequate. That is not so; those salaries were fixed by the Apprenticeship Training Committee. However, for his enlightenment, I will quote these figures, Sir, to show the type of material we have in Singapore. The total number of trainees recruited in 1957 was 170; the number of trainees resigned after less than one month, 41, or 24%; number of trainees resigned after one month, 26, 15%; number of trainees resigned after two to three months, 28, 16%; number of trainees resigned after four to six months, 19, 11 %; number of trainees resigned after seven to twelve months, 4, 2%; number of trainees still in service, 52, 32%; but out of the 52 trainees still in service, 33 have been in service for only one month, 13 for periods ranging from two to six months, and six only for periods exceeding six months. In other words, out of a total of 170 trainees recruited, only six trainees, or 3½%, can be said to have taken on the idea of serious training for these offshore fishing projects. The wastage is 96½%. Now, Sir, with this type of material-

Mr Lee Choon Eng: On a point of clarification, Sir. The reasons for these mass resignations are entirely due to the fact that they are not given proper training and not given the proper type of work that they are supposed to be training for. As I said yesterday, they were used as deck-hands and similar work - is that the proper type of training?

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: That, Sir, is not so. Whenever somebody is inefficient, he blames somebody else. It is like using "colonialism" for hiding inefficiency. When you have nothing else to offer the people, you say, Colonialism, leftism, this-ism, that-ism, that is all! It is not so, Sir. These people do not want to work. That is true, and nothing that we do about it is going to make them. Sir, these people go out to the sea. First voyage they go out, they come back and say, "We cannot stand the sea, we cannot stand the sea; the China sea is too rough." If that is the type of trainees we are going to have in Singapore, God help Singapore, I say, Sir.

We have got to produce hardier types of youngsters - youngsters who will fight to keep their place in the world. This is not the type of material and that is why I say that we want to start with the villagers in the rural areas, teach them the fundamentals of fishing, of agriculture and so on. And then give them the training - not these people. Even if you pay them a higher salary, you will not get the right type of men.

On the industrial front, hon. Members may be happy to hear that the Chief Minister has issued a circular to heads of Government departments, and all the Ministers have issued similar circulars to heads of statutory boards and committees within their control and attached to that circular is a confidential approved list. For items on this approved list, whenever they are purchased by any of these bodies, they are forced by compulsion to buy only local manufactures. Formerly they had a choice. A circular had been issued by the ex-Chief Minister saying preference must be given, but from my experience - from bitter experience - I have learnt that that "preference to be given" remained on paper - no real preference was given. Heads of departments, Sir, have been prejudiced against local manufactures. I have checked certain items of local manufacture and found that they are comparable in quality and price, and that the factories are capable of producing to capacity to meet demand, and there can therefore be no excuse for heads of departments now to say that they will not buy them. If they have any real excuse on any item they can come to me and put their case before me, and if I find that they are justified I will remove it from the approved list. But if not - I will stand no nonsense, and I am sure the Chief Minister is with me in that.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Hear, hear!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: They must buy local manufactures in spite of all their likes and dislikes about foreign manufactures. That is a practical step.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: The P.A.P. line.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Oh, I am glad, Sir, that the P.A.P. is falling in line with us; the right wing of the P.A.P., Sir, may one day come to the Labour Front; it looks as if we have not much difference.

Sir, the Member for Serangoon says the Governor's Speech is filled with pious hopes. That is not true. The Speech is filled with solid facts of what legislation we are going to bring to this House, what we are going to do in this last year of our office. Comparing with past speeches, this may seem to be a fruitful one as the Member for Ponggol-Tampenis pointed out, but as I said, planning had to be undertaken and this is the result of previous planning.

I have already given a solid example of what we are doing in the field of encouraging industries. The other one of course is the point-blank statement in the Speech that pioneer industries legislation is being drafted. I can assure this House that that legislation is in the draft now and should be before this House in the course of the next three or four months, I should say - I hope earlier. That legislation would mean, in the layman's language, "tax holidays" - what period and what type of "holidays" I am not allowed to disclose at this moment.

Then, Sir, the Member for Serangoon asks, "More home-grown food - what are you doing about that?" Sir, what we have done about it I will tell him. The rate of inoculation of poultry, from 3,000,000 per year in 1955 has gone up to 7,000,000 per year last year, and now the House is going to be asked for a further sum for the Veterinary Department which will make the rate of inoculation go up to 11,000,000 or 12,000,000 per year. That is solid work. It means that the farmer can rest assured that he will not lose large numbers of his stock in the hazards of diseases beyond his control.

Then in 1955, Sir, when this Government took over, the poultry production rate was 5,000,000 per year. Last year it was 22,000,000. As I said the day before yesterday in answer to a question, the prices of poultry and eggs have come down by about 30 per cent in the last three years. Pigs - we were importing - 60 per cent we were importing before; today we are exporting. All this, Sir, shows the attention given to growing more food. And on top of that now, Sir, the Rural Development Panel is being set up and that panel will co-ordinate all activities connected with the rural areas - the necessary road-making, assistance to farmers in different forms, and so on. Once that panel gets going, you will see the rural areas receiving much more attention than they have in the past. The whole question is one of finance, Sir; finance plays a very big part; one would like to do many things but one can not do all those things because of lack of finance.

Sir, the entrepot trade is not going to remain for ever. That I have told this House time and time again, even though the Member for Telok Ayer might say that he has said it before me. It is true. I can see the clouds looming ahead and I have warned this House many times. I warn the House and I warn the people of Singapore not to rely on the entrepot trade only. It is not going to last. It has lasted you a hundred years, you are lucky; it is not going to last another hundred years, even though civil servants might say, `We have survived the last hundred years and we will continue to survive.' I say that that trend of thought is dwelling in the past. They do not understand what the future is; they cannot accommodate themselves to the developments, political and otherwise, of this area.

A suggestion was made, `Why do we not cut down costs by mechanising the Harbour Board?' That is being done. The Harbour Board is being mechanised, and I think the hon. Mr Tan Siak Kew, who is a member of that Board, would know about it; and extensions are being made to the Harbour Board's berthing space.

Sir, a suggestion was made to encourage local shipping. Now we have in His Excellency the Governor's Speech a paragraph which says that discussions are going on with neighbouring governments to allow local masters to have bigger scope for operation. In fact these discussions have been going on for more than a year. But I am sorry we cannot rely on ourselves alone in this matter because these ships ply between the Federation of Malaya, Singapore and the Borneo territories, and we have got to get the agreement of all these three governments before we can move in this direction.

Another suggestion was that we should try to encourage local shipping - that is locally registered, locally owned ships. Now, Sir, that is not easily possible. Firstly, even if we do, most countries would insist that their cargoes should be carried in their bottoms - their own cargoes - we have no cargoes of our own to carry in our own bottoms. If we say tin and rubber must be carried in our bottoms, the Federation is going to say "in our bottoms, not yours; it is our tin and rubber".

And then there is the surprising suggestion from a businessman, Sir, that perhaps - this Government is a bad government; the Member for Telok Ayer says this is a bad government - the next government might consider legislating that all coastal trade should be carried in our ships. What is the length of coast we have, Sir? We are only a tiny island of 225 square miles. Our ships will go round and round the island? We cannot even do that because there is the Causeway. We cannot legislate for our ships to carry coastal trade to the Federation because that is the Federation's coast, not ours. How can you legislate for going into other territories? If you do that and say our ships must carry the trade, they are going to bring in counter legislation.

This, Sir, is an example of half-baked political ideas without proper debate, without proper understanding of the problems, and that is what the country is going to fall for hook, line and sinker in the next elections - half-baked politicians with half-baked theories.

Perhaps we could establish trade missions.' Trade missions are a costly business, Sir, If a Minister goes to another country and spends $800 to attend a ministerial conference like the Colombo Plan Conference - in a ministerial conference, Sir, other countries too send ministers - and incidentally we get an advantage out of it by getting something free from Australia, by saving several hundred thousand dollars due to a rice deal with Thailand - he is asked, Why did you spend $800?' This in spite of the fact that the same hon. Member could go gallivanting round the world as a Member of the Legislative Council of the old days without any responsibility to the people.

That is their attitude, Sir - miser-like - shall I say Scrooge-like - I think that is the word.

Mr Speaker: Order. First, of course, I must discover whether the Minister is using those expressions in relation to a Member of the Assembly. If he is, he will have to withdraw those expressions.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I am sorry, Sir, I meant it as a sort of general charge on people who make such charges.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng: Do not be excited!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I am sorry, Sir, I have got to say these things. It hurts me as much to say it, but we must face the truth.

Sir, the Industrial Promotion Board should not require stringent securities and so on, the Member for Serangoon suggested. But, Sir, we are trustees of public funds; it is not our money. If the I.P.B. feels that a risk is not worth taking, it is up to it. If the money is lent and does not come back, the same hon. Member will say `Why was money lent to so and so the taxpayers' money?' Sir, naturally the Board has got to see that what money it lends is not given merely for the asking. And I strongly support it. These Boards should not be used for political purposes because if they are the Party in power can make sure that it can buy all the votes through these Boards. And the same thing about beehoon, Sir,I say the bee-hoon industry - the way they put forward their proposals - they do not deserve any assistance from the Board, and the Board has now put to them counter-proposals, telling them what to do in order that they can qualify for the loan.

Sir, on "vacant land". The Member for Serangoon (Mr Lim Choon Mong) said that there is a lot of vacant land and that Government should set aside some of it and allow farmers to develop but as everyone knows, Sir, the problem is that once you let anybody occupy land that is set aside for later development for hospitals or schools he is not going to get out when it is wanted back. You give him a contract - everything typed neatly, signed, and so on - which says that he is temporary and no more and when after five years you tell him, "Sorry, we want to build a hospital; will you go?", he will run to the Opposition politicians to put pressure on the Government. That is what is happening here - like the case of the illegal attap huts in Kampong Amber - and then you do not get your hospital, you do not get your school, because the land is not available. The occupant will say, "Put me on another piece of land. Give me compensation." All with the tax-payers' money, mind you, for which the politicians are acting as trustees!

Sir, there was a suggestion that more experimental roads should be built. I agree, Sir. More of everything should be done. It is only a matter of finding the money. If we come to this House and raise taxes, there will be a howl, "Why do you raise taxes and why do you need so much money, this and that?" Well, if you are not going to raise taxes, then you cannot get more of everything. It is just simple logic, but of course maybe some Members here are not accustomed to logic. They go more for emotional issues.

Sir, "Deep-sea fishing licences were turned down." That was the allegation made by the Member for Serangoon. That is not correct, Sir. These licences have not been turned down. I have got the figures. Sir, when we opened up this deep-sea fishing joint project with the Japanese, the first lot was to be only three licences for approva4l as a pilot scheme. When we found that the scheme was successful, we threw it open to all applicants provided that they complied with certain conditions we laid down. Since then, 16 applications have come in. Out of those 16, when correspondence took place between the Ministry and them, asking them to comply with those conditions, only four showed interest. The rest just backed out. Out of the four, two were approved, one has been refused and one is still under consideration. So not many licences have been refused! These are facts.

Mr Lim Choon Mong: Not much progress.

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: Well, not much progress because out of 16, only four showed interest - 25 per cent. The rest were frivolous applications.

The Member suggested, "Let us follow others if the Government has no original ideas." The tax holiday is not something borrowed from the Federation, as the Member suggested. In fact, in my statement to the Assembly on 7th November, 1956, I said this:

"Government is investigating the question of making tax concessions to industries whose expansion or establishment it is desired to encourage."

That was 7th November, 1956. The fact that we could not get on with it was because income tax is a Pan-Malayan subject and we have got to keep in line with the Federation. Sir, it is not something that we have borrowed from the Federation. Rather it is something that we have brought out ourselves and which is now being adopted on a Pan-Malayan basis.

We have an `advice section' in the Ministry which gives advice to all those who ask for it. If anybody is interested in getting advice he can go there and he will be given all the assistance he requires; the Industrial Promotion Board also gives assistance. I personally, Sir, give a lot of assistance and advice to many people who come asking about the possibilities of opening industries. I give hours of my time to that.

Mr Lim Choon Mong: A considerable length of time!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: It is true. I work at night because I cannot work during the daytime. I bring files home at night and that is a cause of constant quarrel between my wife and myself.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Passing time!

Mr J. M. Jumabhoy: I did not know what the new words "Pl. D.W." which the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) quoted yesterday meant until I heard what he said.

"The S.I.T. delays the passing of plans." I admit that there is some delay but we do all we can to help in that and an approach to the Ministry or to the Industrial Promotion Board would solve the headache much quicker.

Sir, as for the Member for Farrer Park (Mr A. R. Lazarous), one wonders if he became a Member of the P.A.P. whether he would be in the Left or the Left-Right or the Right-Left or the Left-Left-Right. Perhaps we might even see him bringing in a "hammer" to this House one of these days - if you will permit it, Sir, which I am sure you will not - but he can use it outside.

Sir, the nominated Member Mr Tan Siak Kew said with regard to the Industrial Promotion Board, "There is a danger of spoon-feeding industries without ascertaining the bona fides of the enterprises or the sponsors." That is exactly what I say, Sir, that we should stop any spoon-feeding and that is why I tell the Member for Serangoon, Sir, that we should not put political pressure but that we should see whether the industries are capable of establishing themselves if given a helping hand.

Sir, the hon. Member also said, "Do not meddle in the entrepot trade." Now, Sir, it is not our intention to meddle in the entrepot trade. In fact, what we want to do is to help the entrepot trade and we have in the past, in many instances, helped the entrepot trade considerably. For instance, Members must have read in this morning's papers that three ships which were detained by the Indonesians for so long have been released. That was as a result of strong representations made by my Ministry. Likewise, in the past, some other ships were detained and again we took the matter up strongly with them. There were also impossible barter trade recommendations or proposals last November and we took it up strongly with the Indonesian Consulate and told them, "This is impossible. You will kill all the trade." In the end we got them to agree to scale down the proposals so that the trade could continue. These things go on behind the scenes, Sir. We do not put loudspeakers outside the Ministry like the City Council does and blare it all out. Neither do we issue bulletins every day like the City Council does, "$10 for the relief fund or this or that." If we do that, Sir, I am sure that a lot of paper would be required and our estimate for stationery will go up.

We come to Australian timber duties. There was a proposal to increase import duties in Australia on Malayan timber. There again we made strong representations through Mr Leembruggen who was the Malayan Deputy-Commissioner then, though we do not know the outcome of it yet.

The Australian Apple and Board is another example. We been fighting constantly with Australian Government regarding this Board.

Copra from the Philippines is a recent example. When supplies from Indonesia were cut off, I took the matter up with the Secretary of State and said, "We must have dollars to buy copra from the Philippines." Then getting his agreement, I took it up again with the Federation because the dollar question is Pan-Malayan. When I was up in Kuala Lumpur "spending public funds" on travelling up there for the E.C.A.F.E. Conference, I took the matter up and got the Minister to agree and there was a joint statement issued by us.

There is the case of relaxation of duties when India put into the preferential category what so far had been treated as non-preferential. That was in 1955 when I went up to New Delhi with the ex-Chief Minister (Mr D. S. Marshall) and later on to Bangalore for the E.C.A.F.E. Conference. I took it up personally.

These are the things, Sir - there are a lot of things - you cannot do by correspondence. You have got to have personal contact and if Members of the House are going to take a "skinflint" attitude about it, well, then we will not have these benefits. That is all.

Rice exports, Sir. "The merchants were in difficulties because the 21-day period of exemption for the export of rice was found to be inadequate." We said, "We will give another 21 days." And so on.

In Colombo, payments were stopped by the Ceylon financial authorities for shipments of chillies made by local Indian merchants. I took it up with the representative here and then gave letters of introduction to the Indian Chamber's delegation which went there and as a result we got the money released. These are some of the things, Sir, that we have done.

Reduction in copra freight rate, Sir. The Nominated Member Mr Tan Siak Kew will bear me out on this, that I took this matter up with a leading member of the Conference when we were having lunch together and the Ministry then made representations. As a result, there has been an increase in the copra trade lately.

There are many other examples I could quote, Sir, but commerce is a subject on which you do not advertise. Secrecy is the essence of trade and commerce and therefore we do not advertise all these things.

Sir, I think I have exhausted the formidable list that I had and I have nothing more to say except that I hope the public will take note and give due consideration to all these things. As I said, the future is not bright; in fact, the future is bleak.

11.12 a.m.

The Assistant Minister for Labour and Welfare (Mr Mak Pak Shee): Mr Speaker, Sir, I quote what dying Horace Greeley exclaimed:

"Fame is vapour; popularity an accident; riches take wings. Those who cheer today will curse tomorrow. Only one thing endures - character."

Mr Speaker, Sir, character is the only diploma that God gives man.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) just left the House thinking that, after he had quoted Hamlet and Macbeth in the past, he would not like to hear what I have to say.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar referred to the Straits Times alleging that I, as Chairman of the Attap Dwellers Association, criticised the Government's land resettlement policy. His remarks did not come to me as a surprise, used as I am to the policy of the P.A.P. which delights in hitting below the belt.

Sir, I have here with me a petition from members of the Association who have been evacuated from Queenstown to the various resettlement areas in the Colony, it is a lengthy document and to read it here will be to take up the valuable time of this House which has a long agenda in front of it.

Any hon. Member who wishes to know the contents of this petition is welcome to read it.

This petition was tabled at the extraordinary general meeting of the Attap Dwellers Association held on Sunday at the Singapore Badminton Hall. It was read out by the Hon. Treasurer who later, at the request of the Press, passed it on to them to copy.

How the Straits Times came to put the words of this petition into my mouth I do not know. It may have been the enthusiasm of the reporter or for some reason best known to the newspaper.

Mr Speaker, Sir, before I sit down, I should like to point out that it is the Party to which the Member for Tanjong Pagar belongs which does not fulfil promises. We can see ample proof of this in the City Council where the employees are in revolt against a Party which claims to be the "champion of the workers".

11.14 a.m.

The Minister for Education (Mr Chew Swee Kee): Mr Speaker, Sir, I will not indulge myself in the political "isms" of this House. However, I would like, at the risk of repetition, to say a few things about the achievements of the Labour Front especially after the attack by the Member for Telok Ayer (Mr R. Jumabhoy) that the Government has done nothing during the past three years. Once the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) told me - he rather seems to be an expert on Marxism - that if you tell a lie often enough the people who listen to that lie will be inclined to believe it. Well, I am not quoting any lie; I am merely quoting facts and figures to show what the Labour Front has done. Perhaps people might forget about these things.

Since the Coalition Government came into power, there have been many outstanding achievements which stick out a mile. We have, for instance, Malayanisation in which all the posts of Permanent Secretaries to the various Ministries are now held by local persons who have been appointed irrespective of whether they are members of any political Parties or have any political affiliations or of race.

We spent, in 1957, more than $50 million on education - an increase of over 40 per cent over the expenditure for 1956. The Government's readiness to grant financial aid to the Nanyang University, as announced by the Hon. the Chief Minister, is another proof of our sincerity towards Chinese culture and Chinese education.

There are many other achievements, such as the Shop Assistants Employment Ordinance and the Clerks Employment Ordinance whereby the workers now enjoy limited hours of work, extra pay for overtime and maternity leave for the women workers. There is also the other major achievement in citizenship whereby all aliens who have hitherto not been given the chance or right to take part in the affairs of Government are now given such right both in the City Council and the Government. Trade unions for the first time in the history of Singapore have been given the absolute right to strike. These are but a few of the achievements and I would like the people to know, as I said at the risk of repetition, such worthy achievements of the Labour Front and we will go to the next elections with those achievements in front of us.

While hearing the speech of the Member for Farrer Park (Mr A. R. Lazarous), I was rather amused. At one time it sounded to me as like an overture to an application for membership in the P.A.P. At the next moment, I thought it was a censure on the P.A.P. leader (the Member for Tanjong Pagar in this House) and at another moment, I thought that he was a spokesman for the City Council in this Assembly. I am not surprised at all in view of the mental attitude of that Member.

Coming to more mundane matters that have been put before the House. Sir, the Member for Queenstown (Mr Lee Choon Eng) and the Member for Telok Ayer (Mr R. Jumabhoy) touched on the question of the omission of the Tamil language in the Governor's Speech. Well, the Governor's Speech is only a statement of broad policy. It does not give details. But to set at rest the minds of the hon. Members referred to and especially the minds of the Indian public in the Colony, I give the assurance that, as far as this Government is concerned, Tamil education enjoys equal status with all the other three, namely, Malay, Chinese and English. Now, Tamil teaching in the primary English schools started in 1952. There were then only eight full-time teachers teaching that language in 32 primary English schools. This year, Tamil is taught in 110 schools by 53 full-time teachers; almost all of them being trained either in India or in Malaya. The number of pupils learning Tamil as a subject for five days of the week during school hours is now 5,926. Now, I will give the comparative figures of the number of pupils in the various schools during the period under review. As I said, in 1952, there were only 32 schools teaching Tamil. This year, we have 110. The number of pupils in 1953 was 1,228 with seven teachers. In 1958, we have 5,926 with 53 teachers. In addition, we have Saturday Tamil classes being conducted in several schools. Attendance and progress at these Saturday Tamil classes are very satisfactory indeed, although some parents are reluctant to send their children to Tamil classes held on Saturdays mainly because of transport difficulties or some parents prefer their children to be taught Tamil at home. In 1957 also, a common Tamil language paper was set by the Ministry for Primary VI pupils to assess the progress made in the teaching of Tamil in primary English schools. The paper set was of Grade III standard in Tamil. Out of 343 candidates who sat for that examination in November 1957, 142 were successful. Now, Tamil classes were also conducted for pupils in English secondary schools. They are now being conducted at Beatty School and Raffles Institution and these have carried on since 1956. I have still more figures about Tamil education to prove that the Government has not left out Tamil education at all. It is treated at par with all the other three languages and that is the policy of this Government.

The Member for Queenstown also touched on the matter of an architectural course in the Colony. Well, I advise the Member for Queenstown who is not here to go to the Singapore Polytechnic and he will be given the syllabus for an architectural course. We are providing an architectural course in the Singapore Polytechnic and the degrees awarded by the Polytechnic will be recognised.

The Member for Serangoon (Mr Lim Choon Mong) stressed the importance of vocational schools for children. In view of the large number of children in Singapore and the large number who cannot benefit from a secondary education, the Ministry has now in the planning stage an artisan school. Overage pupils or pupils who cannot go to a secondary grammar school or those from Chinese schools who do not have satisfactory academic qualifications will be given an intensive artisan course to fit them to take up a trade after they have passed the examination set by the artisan school. This will be a pilot scheme for a Trade Training Centre which I propose to set up in Singapore in the coming years. Of course, the Trade Training Centre will be a very costly affair and it needs a lot of planning as regards costs and teachers and it will be several years before it comes into existence.

Those are the few facts as I have expressed them, as there are indeed very few comments on the work of my Ministry.

11.24 a.m.

The Chief Secretary (Mr E. B. David): Sir, I do not wish to take up the time of the Assembly any longer than is necessary but there are just two points I wish to touch on.

The first concerns the matter of law and order and in particular the police. It is my impression that all hon. Members would be agreed on two things: firstly, that the present level of crime and lawlessness in Singapore gives grave cause for concern; secondly, that if this state of affairs is to be successfully tackled there is only one way of doing it and that is through the joint efforts of the police and the public working in co-operation. What hon. Members have concentrated on in this debate and in the debate which we had yesterday on the two Bills which were approved are the shortcomings of the police which they claim to militate against the development of this co-operation. I shall, Sir, be dealing with some of the specific points in a minute but I should like to say at the outset that I have been frankly disappointed that in all the comments that have been made in the course of the debate on this motion as well as on the Bills there has not been one word of credit, one word of commendation or one word of encouragement for a body of men who are faced with as formidable a task as perhaps faces any police force in the world and who by and large as a force are working night and day to the best of their ability and with a considerable measure of success despite the limited co-operation they receive, striving to do their duty by their fellow-citizens of Singapore.

Sir, the Member for Changi (Mr Lim Cher Kheng) who I am sorry to see is not in his place drew attention to the reference in the Governor's Speech to the morale of the police and I understood him not to understand what was meant. Perhaps I could draw attention to one example which took place recently when a police officer off duty walking along a road saw two gangsters making an attack with acid bombs. He gave chase and single-handed he tackled them despite being attacked himself and burned by a bomb thrown by one of these gangsters and he succeeded in achieving the capture of one of these two men.

Sir, if there are shortcomings in the police, we shall certainly do our best - and I speak for the Commissioner on this also - to remedy them. If there are black sheep, we shall do our best to discover them and weed them out. Above all, we shall do our best to break down this barrier between the police and the public and my hon. friend the Member for Seletar (Mr M. P. D. Nair) has already detailed some of the measures we have taken.

Sir, it would be idle to pretend that shortcomings do not exist and that there are no black sheep to be found but if you took any other community, any other body of persons in Singapore today, do hon. Members not think that the same position or even worse would be found? Let us at least maintain a sense of proportion in this and let us think how many persons in Singapore outside the police share responsibility for the present state of affairs.

Much has been said of secret societies. As a relative newcomer to Singapore, I cannot vie with certain others in my knowledge of these bodies but one thing is very apparent and that is the alarming extent to which these secret societies have extended their tentacles into so many activities in Singapore. If these tentacles have penetrated the police force, as the hon. Member claimed, is that altogether so surprising when it is clear how widely they have penetrated elsewhere? The hon. Member for Changi suggested that it is the deliberate policy to recruit secret society or ex-secret society members into the police force. That, Sir, I emphatically deny. Whatever may have been the position in the past, that is certainly not true today. Moreover, there is no direct recruitment to the C.I.D., as the hon. Member implied. All entrants today are recruited to the uniformed branch of the force, and only after they have completed their training and preliminary service are they considered for service with the C.I.D. There are certainly opportunities for corruption in the C.I.D., but the Commissioner is very alive to these risks and to the advisability of making regular transfers, and there have, in fact, been a number of transfers in that branch recently.

One hon. Member suggested that the lack of information from detectives in the C.I.D. was due to their secret society connections. Another hon. Member, however, complains because disciplinary action is taken against those who are not doing their jobs. He claims that this is causing dissatisfaction. It seems to me, Sir, that these two accusations cancel each other out.

I was urged by the hon. Member for Changi to recruit more Chinese into the force. My answer to that, Sir, is that we welcome every Chinese recruit we can get. The hon. Member also invited me to make a comparison with the police force in Hongkong. That, Sir, I would find a very invidious task, but I will say this: that I think both forces are confronted with very exceptional and very formidable tasks and that, to the best of their ability, they are tackling those tasks courageously. It may be that Singapore has something to learn from Hongkong. It may also be true that Hongkong has something to learn from Singapore, and it may interest the hon. Member, whom I am glad to see back in his place, to know that when I arrived in Singapore, among those to meet me on the quay was the Commissioner of Police, Hongkong, who was down in Singapore to learn what he could from the Singapore police.

In conclusion, Sir, may I reiterate that this problem of lawlessness is one on which we have all got to pull together. If there are faults with the police, we will try to remedy them. If there are faults with the public, let us try and remedy them also, but above all, let us try and approach this problem in a constructive and not a destructive spirit.

Sir, the only other matter on which I wish to touch was a remark dropped by the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar in the course of his speech to this motion. He will perhaps forgive me if I have forgotten his exact words, but he indicated that if he and his friends won the next election, they intended to govern, and if they received any obstruction from the civil service, then swift retribution would follow. Sir, I hope that all political Parties will always subscribe to what is a fundamental principle in the working of a democratic administration-that the public service must be immune from all forms of political influence, political pressures and political threats. Whichever Party wins the next election and forms a government will inherit a hard-working and an honest and loyal public service. It is the duty of the public service to carry out the policies of the government in power at the time; it is their duty to deal with the day-to-day minutiae of government business within the framework of the policy laid down by the government; and it is also their duty to advise their elected Ministers on the problems that come up and to give that advice to the best of their ability; and I can assure the hon. Member that the present civil service will always subscribe to and carry out those duties. I do, in all earnestness and sincerity, appeal for the maintenance of this principle, that there should be no attempt to undermine the integrity of the civil service, since I feel it would be a sorry day for Singapore if-

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Point of order, Sir, I take it the Chief Secretary considers that his remarks apply equally to the civil service of the local government and that they should carry out the policy of the Party which is entrusted with the administration of local government?

Mr David: If the hon. Member is referring to the City Council, then I certainly agree that the public service is there to carry out the policies of what ever body they are serving.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: On a point of clarification, Sir. And that therefore the Chief Secretary would deplore a civil servant of the local government authority saying that the policy of the Mayor-

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr R. C. H. Lim): Order, please. I think this should be put in the form of a question. The hon. Member should not question the Chief Secretary at this stage. Will the Chief Secretary carry on, please?

Mr David: Sir, I have nothing further to say, but I was dealing with the question of general principle, because it is one on which I feel very strongly and I feel it is in the essential interests of Singapore that the principle I have outlined should be observed.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: And by civil servants.

11.39 a.m.

The Financial Secretary (Mr T. M. Hart): Sir, in the course of an intemperate speech yesterday, the Member for Pasir Panjang claimed that I was in sympathy with him in certain matters. I take this opportunity of saying that, while I am in sympathy with any one who is anxious to reduce costs and save Government money, I am certainly not in sympathy with any one who takes advantage of his privileged position as a Member of this Assembly to make a completely unjustified and uncalled-for attack on officers who, by reason of their employment, are prevented from countering the attack in the manner which it deserves.

The accusations of corruption and obstructionism which the hon. Member levelled at officers of the Improvement Trust are completely without foundation and are, in my opinion, unworthy of a Member of this Assembly.

The officers of the Trust whom the hon. Member has chosen to calumniate are men of integrity who have worked unselfishly in the interests of the population of Singapore. Their technical skill is of a high order. The buildings which they have erected will stand as a permanent memorial to them. The Government thinks so highly of their services that it is prepared to offer them a full career in the new Housing Authority if they are prepared to accept it. What I am afraid of is that the intemperate attack of the hon. Member may make them doubt the advisability of doing so. Recent events in the City Council must already have given them pause to think. It would be a tragedy if these officers were to leave because it would mean that the building activities of the Trust would virtually cease.

To accuse these officers of corruption, "grabbing" (whatever that may mean), and self interest is quite inexcusable. To do so under cover of privilege is worse. At no time has any evidence of corruption or the like ever been adduced against these officers either to the Minister or to the Corrupt Practices Bureau. The hon. Member, who is so free with his general accusations, certainly has never done so. I challenge him now to produce evidence to substantiate his accusations. If, as I suspect, he cannot do so, I call on him to retract at once and offer his apologies to the officers concerned.

I also challenge him to give the name of the member of the Board of the Trust who stated that the officers of the Trust were capricious in the movement of the boundary lines of planning zones. If he cannot or will not do so, I call on him to offer his apologies to the Board of Trustees whom he has involved.

The hon. Member's accusations of obstructionism are equally unjust. I have been a Member of the Board of Trustees for considerable periods over the past 6 years and have now a fairly intimate knowledge of the workings of the Trust. The Planning Department of the Trust is an efficient body which has worked under considerable difficulties. Planning during that period has been subject to many restrictions, principal amongst which is the preparation of the Master Plan. But the officers of the Planning Department have been invariably helpful to all who wished to develop land and have gone out of their way to assist architects and their clients. There have been delays. These were inevitable when staff was short and working at full stretch. It will interest hon. Members to learn that in 1956 (the last information I have), the Planning Department dealt with 1,347 applications. That is no mean achievement. I have seen or heard no evidence of obstructionism. Admittedly, being busy men and human, the members of the department may possibly have given short shrift to humbugs and people who sought to circumvent the rules. On the contrary, I have been impressed by the trouble which the officers of the Trust, and the Planning Committee, which consists of the Chairman of the Rural Board and 4 unofficials, take over applications. Much time is devoted to explaining the reasons for decisions to applicants, their lawyers and architects, in committee. No plan is rejected except by the Board of Trustees as a whole. I speak from experience when I say that consideration of plans takes up an inordinate amount of the time of the Board. The Board consists of a majority of unofficial members who represent the views of the City Council, the Rural Board and the population as a whole, together with senior officers of the Government and the City Council. On many occasions I have heard the views and feelings of applicants expressed at Board meetings by unofficials. Invariably they have had a fair hearing and on a number of occasions the plans have been referred back for further consideration. In short, Sir, the Planning Department of the Trust works efficiently and fairly and without wilful obstruction of legitimate demands. I call upon the hon. Member to substantiate his accusations to the Board of Trustees, or failing that, to apologise to all concerned.

The hon. Member made reference to one-room housing in Hongkong and suggested that we follow the same model here, implying that we have taken no action in this connection. We also have made enquiries in Hongkong and officers of the Trust have visited the schemes there. What the hon. Member failed to make clear was that these one-room flats are for refugees from China and were built as a temporary solution to an extremely urgent problem. They serve their purposes very well in Hongkong but they are not quite suitable for Singapore. The Trust has already designed a rather better one-room flat with kitchen and bathroom accommodation built in. A trial block of these flats will be started in the near future and it is hoped will prove successful. If so, more will be built.

Lastly the hon. Member mentioned the P.W.D. and P.W.D. costs. I am not prepared to embark on a discussion of P.W.D. costs at this time. The matter has already been explored by the Estimates Committee and doubtless will be explored further. I am however anxious to do everything possible to reduce costs of buildings generally. The hon. Member took me to a block of flats recently to show me what could be done for prices which he said were considerably below those of the P.W.D. I am neither an architect nor a builder and have no expert knowledge of these matters. In the circumstances, I am reluctant to express an opinion. I am even more reluctant to use the cover of privilege to express opinions which might be misinterpreted or hurt feelings. My views on the design and workmanship of the flats which I saw, by comparison with those constructed by the P.W.D., have been conveyed to the Minister and I shall be prepared to repeat them, if called upon to do so, to the Estimates Committee. I am afraid that it is not a matter of unconditional agreement with the views expressed by the hon. Member.

There is another matter on which I should like to touch.

In my capacity as Financial Secretary, I am concerned to a certain extent with the credit worthiness of Singapore and consequently the credit worthiness of the City Council. That is my reason for touching on the affairs of the City Council in this debate.

The City Council is about to float a loan of $30 million for the further development of its electrical, gas and water undertakings. If it cannot float this loan, these undertakings, and consequently the development of Singapore, must suffer. It has been promised support by the Central Provident Fund but it also hopes to persuade holders of another City Council loan which is about to be redeemed, to convert into the new loan and it hopes to obtain support from other private provident funds, and possibly from members of the public.

Quite apart from the present floatation, the City Council will continue to require loan capital in large quantities for some years to come.

The City Council will not obtain the funds it requires unless its policies, organisation and method of running its business command the respect and confidence of the subscribing public.

It is not for me to attempt to assess in this place the effect which recent events must have had on this confidence. I merely ask, with such sincerity and earnestness as I can command, that the City Council should bear in mind the need to promote confidence in itself in the eyes of the investing public, - and this includes the Board of the Central Provident Fund - if it wishes to obtain the funds for the development which it rightly regards as so important.

11.50 a.m.

The Assistant Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing (Mr Tan Theng Chiang): Mr Speaker, Sir, in the course of this debate, the hon. Members for Queenstown and Serangoon and my colleague, the hon. Member for Pasir Panjang, have spoken on those passages of the Governor's Speech concerned with public housing, the new Development and Housing Authority, land clearance and resettlement, and land use and control.

We have heard harsh criticisms because the Development and Housing Authority has not been established. Land use and control as envisaged in the Master Plan has been scorned and described as arbitrary.

The Singapore Improvement Trust has been accused of obstruction while the integrity of its staff has been disparaged in the most uncalled for manner.

The legislation in respect of the new Development and Housing Authority has admittedly taken a longish time, but that has not prevented housing going ahead more rapidly this year. The legislation is in its final draft stages and will come before this House at an early sitting - in about June. Earlier introduction of this legislation has been complicated by the fact that since the new Development and Housing Authority will not have planning functions, as in the case of the present Singapore Improvement Trust, it has also been necessary to provide for the establishment of a new Planning Authority to be charged with planning responsibilities. Two Bills, therefore, will shortly be introduced. Basically, however, it can be said that delay in introducing legislation or creating the new Authority has not in itself impeded progress in the provision of housing. Had a new Authority been created earlier, this would not have helped the situation which depended basically on the resettlement of families before more houses could be built.

The most unfortunate single factor impeding the rapid provision of housing so urgently needed for the low income groups of our population has been due to the fact that almost all the urban and suburban sites required for public development have been and are occupied by families who, if evicted, would suffer great hardship. As a consequence, public housing and other development has inevitably been slowed down - and in some cases has come to a stop. It was not until the Government established a Land and Resettlement Authority to overcome this problem by properly providing alternative accommodation, either by rehousing or resettlement, that any headway could be made in the provision of houses for the general public. The Resettlement Department up to date has:

Acquired 19 areas for resettlement and allocated farms - altogether 3,870 acres have been so allotted.

Developed 16 areas of Crown land amounting to several thousand acres.

Mapped and designed a further 12 areas amounting to 4,680 acres.

Settled 1,235 old families and 1,032 new families. A further 2,000 vacant lots are now ready for allocation.

In the last year, approximately $1,800,000 was used to this end, while a further $2 million is included in the Estimates for this year.

As regards public housing, only 1,274 housing units and 70 shops were completed in 1957; whereas 4,815 housing units were completed in the two years 1955 and 1956. Now that the Resettlement Department is succeeding in resettling families, more rapid strides are being made with low cost housing and at the present moment the situation is much more satisfactory in that a further 4,971 housing units and 127 shops are under construction. A further building programme - Programme No. 9 - providing for a further 3,500 ordinary dwellings, 95 cottages and 95 shops will shortly come before the House for financial approval.

As may be seen, therefore, despite difficulties, Government has succeeded with resettlement and public housing. In fixing rents, Government has also taken into account the needs of the low income groups in order to bring S.I.T. homes within the reach of ordinary working families. Accordingly, two-room flats either built or are now being built under Programme No. 8 at Kallang, Albert Street, Rochore Road, Bukit Timah Road, New Bridge Road, South Bridge Road, and elsewhere are let at subsidised rents of only $35 per month, although the economic rent for such a flat is more than twice that amount. As a further concession-

Mr Lee Choon Eng: Point of information, Sir. May I know from the Minister, Sir, when he refers to a two-room flat which is subsidised by Government at $35 per month, does he really mean two bed-rooms or only one bed-room and one sitting room?

Mr Tan Theng Chiang: When I say "two-room flats", it means a bed-room and a hall. As I was saying, Sir, as a further concession, rents of only $30 per month are charged for such flats in respect of tenants rehoused as a result of slum clearance.

The special needs of Malays are also provided for. Malay settlements are being further developed and with the establishment of the Malay settlement at the 8 milestone West Coast Road in September last year, there are now two Malay settlements in Singapore. The first Malay settlement at Jalan Eunos is being extended by the addition of a further 164 acres to provide accommodation for 700 families. The immediate development of 34 acres to provide accommodation for 186 families has already begun. The lots have been surveyed and 40 lots have been pegged out. This means that allocation can proceed within a week or so. A third Malay settlement at Ayer Gemuroh is also under way. The present Kampong Ayer Gemuroh occupies an area of 21 acres. Plans for the extension of this area to give a total area of 95 acres to provide additional accommodation for 400 families are envisaged.

I should now like to reply to criticisms concerning land use and control. As already stated, planning legislation is shortly to be introduced. This legislation, coinciding with the approval of the Master Plan, is designed to implement the Master Plan. A Notice of Approval is about to be gazetted together with information concerning the exhibition of the approved Master Plan, with an explanation of all its provisions. The Master Plan represents the culmination of many years' careful study of all those aspects of life in Singapore which materially influence the use of lands and buildings, and provides a blue print for the future development of the whole island, taking into account, in the light of our rapidly increasing population, our future expanding needs for homes, schools, public services and utilities, new urban and suburban centres, including new towns, improved road communications, industrial expansion - all of which are designed to offer a better future for the people of Singapore.

There is nothing arbitrary about the Master Plan. Objectors to any of the provisions of the Master Plan were given the opportunity of having their objections heard at a special Court of Inquiry held in 1956. Hundreds of objections were heard and the Plan has been amended in many ways. Hon. Members will have an opportunity shortly of expressing their views on the final provisions of the Master Plan when the planning legislation comes before this House.

Concerning the Singapore Improvement Trust, we have heard accusations of delays and obstruction. Regarding planning approval by the S.I.T., this organisation has also suffered from shortages of staff which in the past may have caused delays in the consideration of plans.

Mr Wong Foo Nam: Eight years.

Mr Tan Theng Chiang: The situation today, however, is much happier than in the past. There is only one plan in the Singapore Improvement Trust which was received prior to the 1st of March, 1958. Every other application received before the 1st of March, 1958, has been dealt with. On an average, the S.I.T. receives about 150 plans each month for consideration. Plans are, in fact, now being dealt with expeditiously.

As regards the number of houses or buildings which can be constructed per acre, densities are laid down in the Master Plan and take into account the proper use of land and availability of services etc, over the next 20 years. Clearly proper control to prevent the reversion to slums, to safeguard against haphazard development and to ensure cohesion and use of available services is a fundamental necessity. The provisions of the Master Plan were made public in 1956 and objectors had an opportunity of stating their views, including questions of density.

The accusations of corruption in the S.I.T. are more serious. The hon. Member who made these accusations also referred to two specific instances of which he described as futile delays or obstruction. His disappointment in matters in which he was personally concerned can be understood, but an attack on the integrity, of the S.I.T. on such grounds is unwarranted-

Mr Wong Foo Nam: That is the police evidence.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr Tan Theng Chiang: It is not only unwarranted, but it is unfair and unethical. In one case a planned roundabout required a building to be set back - this was in the interest of better highways and traffic flow, in the other case, an ancient monument had first to be dispensed with owing to its dilapidated state of repair before new development could proceed.

As regards corruption, general accusations without substance are not good enough. The Ministry of Local Government has not received a single specific allegation from the hon. Member concerned. It would be relevant to enquire if he has placed his special knowledge at the disposal of the Commission dealing with corruption or the Corrupt Practices Bureau. Until proof of any general or specific corruption has been established, his accusations stand refuted. Certainly disappointment or the disapproval of development projects which are not in the interest of Singapore does not constitute corruption.

Mr Deputy Speaker: I suspend this sitting to 2.30 p.m.

Sitting accordingly suspended at seven minutes past twelve o'clock to 2.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m.

The Clerk: Honourable Members, I have to announce the unavoidable absence of Mr Speaker.

Whereupon Mr Deputy Speaker took the Chair, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Question again proposed.

The Assistant Minister for Education (Inche Mohamed Sidik Bin Haji Abdul Hamid): Mr Speaker, Sir, I have been listening to the debate on the Governor's Speech for three days now. During this debate, this House has heard that the Assistant Ministers have been adding holes to the ship which has already been holed by some other persons. I can assure this House, Sir, that we the Assistant Ministers are sincere and honest to the skipper of the ship who is leading us to the land of prosperity and we will remain together with the skipper whether the ship floats or sinks. We believe in the leader who navigates the ship and we believe that the skipper has gone through all sorts and has succeeded in weathering the storm.

Sir, I would like to tell this House, as one of the citizens of Singapore, that I believe in one "ism". The "ism" in which I believe is "realism". For the last 61 years, Sir, I have lived in Singapore. In the old days, we had no Party leaders but what we had were community leaders. These community leaders, when they assembled together, had a sense of believing and trusting each other for the welfare of the country and the people. Today, we are being given the chance of having Party leaders and when we gather under such leadership, we do not have the sense of believing and trusting each other.

As regards the criticisms which have been thrown at my Ministry with which I am concerned, they have been fully answered by my Minister. I have got no more to say on the subject.

Today, we have a Government which has been elected by the people. If the Opposition thinks about the welfare of the people and the country, they should at least have the sense of telling this House what good the Government has done, but for the past two days and today, we have heard nothing except the criticisms that have been levelled against us. Do you think, Sir, that that is fair after what we have done and what we have gone through? Indeed, we have done it for the sake of the people.

This country depends on commerce. We depend on capital. If there is unrest, the money will surely go out from Singapore. We will then be left with nothing and we will see nothing else but frustration.

Sir, I have one thing more to say: let us be united for the good of the people and the country.

2.36 p.m.

Mr William Tan (Tiong Bahru): Mr Speaker, Sir, it surprises me to find so many beautiful promises in the Governor's Speech. It is apparent to the smallest child that these promises cannot be carried out in so short a time that is left for the Government. We heard on Tuesday the P.A.P.'s arrogant boast that they will capture the Government during the next general elections. I for one do not believe that Government will fall into the hands of the P.A.P. So far, they have managed to fool a section of the people. They have misled the workers and the students by shouting slogans like, "Down with colonialism!" Today, in the City Council, the workers have awakened to the truth. They find that the P.A.P. can be more hard-hearted task masters than the colonial officials. Today, the workers have found the truth. Tomorrow, the students will see the light. They now know what the P.A.P. really stands for - a Left-wing organisation dedicated to the destruction of our Island Home. The leaders of the P.A.P. have proved in times of crisis to be shiftless whenever there was action taken against the extremist elements in the P.A.P. Where were the Right-wing leaders of the P.A.P.? Sir, I regret to note that the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) is not here to hear what I have to say, as I have the facts that even the Member for Tanjong Pagar at the time of crisis was having his golf vacation in the Cameron Highlands, far away from the place of disturbances. Sir, the P.A.P. has fooled many people in the past; they cannot fool them any more.

Yesterday, I said that I would speak on the incidence of crime. During Operation Dagger', hundreds of people have been arrested just because they have tattoo marks on their bodies. That does not mean to show that they are members of secret societies. I am not protecting members of secret societies. Despite these arrests, even the Hon. the Chief Secretary (Mr E. B. David) admitted yesterday in this House that crimes have increased. Now the police would be the first to admit that a tattoo mark does not necessarily mean membership of a secret society. Many innocent people have been put in fear just because of Operation Dagger'. Many in their ignorance have suffered untold hardships by disfiguring themselves just to remove the tattoo marks from their bodies and a few have died after applying acid on these marks. This has shown clearly that the police have been barking up the wrong tree.

With your permission, Sir, I would like to read from column 10 of the Governor's Speech:

"The Government pledges itself anew to safeguard the welfare of the people of Singapore, to raise their level of living and to use this last Session towards achieving these ends."

Sir, can Government tell us how it will carry out this pledge? Will it proscribe the P.A.P. who have saddled the people of Singapore with the threat of strikes in the City Council? Will the leaders of these extremist elements be sent to join the backseat-drivers of the People's Action Party in jail? The people of Singapore would like to know the answers to these questions. Let Government speak.

I am also deeply shocked at the speech made by the Hon. the Financial Secretary (Mr T. M. Hart) this morning when he challenged the Member for Pasir Panjang (Mr Wong Foo Nam) about allegations against the Singapore Improvement Trust. I have no self-interest in this question but I would like, with your permission, Sir, to inform the House that on the 28th of March, 1958, I sent in a Question to the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing (Inche Abdul Hamid Bin Haji Jumat) to supply monthly figures of applications submitted to the Singapore Improvement Trust for approval under sections 61 and 62 of the Singapore Improvement Ordinance in the years 1956 and 1957 and the figures to show the numbers of applications approved, the numbers of applications received and the numbers of applications approved and outstanding at the end of each month. I have received a letter from the Hon. Mr Speaker who informed me as follows - I quote the third paragraph:

"Your Question has been considered by the hon. Mr Speaker and I am directed to inform you that this is inadmissible because it concerns a matter for which the Minister is not responsible."

Sir, after these allegations, charges and counter-charges, challenges and challenges, I for one would be most happy if the Government would set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate into this matter. This is very important and I personally would strongly support such a Commission.

2.43 p.m.

The Minister for Health (Mr A. J. Braga): Mr Speaker, Sir, this is a debate on the Governor's Speech which affords an opportunity for Members to criticise the Government and to offer constructive criticisms or suggestions. Several hours have been absorbed by a number of speeches. What have you heard, Sir? A lot of time was taken in chest-thumping and trumpet-blowing for his Party by the leader of the P.A.P. - the reason I suppose is that he has no one else here to blow his Party's trumpet-the usual tirade and dismal warnings of destruction and doom for the Parties which constitute the Government. One would have thought he was addressing the hundreds of eager listeners gathered from those who flock to the City Council galleries. The Government for which he predicts doom has steered courageously - with the welfare of Singapore and its teeming population always at heart - through troubled seas. The passage is like crossing the English Channel. Shortly after leaving calm waters, one meets choppy seas which at times increase with unabated fury, and without a determined man at the helm the ship flounders.

