"French company plans to double its car sales".

Sir, every day you will find various concerns trying to expand their sales here, and those sales are not for entrep�t but for local consumption. With a high-pressure sales campaign, you are made to increase your wants. You buy more and more, but you do not sell more and more, with the result that you have got a lopsided economy. As for the merchant, Sir, with due respect to him, he does not care tuppence what happens to the economy so long as he can go on unrestricted and make his profit. But he shouts if his income tax goes up and if he has got to cough up a part of his profit. The hon. Member for Telok Ayer represents that sort of opinion. Many of the big firms have agencies for goods, and if we manufacture them here and give them protection, these firms will lose the market because the imported goods of which they are the agents will not be allowed, or they will be subject to tariff, and the firms cannot sell them openly and make a profit. Therefore, Sir, they fight me hard. I know I am very unpopular in certain business circles, but I look to the interests of Singapore, Sir,I do not care if I tread on somebody's toes, even though he is a "big gun" in the commercial world.

Do you ever read in the newspapers of somebody coming out with an intensified buying campaign for Singapore and Malaya? Now most of the goods that are sold to us are not for entrep�t trade, but they are for local consumption. I do not say that there is anything wrong in what they are trying to do - that is quite normal commercial practice - but it is bad for our economy if you buy more and more and you cannot sell more and more. But the merchant does not care, so long as he can buy and sell and make his profit, whether somebody is exporting more or not. It is the Government that has got to take care of the balance of payments, and in no country do you have a government which does not take care of the balance of payments.

Sir, I said two weeks back in this House that we are living in a cold, hard and competitive world. You will see allies, not only in the political field, but also in the military field fighting one another. Today's Free Press has this headline: