YANG DI-PERTUAN NEGARA'S SPEECH (Debate on the Address)

Debate resumed.

Mr Rajaratnam: Perhaps, Sir, the best way to underline the contrast between the world they stand for and what we stand for is to furnish a short description of the political record of some of the hon. Members opposite. I do not do this, Sir, with a view to embarrassing them, because I do not think they are ashamed of their record. I do this merely with a view to stressing the qualitative difference between their approach to politics and ours.

Mr Speaker: Order. Can the Minister assure the Chair that this is relevant to the motion before the House? Political approaches of any Member of this Assembly surely have nothing to do with the motion before the House which is confined to the policy speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. I am afraid we are getting very far away from the motion.

Mr Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, I was contrasting the difference between the new political force that we represent and the political force the Members opposite represent, and the only way I can indicate the difference is by contrasting the old with the new, and if you will permit me, Sir, that will be quite evident when I contrast the two generations of men and women who are in the world of politics.

Reading, Sir, from left to right, there is the Member for Tanglin who began his political career-

Mr Speaker: I am afraid I must ask the Minister to go off that tack because to me it seems that if histories of individual members are given, the hon. Member will be speaking on something which is very, very far away from the motion. He can speak in general terms, I quite agree, contrasting the outlook of one group of people with the outlook of another group of people, but I do not think he should embark on personalities.

Mr Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, I shall talk collectively and generally. As you know, Sir, collectively, the representatives of the Party now called the S.P.A., the majority of them, started life as political apprentices in a Party called the Progressive Party, a Party which is now defunct. One characteristic of this older generation of politicians was their propensity to switch from one political Party to another political Party. Many of them, Sir, have two or three or four political parties to their credit. Another feature, collectively speaking, Sir, of the political record of the Opposition is that they profess one political doctrine today, just the contrary political doctrine the next day, and perhaps something else the following day. Sir, if someone were writing a political history of this island, he would be amazed to discover the bleached bones of so many political Parties. They have had the Progressive Party, the Democratic Party, the Liberal-Socialist Party, the Labour Front, the Socialist Party and now, Sir, the S.P.A. Why were the older generation of politicians, of whom the hon. Members opposite are the lone survivors, able to switch from Party to Party, to change political ideologies, to profess that they were in favour of the defence of Colonialism; that they were against Socialism - and yet these same people come back and say that they are now in favour of anti-Colonialism, and that they are now in favour of Socialism?

I do not think that this chopping and changing about from one political party to another - what I would call political polygamy - derive from any personal defects in the people concerned. It is simply that they were symptomatic of the old Colonial society which trusted men who could not be relied upon to owe any consistent political allegiance, and it was people of that calibre that the old Colonial society welcomed, because those who can chop and change their views are the people whom you can manipulate and can use.

I have no doubt, Sir, that as individuals they wanted to be single-minded, determined, and loyal to a political cause. But they could not, because they were serving a society which was already in the process of decay. So they wobbled and collapsed primarily because they did not understand the nature of the social forces which they tried to harness.

For example, Sir, in 1954, the Progressive Party, which was then in the ascendancy, thought that it could outwit a rival political Party, the Labour Party, through the device of automatic registration. The theory was that by the device of automatic registration they could bring into the political arena, people whom they believed were Progressives at heart and could therefore be relied upon to vote for the Progressive Party. But what happened was that through the process of automatic registration they brought in a large group of new voters who turned out to be not Progressives at heart. The people elected to vote for a new Party, a Socialist Party - the Labour Front. Similarly, recently, Sir, the SPA, formerly the Labour Front, thought it could also retrieve the situation by using another device - the device of compulsory voting - again on the assumption-

Tun Lim Yew Hock rose -

Mr Speaker: Point of order?

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Point of explanation.

Mr Rajaratnam resumed his seat.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: Mr Speaker, Sir, you will remember in this House, when I spoke on compulsory voting, 1 said that it would react against our Government, and it has so reacted.

Mr Rajaratnam: Mr Speaker, I am very glad to hear for the first time that the leader of the SPA deliberately embarked on a venture which he knew would eventually react against him. But my understanding of the situation is different. I worked on a newspaper which wrote an editorial warning the then Government that they were being very foolish to embark on compulsory voting, because the consequences might be otherwise than what was generally hoped for by S.P.A. But anyway, Sir, through the device of compulsory voting, a larger group of electorate - the electorate jumped from 300,000 to 600,000 - was brought into the political arena, resulting eventually in the death of yet another political Party. And the reason for this is that both the Progressives and the SPA failed to realise, and still do not realise, that the vast majority of people since they belong to the under-privileged class are ready for a social revolution. And the larger the electorate becomes, the greater the preference for political Parties which are equipped, organisationally and ideologically, for a social revolution. The PAP was such a Party. The people recognised it as such and they voted for it.

We of the PAP believe, Sir, that a social revolution is inevitable. It is inevitable because people no longer believe that poverty, injustice and humiliation are conditions to be endured patiently. They are not visitations sent from heaven. Social revolution is inevitable. The problem is whether it will be brought about peacefully or through revolutionary violence. That is the choice presented to people everywhere - in this country and in many countries in Asia.

We of the PAP are dedicated to bringing this social revolution to birth through peaceful democratic means. Sir, those who have read the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech with a little more perception would have understood that the purpose and aim of the programme outlined in the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech is to bring about the social revolution through peaceful democratic means. Our programme is not as the hon. Members opposite suggested - a rehash of the Labour Front and SPA programmes. It may be, Sir, that the SPA, the Labour Front and even the Liberal-Socialists proclaimed socialist ideals; they too proclaimed their determination to seek justice for the common man. But where we and they differ, and the voters saw the difference, is that we are in deadly earnest about implementing our proclaimed policy. That is the difference, Sir. In their manifestos the hon. Members opposite were sometimes even more revolutionary during the election campaign than we were. In fact, if I recollect correctly, Sir, our programme was more realistic because we went to the election not promising Utopias and heaven on earth. We said, "If you vote for the P.A.P., the P.A.P. Government will demand sacrifices on the part of the people." In fact, I remember the former Minister for Commerce and Industry going around the country with a very tattered copy of the Petir, wherein we did write a series of articles saying, "If the P.A.P. were elected to power, we would not give you a heaven on earth." We said we demanded sacrifices and work on the part of the people. We said that during the election. Hon. Members opposite used that issue of the Petir number to show that the P.A.P. Government offers you far less than what we are able to promise you. And yet the people voted for us, Sir, because they knew in fact that, unlike Members opposite, we are in deadly earnest in whatever promises we made. And that is why, Sir, they voted for us, for the P.A.P.

As I said, Sir, we have never, either before, during or since the election, ever promised Utopia. All that we intend to do is to show our people that a socialist democracy can make things better for the people, can improve their lot though not in terms visualised by the Member for Tanglin. He complained of a P.A.P. dictatorship - how terrible we were because our recent action in introducing wage cuts had brought considerable suffering and hardship; because those who rode in taxis were now reduced to riding in buses. But what the hon. Member for Tanglin and those who think like him do not realise is that the vast majority of the people in this country have travelled and will travel by buses. But as far as he is concerned, "the people" means two kinds of people, Sir. Those whom God has elected should travel by taxis and those whom God has condemned to travel by buses. An injustice begins when people who have been ordained by God to travel by taxis are reduced to travelling by buses. That is injustice. But if people who have been ordained by God to travel by bus continue to travel by bus, that is in the natural order of things. It is that kind of outlook, Sir, which ended in disaster for Members who now currently support the S.P.A.

Sir, our goal is to strive for a socialist democracy which does not promise paradise but invites and demands certain sacrifices. But let us make one thing clear. Though in trying to achieve and establish a social revolution we shall demand sacrifices from the people, especially from those who are in a privileged position in society, let me tell them that in the long run the sacrifices we demand will be cheaper than a social revolution brought about by revolutionary violence. There is no choice. If you are embarked upon a social revolution, then to bring it about peacefully we must make the necessary sacrifices; or we can postpone it because we are too afraid to shoulder the very small sacrifices demanded. But eventually the sacrifices will be imposed on people whether they like it or not - and perhaps at a far greater cost than what is demanded of them today.

Sir, this is the background against which the speech by the Yang di-Pertuan Negara should be viewed because then you will see in proper perspective the policy outlined in that speech.

Now, Sir, I would like to deal with a particular aspect of our social revolution - the creation of a Malayan nation. One of the major tasks of the newly-created Ministry of Culture will be as the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech put it, "to instil in our people of all races the will to be a nation." In this connection, Sir, I would like to deal with some of the observations made by the UMNO representatives, and in particular the Member for Geylang Serai.

Frankly, Sir, his speech and that of the Member for Kampong Kembangan were the most disturbing and the most dismal I have heard during this session of the Assembly. I say "disturbing and dismal" because they spoke as leaders of a Malay political Party whose counterpart happens to be the ruling Party in the Federation. The UMNO representatives in this Assembly not only professed scepticism that we would ever be able to create a Malayan nation, but they were also of the view that it was not an enterprise they would approve of. In fact, Sir, the Member for Geylang Serai advocated what was in fact a new theory - the theory of three nations. The Malays, he said, should remain Malays; the Chinese, Chinese; the Indians, Indians. This three-nation theory seems to be a recent development, for the Member for Geylang Serai appears not to have given voice to it before in such strong terms when he was a Member of the Labour Front - U.M.N.O. - M.C.A. - Coalition Government. Since his departure from this side of the House to the other, this new theory of a Singapore of three nations has been born. Perhaps, Sir, the most unusual feature about this three-nation theory is that it does not quite fall in line with the Federation U.M.N.O.'s attitude towards the question of a Malayan nation. Sir, in the Federation, the creation of a Malayan nation is not only accepted as a desirable objective to be striven for but also as a practical one. The Federation's leaders, from Tunku Abdul Rahman downwards, have repeatedly stressed that the future of the country depends upon the three races being welded into a Malayan nation. In fact, this objective is the corner-stone of the Alliance policy in the Federation. The Tunku in particular has never hesitated to lash out at political parties which thrive by preaching racial exclusiveness. In fact, Sir, last Sunday, the former Prime Minister of the Federation came out with a slashing attack on political parties in the Federation which have overtly exploited communal sentiments and appealed to racial prejudices. Yet, Sir, the representatives of Singapore's U.M.N.O. are publicly repudiating the concept and aim of a Malayan nation. Why, Sir, if it is possible and desirable to weld the three races in the Federation into a Malayan nation, should the Member for Geylang Serai and his colleagues advocate a contrary course for Singapore? Anyway, Sir, the Member for Geylang Serai must know the consequences of a theory which insists on keeping the three races distinct and separate. First, such a division must keep alive the flames of communal prejudices and fears, both of which can be readily exploited by communal leaders who have no constructive policies to offer the people. The Member for Geylang Serai may not have followed to its inevitable and tragic conclusion the logic implied in his three-nation theory. He may not have gone far in his thinking - yet. Since he is not here, Sir, I shall lead his colleagues to this inevitable and tragic conclusion if only to make them aware of what this sort of thinking can ultimately mean for them, for us and for the 1½ million people whose lives and happiness we hold in our hands. For one thing, Sir, the three-nation theory implies resistance to Malayan nationalism simply because Malayan nationalism is a complete negation of the three-nation theory. If, as is inevitable, the forces of Malayan nationalism grow stronger, then the Member for Geylang Serai and those who think like him must actively resist Malayan nationalism. And how is Malayan nationalism to be resisted? There is only one way of doing this and that is by fanning the latent flames of communalism. Put more bluntly, racial solidarity can and must be strengthened only by appealing to racial fears and racial sentiments. That is the logic of any movement where the binding link is a sense of racial identity. The only way a racial group can retain its identity is by appealing to it in terms which it understands - and racial groups can understand and appreciate only those concepts which are spelt out in racial terms. Conversely it also presupposes accusations of racial treachery against Malays, and for that matter Chinese or Indians who ally themselves with non-communal parties striving in the direction of a Malayan nationalism. For every Malay - and Chinese or Indian - who repudiates the idea of racial exclusiveness, becomes a direct and permanent threat to the proponents of the three-nation theory.

Sir, if the Member for Geylang Serai will re-examine some of his speeches made during the recent election, he will discover how necessary it is to exploit openly communal and racial sentiments to strengthen racial solidarity. It may be something which he may not want to do but which is forced upon him by the force of circumstances. For that is the only way you can hold racial groups together. So it is inevitable that as the forces of Malayan nationalism gather strength, they must be countered by fanning the fires of communalism, and this process must eventually end either in the triumph of Malayan nationalism or in communal discord. It may be, Sir, that the Member for Geylang Serai and his associates may think that it is possible for a communal leader to switch off communal passions once they threaten to get out of hand. Sir, in India and Ceylon, there were communal leaders who thought they could switch off communal passions which they had perhaps unwittingly helped to create. They could not, as hundreds of thousands of people discovered to their horror.

Let me put the matter a little more plainly. We in Malaya and in Singapore have reached a stage in our political development where we have the choice of two roads: the road to Malayan nationalism or the road to communal dissension - or worse, Sir, there is no third road. We move in the direction of one or the other. Sir, the Member for Geylang Serai and his colleagues may be of the view that only the Federation should follow the road to Malayan nationalism while Singapore should take the tragic road to communalism implicit in the three-nation theory propagated in this House during the last few days. But if Singapore keeps to the communal path, it can only result in this predominantly Chinese city becoming a bastion of Chinese communalism. In other words, the three-nation theory propounded by some of the U.M.N.O. representatives is not even an invitation but an insistence that this State, which is dominated by the Chinese, should convert itself into a bastion of Chinese communalism - because, if we deny them the opportunity of becoming a part of the Malayan nation, then we are saying they should remain a bastion of Chinese communalism. I do not know, Sir, whether they realise the consequences which follow from the three-nation theory that was propounded by them. This is the inevitable consequence, if Singapore should become a bastion of Chinese communalism, then I say the prospects for Malayan nationalism will be equally dim in the Federation, because Singapore as a bastion of Chinese communalism will act as a stimulant for Chinese communalism in the Federation. To this extent, Sir, the three-nation theory, confined only to Singapore, will frustrate and destroy one of the major aims of the Alliance Government, of the Federation's U.M.N.O. and of the Tunku to create a Malayan nation.

The Member for Geylang Serai asked us what we meant by "Malayan", and whether we hoped to create a Malayan nation. They are rhetorical questions but it was quite clear from his general tone that he was quite sceptical about this. He presumed that there can be no such thing as a Malayan and that we certainly cannot hope to create a Malayan nation in Singapore. But I will answer the second part of his question. Yes, Sir, we hope to create a Malayan nation because the alternative is too terrible for us to contemplate. That is why this Government has set up the Ministry of Culture. We believe that the prelude to a Malayan nation is Malayan consciousness, and a Malayan consciousness can be brought about by implanting in the minds of people ideas and sentiments which provide them with a sense of common identity, common purpose, common effort, and common destiny.

This, Sir, is not as impossible a task as the U.M.N.O. representatives sitting opposite may think. It is being done every day in every country. For example, people are not born Americans, Frenchmen or Japanese. They are turned into Americans, Frenchmen or Japanese. A man becomes an American, or Frenchman, or Japanese because of the mental conditioning he is subjected to; in other words, national consciousness is largely a question of education and upbringing. A child born is not born a Frenchman, or a German, or a Malayan, or even a Malay or a Chinese. It is through the long process of mental conditioning that he turns out to be a Malay, Chinese or Indian. In fact, Sir, a Chinese brought up in the cultural traditions of a Malay imbibing the Malay language, Malay religion, Malay customs and traditions, becomes for all practical purposes a Malay. Similarly, you can bring up an Indian or a Chinese as an American or any other nationality that you want. It is not race but the cultural conditioning to which a man is subjected that makes him whatever he is. It is therefore not that difficult to create a Malayan consciousness. This is happening every day. For instance, I invite Members on the other side of this House to look at Members who are in our Party. I, Sir, am a Ceylonese - a minority of minorities - one of those covered by the Constitution. Yet I am not afraid. I have never felt any particular fear that as a minority of minorities I might be trampled upon by my colleagues on this side of the House or by the Party to which I subscribe. Because, Sir, in my Party, though we have Malays, Chinese and Indians, we do not talk or think as Malays, Chinese, or Indians. We think as Malayans. And one becomes a Malayan when one ceases to evaluate the character, goodness, and intelligence of a man by the colour of his skin, by the shape of his nose, or the texture of his hair.

Sir, I am not saying that the effort to create a Malayan nation is an easy one. There are many obstacles, but I say the major obstacle to the creation of a Malayan nation is communalism. Communalism, Sir, does not spring out of nowhere. People are not born communalists. They are turned into communalists. The flames, of communalism are fanned by a minority of leaders who discover in communalism a short-cut to political popularity, and in every case, Sir, it has often turned out to be a short-cut to tragedy when, not the communal leaders, but thousands of innocent and deluded people have had to pay the price-and a very heavy price sometimes. Therefore, Sir, we fully realise, as the Alliance Government in the Federation of Malaya fully realises, that the task of creating a Malayan nation will be a long and difficult one. The further we move in the direction of a Malayan nationalism, the fiercer will be the resistance offered by those who have vested interests in communal politics, whether they be Malay, Chinese, Indian, or even English educated. We realise, Sir, that communal sentiments are the easiest things to exploit in times of political stresses and strains. For example, in the recent elections, the S.P.A. tried to whip up Chinese communalism because of our stand on the question of Malay as the national language. The S.P.A. issued a pamphlet which was supposed to be a guide to their speakers. One of the points stressed in the pamphlet was that when speaking to a Chinese audience, they should say that the P.A.P. was endangering Chinese culture because by standing for Malay as the national language, We were going to destroy Chinese culture. There was talk of ramming Malay down the throats of non-Malay children. That was an open appeal to communalism, and the exploitation of communalism need not necessarily come from a communal party. And yet, Sir, the interesting thing is that there was not a word of protest from U.M.N.O. leaders against this attempt by the S.P.A. to work up Chinese communal feelings on the issue of a national language. Just one little item of food for thought for the hon. Members opposite. They should reflect on how, in these elections, the people reacted to communal propaganda - whether it came from a communal party or not. This, Sir, is a predominantly Chinese city and yet the people voted for a Party which espoused Malay as the national language. I do not think we have quite realised the significance of this. We went before the people, largely Chinese, who quite rightly are proud of their culture, a very ancient and rich culture, and said, "We of the P.A.P. will fight this election on the basis of Malay as the national language". And they voted for us. This, Sir, is political maturity and responsibility of a very high order, It revealed that the ordinary people can show a greater sense of responsibility and political wisdom than can some of the so-called leaders.

In conclusion, Sir, the underlying assumption behind Malayan nationalism and a Malayan outlook is not very difficult to grasp. It is simply this: that the shape of a man's nose, the cut of his eyes, the colour or the texture of his hair, are not a sound basis on which to build a political or an economic philosophy. Neither can political and economic problems be solved by reference to something which we just got through the accident of birth - our skin, our colour, and the shape of our eyes. Therefore, Sir, a Malayan outlook then initially means acceptance of the truth that in politics and economics, racial considerations do not enter. More positively, it means acceptance of the fact that whether we are Malays, Chinese, or Indians, we are committed to living in this country for all time. If we are not to live permanently as strangers and rivals, then we must accept the idea - there is no other choice - that we must live as members of a nation, a Malayan nation. That is what we mean by creating a Malay an outlook. It is the only outlook worth fighting for, because even the term of life of political parties is more or less foreordained. They will run out their allotted time. But people, the Malays, Chinese and Indians, will live here for hundreds of years. And we of the present generation can at least help them solve this difficult problem, by removing from their minds what is really a superstition - that race and religion are factors which should enter into our political calculations. And not only that, but that they should also become the basis for political conflict. If we can during our term of office exercise this superstition then perhaps, Sir, we would have done a great deal for the future of our country.

4.14 p.m.

Mr John Mammen (Telok Blangah): Mr Speaker, Sir, the new trade union policy outlined in the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech is not a surprise to the trade union movement in this country. I myself being so closely associated with the trade union movement try to bring to this House some important things when we are discussing the future of the trade union movement in this country.

Soon after the war, in 1947/48, trade unions were so powerful in Singapore and so militant that they were in the foreground to fight for the legitimate right of workers in Singapore. But under the pretext of Communist subversion, the past colonial Government introduced the Emergency Regulations which considerably affected the growth of the trade union movement in this country. When this was implemented, most of the unions became weak and its leaders had to find a different line. Since the introduction of the Emergency Regulations up to 1955, most of the unions merely existed for name's sake. Then in 1955 there were the elections under the Rendel Constitution, and about one year after the elections, the unions became powerful and they again fought to see that justice was done to the workers. But when we discussed from 1955 onwards, even though we had a party government, it began to change from the party name into an individual name, and now it is commonly known to the people of Singapore and to trade union circles as the Labour Front Coalition Government, or as it is generally known, the Lim Yew Hock Government. Even though it is known by name as the Labour Front Coalition Government, we trade unionists and the general public called it the Lim Yew Hock Government. And all that the Government did was this. The Government tried to divide the trade union movement in this country.

Since 1956, almost all workers and trade unionists were watching the situation, and they were paving the way to see the funeral of the Government. The Government had openly declared their policy that they were the Labour Front, and they would do whatever they could to help the trade union movement in this country. But when they sat in the Ministry they forgot what they had promised to the people. They forgot what they promised to the workers, and they adopted an entirely different attitude which we think is worse than the attitude of the past Colonial Government.

So from 1956 onwards, we, the trade unionists, were watching and paving the way, in a peaceful and democratic way, to see the funeral of the Labour Front or S.P.A. Coalition Government. Finally, on 30th May, we succeeded, and we all saw the funeral of the past Government. But luckily, Sir, the former Chief Minister and Minister for Labour and Welfare is in the Opposition today, so that at least we have the chance to hear what he had to say about what he had done for the trade union movement in this country.

The hon. Member for Cairnhill last Friday mentioned that the past Government had done so many good things. One important thing he mentioned was that while he was Chief Minister and Minister for Labour and Welfare he tried his level best to settle disputes, and finally settled so many of them.

Sir, one of the important things in the new policy is that the new Government is going to have an Industrial Court of Labour. For that the workers will be happy. Genuine cases will be heard in this Court of Labour and the awards of that Court will be implemented by statute. What happened to the last Government? Even today, the trade union movements, when looking at these courts of labour and arbitration courts, are suspicious because the past Government, even though they had the Labour Court, the Industrial Court and courts of inquiry, did nothing.

For example, on Friday, the hon. Member for Cairnhill mentioned that he settled the Singapore Harbour Board Union's dispute. Sir, in 1957, the Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association started a go-slow campaign for recognition of their union. Finally the matter was brought before the past Assembly. The Assembly appointed a Commission of Inquiry to make a recommendation and to lay it before the Assembly. The Commission did, and the recommendation was put before the Assembly. But what happened to the recommendation?

It was a Commission ordered by the whole Assembly, and the recommendation was put before the same Assembly. At that time, the Opposition Member, the Member for Tanjong Pagar, moved a motion asking the House to urge the Singapore Harbour Board to implement the Commission's findings. On the first day, the whole of the Assembly, if I am right, 22 Members, unanimously agreed that the Singapore Harbour Board should implement the Commission's findings. It was passed in the Assembly. But one week, two weeks and three weeks passed, and nothing happened. The former Chief Minister and Minister for Labour and Welfare had no guts to face the Singapore Harbour Board and tell them that the Singapore Legislative Assembly had passed a motion unanimously urging the Singapore Harbour Board to implement the findings of the Commission. Although the Singapore Harbour Board is a statutory body, the Government failed to make them accept the findings of the Commission, and if the Government failed to enforce the findings on a Government employer, how could the Government force a private employer in Singapore to follow the recommendations of an arbitration court or a court of inquiry?

Again, Sir, after three weeks the subject was brought before the same Assembly, and at that time we all knew that the Labour Front was going to sink and the Party leaders and the present Member for Cairnhill were running mad to form a new Party. They tried to go to the Opposition side to get Members and all kinds of political manoeuvring were going on. So, when again the matter was brought before the Assembly, what we heard from the former Chief Minister and the Minister for Labour and Welfare was that he was not going to ask the Singapore Harbour Board to enforce the findings. The reason he gave was personal prejudice.

Again, he said in the Assembly that with the present law, seven members can form a trade union in Singapore. In other words, our past Government and the Minister for Labour and Welfare were not interested in seeing a united trade union movement in this country and they were not interested in seeing that the trade unions and their workers are happy. But what they are interested in is their own selfish interest, and to see that their blue-eyed boys are happy, wherever they have got them, and to give them more encouragement to do corruption and to break the trade union movement in this country.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think I must have misunderstood the hon. Member. But has he alleged that the Member for Cairnhill encourages corruption in the trade union movement? If he has, of course, that is completely unparliamentary. I might have misunderstood him. Perhaps the hon. Member would explain?

Mr John Mammen: I did not mean the present Member for Cairnhill is encouraging corruption. Sir, I was talking about the past Government, and I am not particularly pointing to any one man.

Mr Speaker: That is all very well. But by the past Government, I take it the hon. Member means the then Chief Minister and his Council of Ministers. Therefore, there is in fact an imputation against the character of the Member for Cairnhill, and I think the hon. Member should be a little bit more careful about his imputations.

Mr John Mammen: Mr Speaker, when one talks about political or trade union corruption, it does not mean that they are going to receive money straight from the workers and put it in their pockets What the trade union movement is interested in is the attitude of the Government towards the unions, and in that sense we, the trade unionists, believe that the Government is corrupted because they are not interested in seeing to the welfare of the workers. But we do not really mean that they receive $10 or $5 from workers so that they can join a union or form a union.

Mr Speaker: The hon. Member is now entering into a debate with the Chair. I do not think that is proper, and I ask the hon. Member not to use the word "corrupt" because The word "corrupt" in that sense means corrupt in the dictionary sense.

Mr John Mammen: Sir, one important thing is that, even today there are people who are closely associated with the Labour Ministry who are not in Singapore. It is not surprising. After the elections they scooted off to Hongkong or to some other place. If they are so fond of us, why did they want to run away from this country. Sir? Did they find jobs for the trade union movement? They managed their affairs in the Labour Ministry in an inefficient way. They also contested the elections, but in the elections it is quite natural that one will have to win. When they cannot get into the Assembly, they scooted off the next day by plane, and they are no more in Singapore.

Sir, this machinery which is meant to safeguard the interest of the working class, to safeguard the interest of the trade union movement in this country was abused either by the past Government or through the inefficiency of the department concerned to use that machinery. That was where the past Government collapsed, because even on Friday last the Member for Cairnhill said that he passed the Shop Assistants Ordinance, the Clerks Employment Ordinance and every other Ordinance.

When you say you have passed an Ordinance but you keep it in the files of the, Ministry of Labour, what benefit will the worker get? There are so many Ordinances which they passed and which are still kept in the old files of the Ministry of Labour, and nobody knows where they kept them now.

When the Government pass an Ordinance, it is the duty of the Government to see that it is implemented without fear or favour. Once they are able to do that, then only will the workers say that it is a real Government who looks after the interest of the people. But the past Government, said the hon. Member for Cairnhill, had, to their credit, passed the Clerks Employment Ordinance, the Shop Assistants Ordinance and the Factories Ordinance and so many other Ordinances. But we who have moved so closely with the trade union movement know that although all these Ordinances were passed, they were kept in the files, and nobody went to see whether the employers are following the Ordinances or not. There are certain cases where there is nobody to prosecute or take the necessary action against the employers who did not follow these Ordinances.

The second thing in the policy speech is the Trade Union House. It has long been the ambition of the Singapore Trades Union Congress and other unions to see a central organisation for all the workers, and, of course, the Singapore Trades Union Congress before spent a considerable time to see that there should be a united trade union movement and a central place for all the unions to assemble. But the encouragement we got from the past Government was quite pitiful. Also the fantastic number of splinter and yellow unions formed during the past four years in Singapore prevented this ambition of the unions. All the unions in Singapore should be united under a single national organisation. And this national organisation must have a proper place, that is, a trade union house. The policy of this new Government is wholeheartedly welcomed by all real trade unions in Singapore because we, the trade unions, were fighting against two kinds of exploitation. One is that we are fighting our foreign masters, and the second is that of the local colonial masters' exploitation of workers. But since the new Constitution came into force, we, the trade union movement, must have a different outlook, that is, a national outlook and a sense of responsibility. The present Government is here to see that a real trade union movement is encouraged, and a proper place should be given to them in Singapore. And, of course, the present P.A.P. Government has a foundation laid by the trade union movement in this country, and the P.A.P. knows what to do and what is good for the trade union movement. We are here to see that justice and fair play should be done towards the trade union movement.

This trade union office will also play an important part to produce the fruits of the good work this Government is going to do. If we want a really contented trade union movement for all workers, we must also have a policy of educating these workers and the trade union leaders themselves.

So, Sir, it is also the duty of the trade union movement to have full trust and confidence in this new setup, that is the Court of Labour, the Arbitration Court, the Conciliation Board, and also a new Trade Union House, to encourage the real growth of the trade union movement.

I should again say that what the past Government did towards the trade union movement can never be forgotten. The subject of splinter unions will come up for debate again at the next sitting and we will have a more interesting time with the hon. Member for Cairnhill sitting at the opposite side, because up to 30th May, the last day, he was sitting here and he was mainly responsible for the splinter or yellow unions in Singapore. But we will be giving them a good time, Sir, on the 13th of August on the splinter and yellow unions. He cannot run away because we are happy he is just opposite us.

Mr Speaker: Order. I do not think the hon. Member is fair in saying that the Member for Cairnhill will run away. I am sure he will find the Member for Cairnhill in his seat, on the 13th of August.

Mr John Mammen: I would just say that he was lucky he got elected again here. As a trade union leader, he will be talking on trade union policy.

Mr Speaker: The hon. Member is very fond of debate.

Mr John Mammen: Sir, there is one point I would like to mention to the hon. Member for Cairnhill while we are talking about economic policy. He said there is a good atmosphere for industrial development in the Federation. But he forgot to mention also one point as well, i.e. there is good opportunity for political crooks to run away to the Federation and start tin mines. So it is not only for business but also for political crooks just to scoot off to the Federation, go to Ipoh, and start tin mines. They have got good opportunities.

Finally, Sir, regarding this new Ordinance relating to the trade union movement, we on the workers' side will consider it as the Magna Carta of the trade union movement and for the workers in Singapore. The only Party or Government which can faithfully carry out this policy is the present Government - the P.A.P. Government - because the P.A.P. has got the backing and confidence of the whole trade union movement in this country.

4.32 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Culture (Mr Lee Khoon Choy): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, the Yang di-Pertuan Negara of our self-governing State in his speech at the opening of the Assembly said that the People's Action Party would carry out its Five-Year policy, but our friends on the other side are splitting hairs and expressing doubts on all kinds of matters. It is difficult to blame them because for more than a hundred years, the Colonial rulers have instilled in them a slavish education. Such a mentality cannot be eradicated in a short period of time. Therefore, in the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara, it is mentioned that the political and economic revolution that have been started by us, must be supported by a cultural revolution. It was also said that we must cultivate a national consciousness. Not very much of this work was done in the past. But the present Government has the responsibility to establish and to instil in the minds of all our people here the will to create a united nation.

Mr Speaker, the Ministry of Culture, set up by the Government, has as its principal task the instilling of a Malayan consciousness and also to promote the interflow of culture between all the races here. During the Colonial regime and the slavish policy of enslavement, emphasis was placed on individual enjoyment and also to propagate the belief that Westerners were better than Asians. They allowed yellow culture to poison the thinking of our youth. You can see in the cinemas, in the newspapers, in the mosquito Press, and even sometimes hear from the radio, the kind of materials that have been used by them are all pornographic or full of sensation in character, such as murder, assassination, etc., in order to stimulate the baser instincts of the people, so that our youth when faced with such kind of materials would forget their own culture and forget the responsibility of national construction. I believe everybody will agree that during the past 100 years or more the Colonial Government never once concerned itself with the establishment of a national consciousness. This is because they intended to rule always over this place. I do not think that there is a single Colonial ruler who would give up control over a Colony. At the same time, colonial education had forgotten to instil in the youth a spirit of sacrifice for the country. Therefore, when the Government decided to reduce the allowance of the civil servants we explained to them very carefully, that it was in the interests of the country and its future that we had done this. However, because of the desire of the individual to entertain himself, these people do not have the spirit of sacrifice for the interests of the country. Under colonial rule, because of restrictions imposed by circumstances, the cultures of the Chinese, Malays and Indians were not allowed to develop freely to promote healthy culture. The bad elements in cultural activities have taken this opportunity to advance themselves and they have promoted yellow culture and, therefore, the P.A.P. Government ever since it came into power very quickly adopted anti-yellow culture movement. Members could see in the Press or probably have seen in the Press that we have banned a number of mosquito newspapers. We have also closed down the places that would promote and cultivate and foster gangsterism. The papers have reported our activities and these activities have received the overwhelming support of the people. This is merely a passive way of doing things.

The work of the Ministry of Culture is a heavy one, because its task is to nurture the thinking of the youth of Singapore. Therefore, we have adopted measures to reorganise the programmes of the various races that are broadcast by Radio Singapore. In the past, Radio Singapore placed too much emphasis on English programmes. In this direction we are taking steps to improve these things. From the 2nd of August, we will have quite a few new programmes in the Chinese section, There will be symposiums on the air - cultural talks, introduction of the cultures of the various races - drama, sporting activities, rural area activities, a women's magazine, trade union and school activities, etc.

Now we have been in touch with various musical and dramatic organisations to ask them to put on programmes at the Botanic Gardens and other public places to stage programmes, to show healthy cultural activities. These measures taken by us have got a dual purpose.