The Government has fulfilled its duty and obligation to the people of Singapore under the able and persevering foresight of its helmsman - our Chief Minister - who will hand over his stewardship with the pride and satisfaction that the Government has not failed to govern wisely and achieve much in its short term of office. Bouquets though sparing have been handed to us by some Members on the opposite side. An hon. Member, though an expatriate, who by his very profession and daily experience, knows and feels the pulse of the business and economic world, has offered his commendations - and a Member of the Liberal-Socialists in all honesty has said for the Government, "Give credit where credit is due." But he was immediately contradicted by his Party Member (the Member for Telok Ayer) - of course, any mud-slinging from this hon. Member is understandable. He says that the Government has achieved nothing but when faced with realities of the Government's good work he grudgingly glosses them over with the trite phrase that we are paid to do our duty.

In speaking of the Governor's reference to the inevitable merger with the Federation of Malaya, he says that he is tired of its repetition. I wonder if the hon. Member realises how tired every one in this House is of listening to his reiterations that the Government is composed of an elected minority, and how flat that sounds today.

Amongst other things, the Member for Telok Ayer inferred that in the field of health, Government has achieved nothing. Surely he is not blind to the fact that the Government has been able to add nearly 2,000 beds in its term of office and, by way of comparison, may I remind him that from 1946 to the end of 1954 at a time when I think he sat in the Legislative Council only 340 beds were added by the previous Government? Of course we were paid to do it!

Let me take another example. Government has increased in the rural areas maternity and child welfare centres from 40 to 54 - a provision at the rate of one centre for every 10,000 persons - and this measured by international standards is no mean achievement.

The Government has laid stress on two matters of policy calculated to improve the health standards and reduce pressure on hospital beds: health education for which the Health Education Council was formed and the provision of domiciliary nursing facilities. I could enumerate a number of other rapid advances in the Health Ministry: the addition of mobile dispensaries, floating dispensaries for the islanders, and so forth, in keeping with our promise to bring the health services to the people. Also, during our term of office, we have won the coveted Kettering Shield awarded to a Commonwealth country which gives the best infant service. But, of course, to the Member for Telok Ayer, we have achieved nothing.

Each elected Member on the Government Front Benches and those Back Benchers who will face the electorate in the next elections can do so fearlessly, and with pride and satisfaction in our achievements.

2.50 p.m.

The Minister for Communications and Works (Mr Francis Thomas): Mr Speaker, Sir, our Chief Minister in moving this Address to His Excellency remarked that constitutional developments in Singapore were a challenge to the people to make democracy work and if democracy is going to work in Singapore we shall need a higher standard of democratic leadership than the Opposition has so far been able to produce - at least in this debate. It has been a saddening experience for the lovers of democracy to listen to the extraordinary hotch potch, the sayoh rampai or chup-chye dishes they have served of confused and muddled scraps.

There is no evidence by and large in the Opposition of any attempt to do any work before this sitting, or even to know the facts. Government has been attacked where it should not have been attacked, where the facts surely and clearly do not justify it. I might even suggest that where we could have been attacked, we have not been attacked. Probably they have not taken the trouble to look for the suitable points of attack.

Democracy is not an easy form of government, Mr Deputy Speaker - but the hardest form. In order to succeed in democracy, you must have at least three essentials and one is a fairly high standard of living. We have got that in Singapore. Then we must have an efficient civil service to transmit the political decisions into the field of administration, and thank God we have an efficient civil service in Singapore. The third requirement is the very highest qualities of character in the people and in their leaders because democracy means that you have got to accept unpleasant facts and deal with them and vote if necessary for higher taxes on your own income and that is what people do not like to do. These three essential bases we have got in Singapore but we by no means have them permanently and certainly they could be lost. I shall be saying a word about the civil service later on.

We have already had a number of words about our national wealth and how it is exposed to forces outside which cannot be controlled and we need in our leaders - if we are going to have democratic leaders - a capacity for hard work, a sense of responsibility and commonsense which have not been easily found in many of the speeches from the Opposition today.

We heard a number of speeches about the City Council and the suggestion from one Member that the City Council is in danger because the P.A.P. were in control. The fact is of course that the PAP, are not in control of the City Council. Nobody is in control; that is where the danger lies. There is no Party which is able to run the City Council. All can have a veto but none can have a policy and that is a very dangerous situation indeed. If it came to be so in this Assembly after the next elections, it would mean disaster for Singapore. Any particular Party may have wrong policies and do great harm but it is better to have even a Party with bad policies ruling the country than to have no rule at all. The tragic breakdown of democracy which has been taking place progressively in France is a clear indication of the danger that we too could run into here if we cannot get our political situation put into order. I do not regard the events in the City Council myself as very significant or menacing. Somebody said in horror how two City Councillors leaving were actually in danger from the excited crowd of people outside and had to be escorted out to their cars, as if it was a new thing; but it is not a new thing. It happened in the old City Council. I think it was over the question of the delimitation of taxis when a couple of City Councillors had to be escorted out to their cars because there was a small crowd outside making hostile gestures at them.

Hon. Members have done a great deal of free advertising for the P.A.P. in the course of this debate. The debate has turned far more on the P.A.P. than on any other subject, as though the P.A.P. was the big bad wolf coming to eat them all up. I do not think that the P.A.P. is a big bad wolf and I do not think that it is going to eat us all up either. It is not my job to give publicity to the P.A.P. They are just a Party like any other Party. If they succeed, it is because they work hard and maintain unity. If they fail, it will be because they have stopped working hard and do not maintain unity.

I just take one point from the P.A.P. leader (the Member for Tanjong Pagar). He made one remark that the hon. Mr Sutherland had praised the present Government and that this praise was the most damning thing that could be given to the Government because it came from a banker. I do not agree at all. Any Government in Singapore which wishes to succeed in its task must hope for the general approbation and confidence of the banking and trading houses. I have here an interesting magazine called Far East Trade. If the P.A.P. Members would like to borrow it from me, they can see that the world of commerce and finance looks at Communist China from a purely practical point of view. They express no views as to the moral value of the Communist form of government but they are certainly not intimidated because the government is Communist. They consider it purely from the point of view of whether they can effectively do trade with China and that is the sort of Government we want in Singapore. It is when people look at us and say, "Singapore is the place through which and with which we can trade with confidence," that our trade will grow prosperously and that there will not be some ridiculous breakdown which will stop us trading and increasing our profits.

This debate has gone on for a considerable time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I must deal with one or two matters. I am the acting Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing. There have been some attacks on the S.I.T. which have been dealt with already but I feel that I shall be shirking my duty if I did not reply to them in my own way as well. We heard suggestions of things being wrong with the S.I.T. which were based on misinformation - failure to find out what the current facts are - and my hon. colleague the Assistant Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing (Mr Tan Theng Chiang) gave facts. Although there may have been delays in 1950, 1954 or 1956, the state today is that not one plan has been with the S.I.T. for more than seven weeks, that is to say, since the beginning of March. All other plans have been dealt with. That is the fact but hon. Members of this House are not prepared to deal with the current facts. They prefer to go back far into history and thus create confusion and waste the time of other people.

The Member for Tiong Bahru (Mr William Tan) went so far as to call for a Commission of Inquiry. Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, here is the Report of the Inquiry Commission into Allegations of Corruption against Members of the Legislative Assembly or of the Public Service, or against Members or Employees of the City Council or other Statutory Bodies in Singapore, together with a Statement by the Government. It was appointed in April last year - just a year ago - and the report has been in his hands now for some little time. I do not find his name amongst those who gave evidence to that Commission of Inquiry although presumably he had the facts then. He has not just learned them but he sat back thinking, "Let this Commission pursue its course and find no truth in the allegations. I will ask for another Commission as soon as this one has reported," unless indeed I am wronging him and he is one of the anonymous people who appeared under the tides of "People suffered the high rates of interest preyed by Pawnbrokers of Singapore"-

Mr William Tan: Not like you.