We want music and culture to be brought to the masses of the people. Everybody knows that in the past, art and music are the monopoly of only a small section of the people. We can see the Victoria Theatre. The past Governments had spent nearly $2½ million to construct such a luxurious theatre in order to allow a small section of the people, wearing suits and neckties, to go in there and enjoy themselves. Did they know music? Not necessarily. They merely went there to let people see them and know that they belonged to the privileged class. On one occasion, I in my capacity as a reporter went to attend a concert. I was able to see with my own eyes such as I have described, Music had become the instrument by which a small section of the privileged people endeavoured to enhance their own social position, Furthermore, last week when we went to visit the community centres, we were able to see that a so-called community centre had become the private club of certain individuals. In one place we were able to see only propaganda materials issued by the United States Information Service, How can the youth who grow up in these circumstances possibly have an understanding of national problems? They have been subjugated to the mental enslavement of the Colonialists. They have been influenced by ideals imported from foreign countries. How can we foster a mentality among the youth for them to be loyal to this country? Therefore, the duty of the Ministry of Culture is to see that the youth of all races here are able to develop in very healthy circumstances an understanding and a loyalty to Malaya.

Mr Speaker, the era of the privileged people is over, The People's Action Party represents the great masses of the people. Everywhere in everything that we do we always consider the people first. We hope that those people who have hidden themselves in the ivory tower - the musicians and the artists - will be able to come out and contribute their art to the people and will become one with the people.

These mass performances in music and art have another meaning. It is intended that the music and the art of all the races interflow, so that the people of the various races would be able to enjoy and appreciate the art and culture of the other races, and so that in time the cultures of the three major races of our country will become one Malayan culture. Culture is developed by the people. It is not developed by a Government department.

4.45 p.m.

Mr G. Kandasamy (Kampong Kapor): Mr Speaker, the Member for Tanglin this morning found some time to touch on the trade unions as well, but the hon. Member was so lost in private enterprises and trade unions that the trade unionists on this side of the House got the impression that perhaps he was suggesting that private enterprise should now organise itself into trade unions.

But the Member for Cairnhill, Sir, the former Minister for Labour and Welfare, waxed eloquent and took a long time to say the little that he had to say. Three points that he made, however, need to be answered, at least for the inaccuracies.

The Member for Cairnhill claimed to be a trade unionist. I wonder whether he claimed that right as a result of having been a secretary of the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union, the Vice-Presidents of which Union at that time were two employers, namely, Mr G. H. Kiat and Mr Seah Peng Chuan, or by his recent appointment as adviser to the Company Union, and the Transport Employees Union. Sir, it has been a long time since he held office as a trade unionist. Trade union history has changed very much since the day when he was secretary of a union. His concern for the principle of collective bargaining was most amusing. Was it his belief in collective bargaining that made him deny the elementary rights of a trade union to the Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association? Despite the recommendations of a Court of Inquiry appointed by his own Government and despite a resolution adopted in this House, the former Chief Minister, the Member for Cairnhill, refused the Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association the right to negotiate for all its members.

Sir, the Member for Cairnhill accused the Singapore Trades Union Congress of being silent over the cut in variable allowances to Government employees. The Singapore Trades Union Congress does not exist solely to look after the remunerations of Division I and Division II officers of the Government service, who in any case are not affiliated with the Singapore Trades Union Congress. The Singapore Trades Union Congress works to improve the standard of living and conditions of employment of all workers of Singapore. It might interest the Member for Cairnhill to know that a vast majority of workers in Singapore do not enjoy even 50 per cent of the salaries and allowances at present enjoyed by the Division I and Division II officers of the Government service.

The present Government, Sir, was elected into office by the overwhelming support of the workers of Singapore. It is a Government which has publicly proclaimed that it is on the side of the workers. Therefore, Sir, when the Minister for Finance says that the Government upholds the principles of collective bargaining and the Whitley machinery, that statement is good enough for the workers of Singapore and the workers' movement accept that statement. Unlike the previous Government, the former Labour Front or the S.P.A. Coalition Government, the Minister for Finance of this Government did give an assurance to the unions of Government employees that agreement regarding variable allowances will have retrospective effect from 1st July, 1959. In the past four years, the S.P.A. Government had always rejected this principle of backdating an agreement. We would have thought, Sir, that when the Government, as employer, invited the unions to negotiate, the leaders of the unions would have carried out negotiations immediately in order to reach a satisfactory agreement as soon as possible so that the workers whom they represented would have the satisfaction of knowing what lay ahead. But the leaders of the so-called Council of Joint Action are not prepared to negotiate under the Whitley machinery, for in negotiation they find it difficult to present a case but it is easier to seek publicity for themselves. Sir, there were many unions outside the Government service whose difficulty in the past had always been to bring the employers to the negotiating table. In private industry, it has always been impossible for unions either to bring the case to the Labour Ministry or directly to bring the managements to the negotiating table; but here in the Government service, the Government has offered negotiations and the unions have rejected them.

The Member for Cairnhill further said that he thought deeply about the Singapore Trades Union Congress having executive powers. No doubt his thinking was assisted by officials of a Chamber of Commerce as usual. Sir, the workers of Singapore have followed the thoughts and the actions that followed the thoughts of the former Chief Minister, and they did not like at all what they saw. The workers showed their dislike for the former Chief Minister's thoughts and actions by giving a sound beating to the Singapore People's Alliance on 30th May. That was the answer of the workers of Singapore to the former Chief Minister's interest in trade unionism. Previous Governments, for the sake of satisfying public opinion, probably, made a pretence of supporting trade unionism; but in fact both by administrative and legislative action they made it impossible for big and strong unions to carry out the legitimate activities of a trade union. Previous Governments also introduced legislation which gave any seven persons the right to form a trade union. In fact, Sir, a man, his wife and five children can form a union in this country. By this means, previous Governments intended to show the world that in Singapore you can have as many unions as possible, and therefore the workers have all the rights to form trade unions. What they did not wish to publish was the fact that it was the weakness of the legislation which permitted so many unions to exist in the same industry. This is the weakness of the trade union movement, We have, Sir, as a result of that policy in Singapore today 225 unions organising a total of about 130,000 workers, and when this is compared to about 450,000 workers in Singapore, it is easy to realise that only 30 per cent of the workers in Singapore have been organised though there are 200 unions too many. In these 225 unions, there are at least 24 unions, each of whose membership does not exceed 50, and there are unions with seven and ten members. There are eight general unions in Singapore, each competing for the same category of members. Our Government, Sir, has seen the weakness of this and has categorically stated that it will strengthen the trade union movement. One of the means of strengthening the trade union movement is to give executive powers to the Singapore Trades Union Congress or any other central organisation. The present Singapore Trades Union Congress, which was set up eight years ago and which by legislation is not permitted to have executive but only to have advisors powers, is weak and ineffective and many unions do not have confidence in the Singapore Trades Union Congress. The past Government, keeping in line with its policy to favour the management, the exploiting classes and the colonialists, refused the demands of unions that the central organisation should have executive powers. Therefore, you find the trade union movement that exists in Singapore was not able to hinder the activities of the unscrupulous employers and colonialists who exploited the workers.

The contradiction between policy and action was to be expected from the past Government, since they served the interest of the colonialists. Our Government is pledged to serve the interest of the people of this country. We recognise that one of the most important conditions before sound industrial relations can be established is the creation of a trade union movement that is well organised, unified, responsible, disciplined and confident. Confidence and responsibility born out of a realisation of its own strength, knowledge and ability of its own to negotiate and reach agreement with management. A trade union movement, because of the organisation and resources that it possesses, is able to carry on collective bargaining backed by facts, figures and sound reasoning. Sir, it is impossible to have industrial peace if the unions are weak and divided. It is impossible for the unions to be strong and disciplined as long as their own central organisations do not have executive powers. Since industrial peace is absolutely essential for the speedy realisation of the economic progress of the country, it is imperative that the trade union movement is re-organised and assisted, as suggested in Government's policy.

Mr Speaker: I propose to suspend this Assembly till half-past five. I will take the Chair again at half-past five.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 5.00 p.m. until 5.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 5.30 p.m.

5.32 p.m.

Miss Fung Yin Ching (Stamford): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, we have heard the speeches of Members of the Opposition and their attitude towards the Government policy. However, we have full confidence in carrying out our work. We are aware that our policy has got the support of the majority of the people of Singapore, and at the same time we know our policy will bring about happier living conditions for the people of Singapore.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to talk about the problems of women. We are aware that women are found in every corner of society. They have hands, feet, and brains too. They are among those members who have built up society, and they also constitute members of the human society. But under colonial rule and in a feudalistic society, and because of the previous Government they were oppressed and exploited and were not able to develop their working ability. Now under the care of the new Government most of the women in this country will eventually understand and realise their responsibilities of working in this new society.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we fully support the 48 items of our policy. The Government will legislate on the abolition of polygamy which, if committed, will be regarded as a crime. But this will not apply to the Muslims.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the new Government will further the work of the Department of Society Welfare. During this short space of time we have received some tragic complaints from women. 99 per cent of their problems were due to polygamy. Therefore, we must immediately stop aggravating this tragic incidence. We therefore fully support the 48 items in our policy statement.

5.36 p.m.

Mr A. P. Rajah (Farrer Park): Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may begin by referring to the speech of the Minister for Culture. In his address, he said that the reason for various political parties having disappeared from the political scene was because these parties did not have any appeal to the mass of the people in Singapore. Mr Speaker, Sir, the present Government has been elected under the new Constitution which assures this country complete internal self-government. Now this complete internal self-government did not come about by living in a world of fantasy, or by waving a magic wand. Someone had to work for it, someone obtained it, and the fruits of somebody's labour have now gone to the P.A.P. Government. That is so in most aspects of life - someone works hard, and another reaps the benefit. One does not quarrel with that; life is like that. The P.A.P. will work hard today, and somebody else will reap the benefit tomorrow. So let not the P.A.P. laugh or scoff at the Parties and the persons who have done their best to bring out the present situation.

Twelve years is not a long time, Mr Speaker, in any political experiment or in any struggle for self-government. The idea and the hope of gaining self-government for this island did not begin to stir actively in the hearts and minds of the people until after the Japanese occupation. It had been a thought in the minds of the people before the Japanese occupation, but it became a spiritual necessity, it became an urge after the Japanese left the Colony of Singapore. Yes, it was after the advent of the reoccupation that the people of Singapore went forward with the purpose and aim of bringing about self-government for this island as quickly as possible. That has been achieved in the short space of twelve years. So let us, therefore, not scoff at the Parties or the persons who have been able in a peaceable manner to bring about our new Constitution.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in the speech of the Minister for Finance, I had hoped he would have set out the financial policy of his Government for the coming year. We know the intellectual attainments of our Minister for Finance; we know his calibre as an economist; and we know his stature as a civil servant. With these three qualities working in unison to help the Minister, Mr Speaker, I was eagerly awaiting some pronouncement which would give an indication to this Assembly as to the financial future of this country during the coming year. But instead of making a statement on financial policy, he indulged himself in a lecture to this House on fantasies and realities, He said that civil servants were suffering from fantasies and that the sooner they got down to realities, the better it would be for all of them. Perhaps, Mr Speaker, the civil servants were living in the realm of fantasy. Who could blame them? The truth of the matter is that there were present amongst them four such good storytellers and actors that they were able to produce the fantasies which kept the civil servants in line with them. The civil servants had with them the four musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan, the man whose rapier never failed to reach its mark. Who could therefore blame the civil servants? If they lived in a world of fantasy, then that fantastic world was created for them by none other than Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and the indomitable D'Artagnan.

Mr Speaker, Sir, quite recently the Minister for Finance talked over the radio. It is the policy of the present Government that each of its Ministers should keep in touch with the people by bringing himself over the air and into the homes of the people. It is a very good thing, a very good thing indeed. In the radio talk of the Minister for Finance, his first preoccupation was with the role of the civil servant in the State of Singapore. I am grateful to the Minister for having set out the views of his Government on what the role of the civil servant should be in a state such as ours. I myself have ideas on what that role should be and I was exceedingly interested to hear the views of the Minister for Finance, who himself has been a civil servant of high eminence. Listening to his speech, Mr Speaker, I hoped that perhaps he, as Head of the Ministry which deals with all civil servants, would in one of his future broadcasts also tell us what the role of a Minister should be in a system of government such as ours; and that perhaps he might also go on to tell us what the role of the Back-benchers on the Government seats should be.

Quite recently, Mr Speaker, Sir, the Prime Minister made a pronouncement that Government Back-benchers have a role to play in the democracy that he was contemplating. I, Mr Speaker, was not aware that Back-benchers had a role in the active governing of a State such as ours. But naturally one would be delighted and one would want to know what the Prime Minister's conception of the role of the Government Back-bencher in a parliamentary democracy is.

The Minister for Education in his speech, Mr Speaker, Sir, said that $63½ million of the national budget of Singapore is spent on Education and that all of this $63½ million - I speak subject to correction, Mr Speaker - went towards personal emoluments.

Now, I think it was the Minister for Labour and Law who said that 42 per cent of the total revenue of Singapore went to personal emoluments. He also drew a comparison that the total personal emoluments in the Budget of the United Kingdom was 15 per cent. Mr Speaker, I think the Minister for Labour and Law, possibly inadvertently, failed also to mention in the same breath that the personal emoluments, in so far as education in the United Kingdom goes, do not appear in the national Budget; that the personal emoluments in so far as the medical services in the United Kingdom go, do not appear in the national Budget; that the personal emoluments, in so far as the United Kingdom police force goes, do not appear in the national Budget, whereas all these three expensive heads of expenditure do appear in our national Budget. As the hon. Minister for Education said, a quarter of our national Budget goes to education. The two most expensive items on personal emoluments in our Budget, Mr Speaker, Sir, are, first, education; and, second, medical services. These two items are significantly absent from the national Budget of the United Kingdom. These items appear either in the budgets of the local Government authorities or they appear as subventions moving from the national Government to various boards and local government authorities.

I merely mention this, Mr Speaker, because the Minister for Education and the Minister for Labour and Law mentioned these facts to the House in order to bolster up the Government's case for cutting the salary of civil servants. Employer-employee relationship is a matter entirely between the employer and the employee. But the manner in which these salary cuts have been brought about, and the ostensible reasons put out by responsible Ministers for these cuts, is not only the concern of the employer and employee but also the concern of the people at large.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the reasons given by the Minister for Finance when he was about to introduce these cuts were two-fold. First, the wasteful expenditure of the previous Government and second, the threatened deficit of $14 million. These reasons had impelled him into cutting the salaries of Government servants by doing away with most of the variable allowances for certain categories and all of them for the rest.

Mr Speaker, Sir, variable allowances are called variable allowances because it was said at one time or other that the cuts could be effected. To my mind, Mr Speaker, the justification for bringing about these cuts can be either that the cost of living has gone down or that the national economy has reached the stage where it is imperative to cut these allowances. Nobody has suggested that the cost of living in Singapore has gone down after the advent of the P.A.P. Government. If anything, it is suggested that it has gone up. Therefore, the only other reason which could have impelled the Minister for Finance to take this drastically quick action was the state of the national economy - the $14 million threatened deficit.

In the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech, Mr Speaker, Sir, we are told that "the immediate task facing the Government is to place the finances of the country on a sound and healthy basis. The threatened deficit of $14 million for 1959 can and will be wiped out.." The phrase used, Mr Speaker, Sir, is "the threatened deficit". So why the Minister for Finance was making such play about the speech of the Member for Tanglin I am at a loss to understand. He himself used the words "threatened deficit", not a deficit which has come into being. So, therefore, the phrase "threatened leak" used by the Member for Tanglin is still appropriate, whereas the Minister's statement that the boat has sprung a leak already and is filling with water is not borne out by the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech.

Now, I was hoping that the Minister for Finance in his speech would tell us how it was that the past Government had wasted the reserve fund built up so laboriously by the previous Governments which are now being pooh-poohed and scoffed at by certain Members of the Government. He has not in any part of his speech indicated how, where or in what respect there has been wasteful expenditure. I would in all earnestness suggest to the Minister for Finance that the exchange of one capital asset for another capital asset is not wasteful expenditure, particularly when the exchanged capital asset is bringing to the Government revenues on the invested capital asset. I would suggest to the Minister for Finance that most of these moneys which he says have been wasted by the previous Government have gone into such assets. Whether it remains in the form of money assets, or whether it remains in a changed form such as buildings and houses that people can live in, is not wasteful expenditure, but sound finance.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if I may now divert to the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. It seems to me, Mr Speaker, Sir, that the two important items in the speech are when the Government says that "the prime task is to build up a climate of confidence under which trade expansion and industrial growth can take place" and the other, towards the end of the speech, where the Yang di-Pertuan Negara says that in so far as the State of Singapore is concerned, it is the intention of Government to create and bring about conditions favourable to a union or integration with the Federation.

In my opinion, Mr Speaker, Sir, these are the two important factors in the speech which would bring about a state of affairs in Singapore which would mean peace, happiness and prosperity to all of us. If either one of these objectives fails, then the future of Singapore is indeed bleak. Soon after the speech had been delivered by the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. Mr Speaker, Sir, there was a wave of confidence in Singapore. But I venture to suggest to the Hon. Prime Minister that to create confidence in the country, one speech is not enough, particularly when several others have been made prior to this one which tended to destroy that confidence. Therefore, it is now left to the actions of the P.A.P. to build up a climate of confidence under which trade expansion and industrial growth can take place.

Mr Speaker, as a Member of the opposition, I feel it is my duty to support the Government in every measure and in any measure that is for the general benefit of the State of Singapore. I think there is hope in the speech, and if the P.A.P. carry out the policy speech, as we hope they will, then I think the future of Singapore is bright indeed. But Mr Speaker, Sir, there are signs that in certain aspects, what the P.A.P. say and what the P.A.P. do, does not seem to follow one track. The first thing they did as soon as they came into power was to impose salary cuts on Government servants. Now, as to the manner in which they were imposed - the Minister for Finance said that there had been negotiations. As far as I am aware, the first meeting was called by the Government on 19th June and on the 20th June the whole thing had been implemented, by way of circulars to various Government departments. In the history of negotiations, Mr Speaker, Sir, between employer and employee. I venture to suggest this was the most successful piece of negotiation, especially when one remembers that it was the employer who had brought the employee to the negotiating table with a view to cutting salaries.

The Prime Minister: That is the only way.

Mr Rajah: It had been suggested by the Member for Cairnhill that it would have been possible for the Government to bring these people to the negotiating table and to tell them about the economic plight of the country, the wasteful expenditure of the previous government and that it was a matter of life and death for these cuts to be imposed. Is it being suggested that civil servants are callous, and only interested in their own pecuniary profits from their work? A modus operandi could have been arrived at; an agreement could have been reached that the cut should operate as from a certain date. The Deputy Speaker has suggested that this was not possible. I venture to suggest that it is possible.

Mr Speaker, Sir, when the salary of the State Advocate-General was moved in this Assembly, and when I touched upon a topic, you ruled me out of order because it was not pertinent to that particular issue. I think that the issue which I raised then, is relevant to the motion now before us.

The State Advocate-General, Mr Speaker, Sir - his appointment is governed by section 30 of the Singapore (Constitution) Order in Council. Section 30 subsection (4), reads:

"The State Advocate-General may be appointed for a specified period and, if he was so appointed, shall, subject to the provisions of subsection (6) of this section, vacate his office (without prejudice to his eligibility for re-appointment) at the expiration of that period, but, subject as aforesaid, shall otherwise hold office until he attains the age of fifty-five:".

Now, this section in the Constitution makes it possible for the Government in power to appoint the State Advocate-General if they think fit from year to year, unlike the Auditor-General who, once appointed, holds his post until the age of retirement. Both these offices - the office of the State Advocate-General and the office of the Auditor-General - are important posts under the Constitution. The Constitution makes special provision for these two offices because the nature of these offices is such that the holders of these offices must be left free to carry out the duties of their posts without looking behind their shoulder all the time at a Minister who might be behind their backs. I am not suggesting, Mr Speaker, that in this particular case it is so, for I have too great a respect for the present holder of this office to suggest that such a state of affairs could ensue from this appointment.

The Prime Minister: It is a waste of time.

Mr Rajah: But it is possible that when the Hon. the Prime Minister ceases to be Prime Minister, there could be some other Prime Minister who might misuse that provision in the Constitution. It is, therefore, important that before a State Advocate-General has been appointed, care should be taken that he is a fit and proper person to hold that office. But once he is appointed, he, like the Auditor-General, should hold office until he is 55.

May I suggest to the Hon. the Prime Minister that this is a defect in the Constitution and that he take early steps to remedy this defect? [Interruption]. Chief Justice who?

Mr Speaker: Please continue,

Mr Rajah: Mr Speaker, Sir, there is another section of the Constitution which I would like to refer to - section 29 which deals with Permanent Secretaries. Section 29, subsection (1), Mr Speaker, Sir, reads:

"There shall be for each Ministry one or more Permanent Secretaries who shall be persons who are public officers."

Subsection (3), Mr Speaker, Sir, the one I am concerned with at the moment, reads:

"Every Permanent Secretary shall, subject to the general direction and control of the Minister, exercise supervision over the department or departments to which he is allocated."

As I read that section in the Constitution, Mr Speaker, Sir, it means this - that the Permanent Secretary shall exercise supervision over the department or departments to which he is allocated subject of course always to the general direction of his Minister. I understand that to mean, Mr Speaker, that the control, the check, the orders issued to all other servants in the department shall be through the Permanent Secretary and that those orders will be issued by the Permanent Secretary on the general direction of the Minister, I would like the assurance of the Hon. the Prime Minister that this section of the Constitution is being adhered to by his Government.

Just one last point, Mr Speaker, Sir, I have been requested to find out from the Hon, the Prime Minister to which Ministry sport is attached to. Sport seems to have been missed out of the list setting out the departments and duties of the various Ministries - perhaps inadvertently. Perhaps the Prime Minister would like to tell the House that he has not forgotten sport and that it is in fact attached to some Ministry or the other,

The Minister for Labour and Law (Mr K. M. Byrne): Labour and Law!

Mr Rajah: I would like that assurance from some Minister, Sir, because I have been asked that question and it seems to me to be a relevant point.

6.10 p.m.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Ong Eng Guan): Mr Speaker, the Rendel Constitution is now dead. We have today in this Assembly on your right hand side 43 representatives of the people of Singapore. Although the Rendel Constitution as a constitution is now dead, we have still remnants of the Rendel era and the pre-Rendel era in this House.

The ship which the captain and his crew under the Rendel Constitution have navigated for four years has now sunk, and a new ship - the State of Singapore - is now being manned by a strong, youthful and virile crew and this ship, we are confident, will chart and pave the way to all the hopes to which we the people have aspired for many years.