Mr Francis Thomas: -or "An Umpire of Justice" or "There is no smoke without a fire". In any case, his evidence was not identifiable if he gave it and was dismissed by the Commissioner as being worthless if he did give it.

The Member for Pasir Panjang (Mr Wong Foo Nam) led the attack on the S.I.T. The Member for Changi (Mr Lim Cher Kheng) I think joined in as well and he also attacked the C.I.D.

Mr Lim Cher Kheng: Sure, Sir.

Mr Francis Thomas: Now, when a member of the public, particularly an elected representative of the people, has reason to believe that something is wrong with some statutory body or with some Government department, he has a clear and unquestioned duty to bring his suspicions to the notice of those who are responsible for cleaning up whatever is wrong. He is not required to produce proof which could go into a court of law. He is required to say, "I have good reason to believe that this is so and I think that it should be looked into." People have sometimes made allegations about the Public Works Department or other departments to me. When I say, "Yes, good. I will take that up at once. Just give me a date, a subject. Who did this? Why did he do it? When? Where? What did he do?", the answer is, "Oh I do not know. I just know that there is a lot of corruption in the P.W.D." What good is that coffee-shop rumour? In the Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Housing, no allegations have been made whatsoever by the Member for Pasir Panjang.

Mr Wong Foo Nam: I did.

Mr Francis Thomas: They are not on record if they have been made but if, however, he will make them giving some reasonable guide as to who did what, to whom, when and where, then they can be examined. In the Chua Commission which was the proper body sitting for a year, his name does not appear amongst the witnesses nor indeed is the S.I.T. mentioned as far as I recollect by anybody at all. Despite this widespread suspicion alleged against it, no member of the public appears to have alleged against it at all in spite of the publicity given by the Commissioners in an endeavour to get people to come forward.

Have these hon. Members made their reports to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau in confidence and secrecy, hiding themselves so that they need not get into trouble? Well, if they have, they can say so. Have they informed the Public Prosecutor? Apparently not. In other words they have conducted themselves in the way that the Elias Commission remarked:

"It is unfortunate that neither the Police nor the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau were afforded the opportunity of investigating at the time the rumours said to have been prevalent of corrupt and illegal practices during the Bye-Elections. The result was that the rumours remained rumours, without the searching light of investigation being focussed on them, and they survived and were repeated in the Legislative Assembly, and were repeated to us. We have inquired into them, but in seeking the origin of the rumours we were met on several occasions with the reply that the rumour had been recounted to the witness by a stranger, or had been casually overheard by the witness being discussed between strangers in a bus or other public place."

And the time of this House has been taken up with allegations on that level.

Allegations were also made against the P.W.D. that there was corruption there. Almost my first task when I was made Minister and reluctantly took my seat in the ministerial chair was to study a file dealing with what appeared to be corrupt practices involving an officer of the P.W.D. and a Member of the present elected Assembly. I went into that as fully as I could and spent a great deal of time on it. In the end, it was impossible to bring anything more than a cloud of suspicion. It was not possible to go any further - no smoke without a fire perhaps but not enough to take any firm action on. The officer concerned has now left the P.W.D. The Assemblyman is still sitting in this Assembly. Without reliable support in the way of evidence, it is not proper that allegations should be made public and people's names brought into disrepute. General allegations without some indication of who did what, when and why mean either that the accuser himself is involved and therefore dare not be specific because he will be implicating himself; or else they mean that he is talking nonsense.

It is by no means impossible, in my opinion, that there are or have been in the P.W.D. or S.I.T. officers whose conduct has not been above reproach. It may well be so in any country, in any department, that somebody gets in who should not be there. When he is found out, out he goes. But vague general overall attacks of this sort do not hurt the wrongdoers. What they do hurt is the general public service. They dangerously damage the good and honest officers and they camouflage and conceal any criminals there may be because by casting suspicion on everybody, they completely fail to spotlight and isolate anybody who actually is wrong; and the criminal can sit back and laugh to himself and say, "Ha, ha, that pure man on the next desk is now being accused. Maybe, they cannot catch me." Attacks of this sort do serious damage to morale and in every way tend to encourage and not to discourage corrupt practices.

I turn to another allegation which I think I must refute. "The P.W.D. buildings were incredibly (or unbelievably or unimaginably) expensive." This was an allegation which has been made in this Assembly frequently and I think it was at the end of 1956 that I pressed again and again in this Assembly to say, "Let us have this taken up in the Estimates Committee. All right, if you say it is too expensive, let us take it up in the Estimates Committee." Well, the Estimates Committee sat through last year. They had on it the Member for Ponggol-Tampenis (Mr Goh Chew Chua) amongst others who himself was formerly a contractor and should be in a position to know. They had the Member for Paya Lebar (Mr Lim Koon Teck) who is well-versed in building problems and who is himself working on very large development projects. The Estimates Committee on page 3 of its Report found that further study should be given to the matter but that as far as they could see, the high cost of the P.W.D. buildings was not solely due to higher standards but might be due to the fact that there was a restricted list of contractors; and they found nothing else. On page 33, one hon. Member tried to compare popular buildings - one-storeyed houses - sold for $30,000 each including land, sanitation, roads and everything complete and he said, "How does that compare with $38,000 for a government bungalow?" And the answer he got from the Director of Public Works was that the houses he was praising were extremely poorly built, "flashy" but badly finished inside and would not last more than a few years before they gave trouble. There was a proposal that we should go and compare buildings erected by the P.W.D. and by private enterprise and I went to have a look at a block of flats built by private enterprise and another one built by the P.W.D. There did not seem very much to choose between them. The one built by the P.W.D. had for its contractor a Member of this Assembly and unfortunately the standard of his work was not very good. There was endless trouble with it. Probably, he would have had the contract taken away from him except that there was great pressure at that time on the P.W.D. to complete the buildings in order to get people out of hotels-

Mr Lee Choon Eng: On a point of order. Is it right for a Minister in his speech to make an inference against a Member of this Assembly in connection with his activities outside this Assembly?

Mr Deputy Speaker: It is not a point of order. Carry on, Mr Thomas.

Mr Francis Thomas: In the case of the privately built block of fiats, all the plaster was off the main staircase. I do not know what had happened for it to fall off; it had come off for some reason. It seemed to be a pretty large undertaking to strip all the plaster off when it could not have been built for many years. In any case, these arguments about whether the P.W.D. flats are a bit too expensive are all relatively minor matters because the main work of the P.W.D. is not building flats. That is the S.I.T.'s job. The main bulk of P.W.D. building is in quite other types - schools and large buildings of that sort. This attack on the P.W.D. concluded with a challenge to a debate in public on the question of P.W.D. costs. I do not know how you can debate in public on P.W.D. costs because it would not be a matter of debate; it is a matter of getting the plans and the bills of quantities and getting them all down and comparing the comparative costs and all the practical details of surveying what actually went into the building and what you got for your money. It could not be debated. It is a matter of arithmetic and calculation. The Estimates Committee is the place where that could be done.

Mr A. R. Lazarous (Farrer Park): On a point of order, Sir. The Minister for Communications and Works was expressing that the Estimates Committee would be able to go into the extensive cost of the buildings. I submit with apology that the Minister does not know exactly what he is saying. An Estimates Committee could-

Mr Deputy Speaker: Order, please. That is not a point of order. Please carry on, Mr Thomas.

Mr Francis Thomas: I am sorry that the Member for Farrer Park finds my remarks painful but the Estimates Committee has of course the power to send for persons and papers like other Assembly committees and if they want to go into bills of quantities, they send for them and if they want to have an expert to go into the bills of quantities for them, they can have the expert.

I have taken up a little time in dealing with this. I do not want to take up much more time but I think I ought to refer briefly also to the report which I had done on private buildings. Private developers have done a great deal of work in Singapore and it is very essential that there should be ample private development but there is some ground for thinking that a good deal of private development is of an undesirably low standard. The report which I had made and which cost $8,000 is not a report on public buildings. It is a report on the standards at present or which are likely to appear in the future in private building and whether anything should be done to ensure that the standards are maintained; and if something should be done, what should be done. That is the nature of the report which I have got and the suggestion that I was wasting $8,000 on getting the P.W.D. to report on itself is of course meaningless.