Mr Speaker, we understand the limitations of the present Constitution, which do restrain the political power of the elected representatives of the people. We do understand those limitations. We do understand that the elected Government has to work within certain defined powers and that there are curbs and restrictions on those powers and functions which a normal fully elected Government is supposed to exercise.

Mr Speaker, we also understand that within the island state of Singapore, we also have limitations on our economy, limitations which even a magician turned Minister for Finance cannot solve. I do not envy my colleague, the Minister for Finance, for his heavy tasks. But we the P.A.P., understanding those very limitations, have come up today and accepted the responsibilities of Government because there is no choice left to the people. For many years, particularly during the past four years, we have seen that it was nothing but inefficiency, waste, corruption and filth everywhere. The masses cannot get what they want - even the basic necessities which any modern Government should be able to provide. And it is the task of the P.A.P. Government, knowing the political and the economic limitations of the present situation, to come up and accept the responsibility of this Government, as we did so in the City Council. When we were in the City Council, our powers were as limited within the framework of the Constitution as our powers now in the present Government are limited within the present framework of the new Constitution. But we will be taking a wrong move if we refuse to accept the responsibility of Government.

Mr Speaker, we are working the Constitution hoping that the day will soon dawn on our people when we shall breathe the fresh air of freedom as our brethren in the Federation and other parts in Asia do breathe. Our way is the way of ultimate independence through merger with the Federation, and before that is achieved we have to accept whatever limitations are imposed on this Government by the so-called new Constitution - limitations imposed on us in this island State with no raw materials.

In the short-term policy - that is, the providing of the basic necessities of life to the 1½ million people of this island - and in our long-term policy of attainment of re-unification of Singapore and the Federation of Malaya, one thing is paramount and that is, Mr Speaker, the unity of all the communities and the races in Malaya. I may not entirely agree with the leader of U.M.N.O. (Tunku Abdul Rahman) in his political policies, but I must admit that he is a man of far vision and in the Sunday papers he has said that the greatest enemy now in our midst is communalism. Mr Speaker, Sir, communalism, as the Tunku has said, is the greatest enemy in our midst. As the Tunku has attacked and sworn at communalism in the Federation of Malaya, we in Singapore should echo his call and we should try to stamp out in this little island of ours any kind of communalism in our midst.

Because of the limitations of the Constitution, the role of the Opposition is even much more important than ever. The role of the Opposition is to provide constructive criticism to the Government and not just to attack the Government in all its policies. We have heard speeches from the Opposition Benches and I have not even heard for one single moment any Opposition speaker give any constructive ideas. Perhaps the hon. Members in the Opposition are not capable of doing it. Then what they should do is not to speak too long.

There is one single theme which strings across the speeches of the eight Opposition Members and that is nothing but the variable allowances of 4,000 members of the civil service - or even less than that. They say that the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara is good and that there is nothing wrong with it. Perhaps Members of the Opposition know that the speech spoken on behalf of the Government of Singapore is a practical, sensible and modest approach to the problems of a new Government in its first term of office. I cannot understand why Members of the Opposition should have spent so many days and yet were not able to contribute any constructive idea to the running of the Government machinery but just to attack the Government, especially the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Labour and Law, on the recent cut in variable allowance, Just now, Mr Speaker, the Member for Farrer Park said that the deficit in The 1959 Budget is only a threatened deficit. Yes, Mr Speaker, it is only a threatened deficit because it cannot be otherwise. We have not completed the year 1959 and the Minister for Finance could only make an estimate that until something is done it would be a deficit. Mr Speaker, we do not wait, as the Rendel Government and the other Governments did, for the ship to sink first before we take action. We have no time left to wait for the ship to sink first. We have to take action immediately. The Government has to take drastic action immediately in the interest of the national economy. Such actions could have been prolonged or delayed if previous Governments had not spent money so wastefully.

The Member for Farrer Park was asking just now for evidence of wasteful expenditure in previous years. Mr Speaker, in one of the departments in my Ministry, all the expatriates can leave and even if two-thirds of the local officers leave, we can still run as efficiently as before.

The Member for Farrer Park mentioned that finance was squandered not on annually recurrent expenditure but perhaps on buildings. Buildings like the expensive S.I.T. houses, buildings like the expensive bungalows in Kay Siang Road built for S.I.T. expatriate officers in which the Member for Farrer Park had taken a hand - this is what he said is not wasteful expenditure! I do not understand what is meant by wasteful expenditure. Perhaps it is not wasteful expenditure as far as that small group of members comprising vested interests are concerned, but it is wasteful expenditure as far as the people are concerned.

The Member for Farrer Park asked the Government what the role of a Minister is. Mr Speaker, the role of a Minister in the P.A.P. Government is different from the role of a Minister in the Rendel Government. The Minister in the P.A.P. Government really works and slogs. He does not leave anything responsible in the hands of the civil servants. We have noticed that under the Rendel Constitution, four or five Ministers can go on leave to Japan, Hongkong and other places, and yet the machinery of Government carries on. The P.A.P. Minister is one who believes in sincere and honest work and in leading a team of good, honest and sincere workers in the civil service to work likewise, I do not think that the civil service worked so hard for the people in the previous Government.

The Member for Farrer Park asked also what the role of a Back-Bencher is in the P.A.P. Government. The role of a Back-bencher in the P.A.P. Government is similar to the role of a Minister in a P.A.P. Government - nothing but work and work. All the P.A.P. Assemblymen are sent to their respective Ministries just to slog and to work. For instance, in my Ministry of National Development, in addition to the Parliamentary Secretary, there are seven Assemblymen who have given up their jobs in order to work for the Party. They are now getting less, Mr Speaker. They get $500 as an allowance out of which they contribute an average of $250 a month to the Party and out of the $250 a month they pay $50 for transport allowance, They do nothing but slog in the Ministries.

Now, Mr Speaker, a few days ago, an Opposition Member mentioned parliamentary democracy. We believe that, on the Government Benches, we understand more about the fundamentals of parliamentary democracy than do the Opposition Members, because we believe that for democracy to work, we must not only understand the form of democracy but its very essence. The hon. Member expressed the fear that the majority in a democracy might not respect the rights of the minority, but as our Deputy Prime Minister has mentioned during the motion on the Committee of Selection, although the minority is less than one-sixth of the total membership of this House, it has been given two-sixths of the representation on the Committee of Selection. Mr Speaker, we do understand the essence of democracy better than many others.

Mr Speaker, since we cannot expect much constructive efforts from the Opposition, we have to rely entirely on the people who have given us strength and hope. We do ask them to contribute to us ideas of how to run the Government machinery and to bring their daily problems to our attention, because we believe that if we do not have a constructive Opposition, the best thing to have is - and we do have it - an intelligent public opinion and a people who will always be ready to support us.

Now, Mr Speaker, it is especially important in the work in my Ministry that the support of all the people is required. In my Ministry, there are two urgent tasks confronting us. The first one is the grave and urgent task of building houses for the people. The second task is the planning and execution of a rural programme, to bring to the half a million people in the rural areas a programme which will modernise the rural areas, Mr Speaker, we are now left with a very acute housing shortage. In my first week of office. I received more than 1,000 applications for houses. We are now left with a very acute housing shortage and due to wasteful expenditure in the past - Mr Speaker, Christmas Island was sold for only $20 million, and I am sure the phosphates there cost many times more - we find ourselves not having sufficient funds to build all the houses we want to build. The S.I.T. has been building in past years an average of 2,000 units per year. This is not sufficient, In order to catch up with the shortage, at least 10,000 units a year are necessary. Moreover, in the past years, the S.I.T. has been building houses not meant for the lower income groups, because if houses were built for the lower income groups, there would be less chance of corruption. The poor people cannot pay for their houses. From now onwards, Mr Speaker, the emphasis will be on houses for the lower income groups, and more houses.

The second important aspect confronting the Ministry of National Development is the interest of half a million residents in the rural areas who have been completely ignored in the past. With the past regime, it was nothing but mere eyewash - "Form that commission, that department and this department." The P.A.P. Government does not talk. It works and, as a first step, it has united all these multifarious and small departments under the various Ministries into one administrative unit. The Fisheries Department, Agricultural Department, Veterinary Department, Animal Husbandry Department, and the Rural Development Commission, together with many other small departments from other co-operatives come under the Department of Primary Production. The P.A.P. Government is now working on a programme to serve Malay rural dwellers and to encourage them in the task of national construction and national development. Surveys are being prepared to provide standpipes for and to bring electricity to the kampongs, and the Government will assist them to modernize the rural areas.

The P.A.P. Government does not believe in charity. We believe that everyone - man, woman or child - in this country must play his or her part in the task of national construction. We do not believe in just idle living. Everybody must contribute his or her bit. The P.A.P. Government will make every endeavour to make the farmers contribute to our national economy by increasing production in the fields of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries development.

Mr Speaker, the Ministers and the Back-benchers of the P.A.P. Government work. The Party members in our Party work, and we have every confidence that the 1½ million people in Singapore will also work the same way as we do. This is what our Prime Minister has said - nice things do not just come down from the sky.

Mr Speaker, we are faced at present with a serious shortage of land in Singapore, partly due to the previous administration in not having a policy of land rationing. It is recognized that while our population increases in number every day, the amount of land available to the people always remains the same, and therefore it is vital for the present generation as well as the future generation to evolve a sound land policy. Much of Singapore's land is either occupied by catchment areas, burial grounds, or by the British armed forces. Much land is covered by tidal or mangrove swamps and there is also land where cultivation is not possible. The previous administration never even thought of a land policy. We shall put up plans for a sound land policy, so that whatever land we are left with can be made use of wisely. Just to give an indication of our present acute shortage of land: Commerce and industry and residents take up 23 per cent of the total area of 209 square miles of the mainland. Tidal swamps take up 11 per cent; the British armed forces absorb 11 per cent; the catchment areas absorb 6.2 per cent. Mr Speaker, all these amount to a total of 51.2 per cent of useless land. Land held by various authorities for special purposes embraces a further 3.8 per cent; roads and rivers, 3.3 per cent; nothing much is left for the people to cultivate or for future development purposes. Who is to blame for all these?

Mr Speaker, we believe that in this transitional stage of our history and that before we can attain independence through merger with the Federation of Malaya, it is important that there should be great understanding between the Government and the people, and that there should be a common united effort of everyone in this country, so that many of the problems which are facing us now - for instance, the problem of land shortage, housing shortage - which is connected with industrialisation and urbanisation - and the problems of the rural dwellers could be more easily solved. Depending on the nine Ministers, or depending on the 43 P.A.P. Members of the Government benches, or depending on the tens of thousands of members in our Party, it is not sufficient. We believe that in the difficult times ahead, which will last many, many years, it is important for every person in this country to understand the limitations, firstly, of our Constitution, and secondly, of our economy, and that there are certain things which no Government can do, and no Minister for Finance can solve. So long as we have that understanding, and so long as we have everybody working in a joint united effort, we are confident we can tide over the difficult situations until a new day dawns over us, and from then onwards, Mr Speaker, the P.A.P. Government hopes to achieve a socialist society which we have all wanted for so long.

6.38 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr Lee Kuan Yew): Mr Speaker, Sir, first may I present my personal greetings to you? It is a pleasure to have you resit over this House with the decorum that befits a legislature of the people. Sir, by the providence of a democratic constitution, you were spared the inconvenience of fighting the elections. May I hasten to assure you, from this side of the House, that that has not diminished your authority, nor the respect with which we hold your rulings in this House. There are, I hope, a sufficient number of old faces to make you not altogether at sea. The furniture remains the same, three P.A.P. Members are here to remind you of the, old times. Two Opposition Members, who used to be here albeit they look a little greyer and older now, are also here to keep you company.

But I hope in the months ahead you will not find the somewhat refreshing gusto of the P.A.P. Assemblymen too burdensome a duty to have to carry. I can assure you that I myself could not have asked for a more energetic and effective crew than that which the electorate has given me. But I would like to thank more than the electorate. I think Providence must have provided us with eight of the most suitable Opposition Assemblymen that we could possibly have chosen. Even if we wanted to do better, even if we were, according to the Constitution, given the privilege of picking out eight names to sit across us in this Chamber for the next five years, we could not possibly have improved upon it. One Honorary Doctor of Laws, the leader; his deputy luckily is also here so that he will always be reminded of the follies and stupidities of his past colleagues; someone from the prehistoric age from Tanglin came to life-

Mr Speaker: Order. I was tempted to allow the Prime Minister to continue in view of the nice words he said! But I think I must ask him to avoid personalities in this debate, and to get to the meat of the motion.

The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, much as I appreciate your views on this matter, may I say this. It is important before the drama commences, first to have the dramatis personae and I have out of modesty for the P.A.P., briefly and comprehensively covered all of them. But out of a sense of fairness to the Opposition, I would like to sketch out the villains of the piece in the next five years. And may I just have one last sentence in passing? Even their evil misdeeds in the City Council will be squatting upon their heads for the next five years, in the person of the Member for Farrer Park.

Sir, I want to say quite frankly and honestly that we are not really concerned with them. As a force, a political force representing the bulk or a sizeable portion of the community, they have ceased to matter. When I say that, I would like to make an exception in the case of our three U.M.N.O. friends. I say quite frankly from this side of the House, that we acknowledge that they carry with them a considerable body of Malay opinion, but not all, As for the others, they are there like gunny-bags, which I used to see in Japanese-occupied Singapore, strung across the field for Japanese soldiers to do bayonet practices. Dead ducks, they could not be deader!

For the last four days we have watched their performance from this side of the House and the role they have cut for themselves, the poses that they have struck and the tone that they have set. I would like to sum it up by saying that I have never seen a more sterile, a more dessicated group of people. More bankrupt a political crowd has never graced these chairs. They raised three themes. The Member for Farrer Park is going to be the great theoretician for the Opposition. He is the man who is going to expound to us for the next five years the theory of the democratic system, or, as he said, "Democracy". He said we were undemocratic when we scrapped the City Council because all over the democratic world, as he understood it, local Government, presumably after that practised in the old Singapore Municipality - subsequently turned City Council - was part of democracy. Therefore when we scrapped it, it was undemocratic. Then when a Minister assumes powers which have always been exercised by those in executive authority, when the Finance Minister assumes the powers which were once exercised by a colonial Financial Secretary, he says it is undemocratic.

Today he spent a considerable time labouring his point about how we should always be on guard to see that the rules and regulations of democracy are observed. Sir, it is the most important of the three themes that they have raised, and I propose to deal with it last.

The next theme was the pay cut. The Member for Cairnhill waxed eloquent. In fact, he waxed so eloquent that there was a moment when I was fearful for his dentures. But he has forgotten one simple elementary fact. In the trade union world, once you are burnt, you cannot, like the phoenix, rise from the ashes. He burned himself to ashes over the last four years. His words on the principles of trade unionism and the practice of collective bargaining fell somewhat flat on a trade union movement which had learned not to regard his Ministry of Labour and Welfare with the esteem and trust which our Ministry of Labour and Law is held by the majority of the working class in this country.

The third theme was Malay rights. Mr Speaker, Sir, we are grateful to the Member for Kampong Kembangan for having moved that amendment because he not only exposed himself, but he also helped to bring about one of the most farcical situations I have ever seen in Singapore politics. Suddenly the great progressive from Farrer Park became the great supporter of communal rights. And the Member for Cairnhill, a man who appeared with me on a radio forum during the election time, who hoped to make political capital with the Chinese electorate because the P.A.P. stood firm on Malay as the national language, and who tried to needle a Chinese communal point home, found himself in exuberant support of Malay rights and privileges.

Sir, in the last few years, the P.A.P. was plagued on two occasions by what we term Left-wing adventurism. I now see in this unprincipled and completely shameless switch of political line the beginnings of the twists and turns of Right-wing political adventurism. A man-

Mr Speaker: Strong words, but if the Prime Minister means those words to refer to an hon. Member of the House then, of course, he knows that those words are unparliamentary.

The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am extremely careful not to offend you. Had I called them Right-wing political adventurers - that is what indeed was on the tip of my tongue - I might have offended the rules. But I am not criticising the character of the person. I am saying in strong and categorical language that that sort of political conduct is, in political terminology, adventurism. And adventurism can be of two types - one Left-wing and the other Right-wing - and I term this Right-wing adventurism. It is as simple as that. It is a precise term of art,

Mr Speaker: I think the Prime Minister used other words, "unprincipled" and so on. Now, the Prime Minister of course is the only person who will know whether he wishes those words to apply to a specific Member of this House. If he does not, then he is perfectly in order. But if he does, then, of course, he is not in order.

The Prime Minister: If I may quote the famous last words by a Member of the former Assembly, "My conscience is clear."

Mr Speaker: Then, I do take it that those words were not meant to refer to any Member of this House. Please continue, Mr Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to tell the Member for Kampong Kembangan and his colleagues that what they are doing in this Chamber is exactly the counterpart of what a group of M.C.A. Right-wing political adventurers did to the Alliance on the eve of their elections. Sir, let me read to our U.M.N.O. friends across the Chamber what his leader had said on communalism and the future of Malaya, from a copy of the Sunday Times of July 19th, dateline Alor Star, Saturday.

The Tengku said:

"...he was sure Malay political parties, such as Party Negara and the P.M.I.P., would support U.M.N.O. if it chose to contest the Parliamentary election without its M.C.A. and M.I.C. partners. But U.M.N.O. being the ruling political party, has realised that in democratic Malaya, it has to join hands with non-Malay political parties, particularly the M.C.A. and M.I.C."

and he went on to say-

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the interpreters are finding a little difficulty in following.

The Prime Minister: I am obliged, Mr Speaker, Sir, for reminding me that while I may be reading, there are persons who have not the advantage of the written script.

The Tengku said:

"This form of national unity is essential in order to bring peace, harmony and prosperity to the people of this country."

The Tengku continued:

"A cosmopolitan country like Malaya cannot afford to have a political party which fights on communal lines."'

Sir, what the M.C.A. did to the Alliance, bringing up Chinese language issues, banging the communal drum and, at the same time, asking for seats, and cloaking their political avarice in patriotic, communal terms, is exactly the same technique which our friends from U.M.N.O. across this Chamber have done in the last two days.

I tell them quite frankly and earnestly. If they want the P.A.P. Government to succeed in carrying the Chinese mass with it, in its programme of nation building, in which we have made some tremendous political gestures for national solidarity - such as on questions of education, language and culture - then do not exasperate the Chinese mass by constantly harping on a theme upon which the Government has already stated its stand in clear and categorical terms.

Let me inform the Member for Cairnhill and the Member for Farrer Park, the new converts to the cause of Malay nationalism, what we said in November last year. There is one thing very simple and easy about the P.A.P. What we believe we set down in clear and precise terms for all to read. Unlike our opponents on the other side, we are prepared to put ourselves down in print. I know of no pamphlet, no manifestos issued by any of the Members on the other side, because they have no political credo. Let me just run through the statement we made on our fourth anniversary which we entitled "The new phase after Merdeka. Our task and policy". And we analysed why there had been no merger of Singapore and the Federation. We said that there were two reasons. First, there are one million Chinese in Singapore. Before I read, it, however, may I say that what I am going to read has been acknowledged by the leader of the U.M.N.O. in the Federation of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman, as the correct reason for there being no merger.

"Nobody doubts that if the population of Singapore were one million Malays and 150,000 Chinese, instead of being the other way round, Singapore would have been merged in the Federation, What then is the problem? It is that of nation building in a multi-racial society. The difficulty is especially acute in Malaya because the Chinese are not a minority. In the Federation, by itself, the Malays just outnumber the Chinese. If Singapore were included, the Chinese would outnumber the Malays. It is because the Indians are a minority in the Federation and Singapore that they present no difficulties to merger."

Now, may I read very slowly for the benefit of Members of the Opposition what we stated was the fundamental prerequisite to unification of the two territories.

"It must be demonstrated to three million Malays in the Federation that the one million Chinese in Singapore are ready, willing and able to be absorbed as one Malayan people, all able to speak Malay, and willing to work together for the economic betterment and upliftment of the Malays as equals of the other races. Malay fears that the Chinese would outnumber and overcome them in the economic, social and cultural fields of human endeavour must be dispelled. The Malays would want to be satisfied that their language and culture are not relegated to second place. Hence the paramount importance of settling once and for all what is the premier language of Malaya. It is for us in the mainly Chinese Singapore to show that we accept this and welcome any step to make the Malay language the national language spoken by all. Culture is to a large extent the result of language and literature, and the acceptance of the Malay language by all as a national language which everyone learns is an important step forward."

Sir, no other Party has stated its stand as clearly as the P.A.P. I am not speaking to the Malay U.M.N.O. leaders opposite, for they do not want to be convinced. I am speaking for the benefit of the Malays in the Federation. The Malays in Singapore will see from our deeds and will feel from our policies that we mean exactly what we say. The Malays in the Federation will hear of it from their friends and relatives in Singapore, from the Press, from the Radio. I hope, if there is nothing else that we have achieved in the course of the next five years, we will at least have achieved one thing - prove conclusively in a Chinese-dominated city that to play the Chinese Chauvinist line is not the way to power, that a Party which carries with it the majority of the Chinese can act in a way which fits into the context and pattern of a Malayan society, and not a Chinese society. Unlike the M.C.A. in the Federation, we are a Party rooted in the mass of the people; therefore we are in a position not only to make paper concessions but really to translate into action what we believe to be fundamentals in this task of nation-building. We can and will translate our ideals into practice. We are not like the M.C.A. rebels in the Federation, people who are just floating on top. To keep mass support, they have to beat the big Chauvinist drum. We do not have to do that. Our support comes out of a realisation on the part of the Chinese mass that this is an honest and sincere Party dedicated to the welfare of the whole of the people, which include the Chinese, the Malays and the Indians and the rest, the vast majority of whom are the poor and the underprivileged.

May I dismiss all the foolish things that have been said by the three U.M.N.O. Members in this House, by saying that it will be our pleasure and our privilege in the course of the next five years to make the three U.M.N.O. Members eat back the foolish things they have said on Malay communal issues.

Next, the pay cuts. I want to tell the civil service that the issue at stake is not the loss of allowances or what they have chosen to term as "the principle of negotiations". Let me tell them plainly and bluntly that the issue is the survival of the English-educated in their attempt to try and bridge this gap, the transition between a privileged class society and an egalitarian society. The English-educated are singularly placed, by virtue of the past history of this territory, to play an important role in this transition. They can help in bridging the gulf between a colonial past and an egalitarian future. If they understand the issues, I have not the slightest doubt that many of them will respond to the challenge with which they are faced. Let me start at the beginning.

What they are bellyaching about is not the principle of negotiations. The bellyache is the pay cut. If tomorrow unilaterally, we impose a wage increase, I do not believe there is going to be a hue and cry. It is not over imaginery principles of collective bargaining in trade union practice that they are soured with. It is the very real loss in dollars and cents which is going to come at the end of July. I want to present them with two arguments. First to appeal to their better nature; and second, to those who have no better nature, I present them with the awful alternative.

To those in the civil service who have better natures, let me say quite frankly that we have not done this because we like to do it. Why should we like to hurt and injure people who must work for us? Part of the democratic system means that there is a civil service which does the bidding of the Party that has the mandate of the people. I have explained this many a time before, but I think it bears repeating. The theory of the democratic State is that there is a good motor-car in good mechanical condition, with mechanics, fitters and so on to keep it sound. And there is a driver there to take the Minister where he wants to go. It is for the Minister having been elected by the people to decide where the driver is to go and how and by what route. It is the business of the civil service - the driver, the fitters and the rest - to keep that car in sound mechanical condition. We do not wish to punish, incapacitate, antagonise those through whom we must translate our policies.

But at the very time when we were fighting for family allowances - my colleagues the Minister for Labour and Law, the Minister for Finance, the Deputy Speaker - let me tell the Members of the Opposition we were fully aware of the consequences if we failed. The campaign was, as the Minister for Finance said, to break the will of the British civil service to govern and to assert the will of the local man. And that we did. Not the Member for Farrer Park or the Member for Tanglin. We have not taken the fruits of their labour. The Member for Farrer Park was labouring under a delusion that because there were lots of stooges in the City Council of which he was not one for parliamentary reasons, we are enjoying the benefits of this self-government. Now, Sir, if there were no people like us to break that system, the Member for Farrer Park (I went out just now, Mr Speaker, Sir, to chase up one of the fitters of the Government machine.) I remember having read many years ago of how the Member for Farrer Park went on a special training course to Britain to train himself to be the mayor. So I asked one of the Government fitters in the research department to dig up this Press cutting. Well, unfortunately, they are not as efficient as they ought to be, but they will be at the end of these five years, believe you me. He has not given me the Press cutting. He has given me an excerpt and it says:

"Straits Times 3-7-53, A. P. Rajah Progressive North making special study in Britain on functions of Mayor,"

Sir, then there were long debates about the sartorial outfit of the Mayor. The gown, the - may I be forgiven, Mr Speaker, Sir, in making this reference, but I can assure you that I mean to cast no aspersion upon the dignity of your sartorial attire. I would like to make this point - [Laughter].

Mr Speaker: Order. First I think members of the Strangers' Gallery are getting a bit out of hand. They seem to be laughing too much. Perhaps, it is the Prime Minister who is giving them the lead, But I wonder whether all this reference to the Mayor and his sartorial garb has anything at all to do with this motion before us; whether there is any relevance in it?

The Prime Minister: Indeed! I would like to show that the Member for Farrer Park is a man representative of that lost generation, that believes in the forms and trappings of democracy, and is completely oblivious to the fact that the British democratic system - the forms and trappings - undiluted, unamended, is bound to perish in South-East Asia. All his time is spent on the outward forms and trappings. It was even debated quite seriously whether, if the Mayor turned out to be female instead of male, she should wear trousers or wear a skirt. Fortunately, Mr Speaker, Sir, when the time came, the man destined to be Mayor by his Party was unable to contest the elections for fear of being routed and the lady who hoped to get into trousers disappeared quietly from the political scene. The Mayor whom the people elected decided, for the good health and benefit of everyone, to put the robes and the chain and the other paraphernalia of office in the place where they should be - a museum.

Let me tell the civil service this. They knew, or their leaders knew, what was coming. At the time when we were fighting for these wage increases we did not fight for the people at the top. We fought for the people at the bottom. But because the people at the top would not come unless the carrot was offered, they were also offered something at the top. And may I say, to the credit of the Minister for Labour and Law, that throughout those tortuous negotiations for the final implementation of Ritson, he resisted the demands from the top. But, nevertheless, because a principle was involved, parity between the local officer and the expatriate officer, we had to press on, knowing full well that the whole thing was unhealthy and economically unsound.

We went to London, the Member for Cairnhill and I. The Member for Cairnhill, may I say, Sir, is one of the most skilful political types that survived a pre-Rendel era into this era. He knew full well what the civil service wanted. They wanted to guarantee allowances, basic and everything. To freeze it and make it something beyond the reach of an elected Government. He agreed with me that it would be iniquitous to foist on the people of Singapore allowances which were completely disproportionate to the economy of Singapore. That was the reason why the Constitution came to be written in the way it did. The word "remuneration" in the definition column in section 1 means:

"in respect of any officer means only the emoluments of that officer, the whole or any part of which is pensionable."

Having seen what happened in the City Council, certain members of the civil service wanted to build themselves in. But that did not take place and he was a party to it. He knew full well that the proposal was unjust. And now he says "contrary to trade practice". The process of rationalisation of the pay scales may take years, that is, if we are given that time. Let us say quite honestly that the P.A.P. Government is a realistic one. When we say that we are negotiating, we mean it. We have imposed a rule of thumb with an allowance cut. We know that in so doing, there will be certain categories of professional and technical men - doctors, architects, technicians, maybe even lawyers - who will find themselves at a disadvantage in respect of their counterparts in the commercial world, and therefore adjustments will have to be made to face the facts. Eventually, it may well be that in certain categories, we may even have to reward people more than even the colonial system did, because we are going to face up to the economic facts of life. We are not just going to carry on a legacy of an expatriate past.

Let me state - I mean no aspersion on this officer, but I put it forward as an instance of the psychological malady of the civil service: a local officer today is staying in a posh local hotel at considerable Government subsidy because once upon a time there was a shortage of housing accommodation. Europeans come and go on leave and therefore, pending being housed in Government quarters, they squat in expensive hotels in town and the Singapore Government subsidises it. And so it goes on, and local officers who, according to the rules and regulations of the game, fit the bill also do these things. These are things which should not be and cannot be and they will have to stop. But that in my view is not altogether their fault. It was because the system allowed such things to happen. Once the system allowed civil servants to spend their time not busying themselves in the tuning up of the engine in the car to make it go better and faster, but in looking out for spoils, naturally everybody joined in the sport. Everybody wanted to get as much out of the service as they could, and very few were interested in putting into the service as much as they could give.

Now, there are certain good features about the civil service which we want to preserve. First, I would say that it is relatively a loyal service, There are the few odd ones - the noisy, fatuous types - whose folly and stupidity will ultimately catch up with them. But, by and large, they are loyal to the ideal that the civil service should do its best to carry out and implement the policy of an elected government.

Second, they are relatively incorrupt. Looking around South-East Asia, I think we have reason to congratulate ourselves on the manner in which the last elections were carried out, I am told that in Thailand, in the course of an election, bombs get thrown into polling booths, I am told that in some of the islands to the east of us, returning officers helped voters to write out the names of the candidates whom they wanted to choose. I am told that in some other parts they put into the ballot boxes lots of votes for the candidate they wanted to see win before the voting began. I would like to pay this tribute to our civil service - apart from a few black sheep with whose activities the appropriate Government departments will catch up in the course of time - they are relatively honest,

We have assured them of their future, as indeed it is the business of a Government to ensure its cadres of their future. The Communists also do that. They guarantee the livelihood of every worker of the Government - his life, family and education - as long as the man is alive and perhaps even after he is dead. And for that reason, we agreed to allow the Constitution to protect the pension rights of our civil service. When they join the service, it is necessary for them to know that, if they devote their whole life to the administration of the State, at the end of it they can go out to pasture with reasonable comfort. But I would like to remind them of this, that that guarantee is only worth anything if the Constitution exists. Where a State is destroyed in the process of revolution, the State that succeeds does not necessarily honour the obligations of the precedent system. We have a vested interest to see that this State does not collapse.

So to those who have a better nature, I say, "Play your part in the building up of a more egalitarian society." History has given them a singularly important role. By the process of elimination through Malayanisation, they have filled up all the key positions of the apparatus of the State. And it is the business of this State, if it is to survive to bridge the inequalities of the past, to bring about the order and justice of a more equal society of the future.

To those who are only concerned with their personal interest, I say this: If we lose this battle, they will also lose. For unless we are able to build through the processes of a democratic system a more equal and just society, then all the pensions and the pastures in the Constitution are gone.

We are fully aware of what we have inherited. Two of the Ministers of this Government were members of the civil service. We know that we have got a 10-horse power engine to carry a ten-ton load. This is the real dilemma of this Government - that the administration has got just as much as the best in the service can put up, and that best, through no fault of theirs, is unequal to the demands which our people have made upon the Government. It is our business therefore to try, first, to supercharge the engine by adding the talent and skill - both executive and managerial; by importing, if necessary, expert technical knowledge and know - how. But the long-term objective is even more important, that of building up an engine of more than 10-horse power.

The civil service is now open for competition to all streams of education - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil educated - and we will take from all the streams, the best of them all. There is nothing new in this either. We have clearly told them what was coming, and I remember that in Fullerton Square in the midst of an election campaign I told them of the future. I said then, and I say now, that they must be prepared to compete on equal terms. A system in which because the white man spoke English and therefore he liked best the near white man who spoke English, and after that the local man who spoke English, cannot be sustained in a situation where the boss has changed. The boss is no longer the Secretary of State for the Colonies. The boss collectively are the miserable hawkers and labourers, teachers, clerks - the people of Singapore. And once we are committed to one man, one vote, regardless of colour, creed, wealth and knowledge, then we are committed to a more just and equal society. I say to the civil service and their present rather inept leaders who have begun what they believe to be a revolutionary movement against the Government, that if nothing else more catastrophic happens to them than the loss of allowances in the top brackets of the civil service, and the fact that they have to face fiercer competition from the non-English educated members of the service, then they should go down on their bended knees and thank the gods that their souls have been spared.

That brings me to the third theme - democracy as expounded by the Member for Farrer Park. I want to preface my remarks with this reminder of the past, that the English educated, because their avenue of information has been confined to the English Press, have been unable to face up to the real issues that the country is faced with. The English Press has played a diabolical role in the last few years. They believe that the march of time can be stopped by scaring the English-educated. Nobody really seriously believed that my Ministers and I were a gang of lunatics. In fact, after we won, they took scrupulous pains to list all the virtues that we possess, and which they already knew a long time ago. But they systematically distorted and misrepresented the issues.

The only people who are prepared to face the facts are the people in the leadership of the P.A.P. We pursued our line not for reasons of political opportunism but because we believed it was the only way, the only sensible and sane way, to prevent all that was good in the past from being destroyed by all that was bad in the past. I would like to say that this is a government with long memories. We do not pursue petty personal vendettas, but what we say as a matter of policy we stand by.

Our first task, so far as the English-educated are concerned, is to pose the issues to them so that they will see the stark realities of this situation. And I say to the civil servants that what is at stake is not just their pay allowances, the principle of collective bargaining and negotiation, or their pensions but what is at stake is the survival of the democratic State. And the problem arises in this way. As a result of the aberrations of past colonial governments, masses of people were allowed to come into this country to help provide cheap labour, to exploit the national resources. All the immigrants fended for themselves, and it is a credit to them that they did it so wonderfully. They provided their own schools. They provided their own systems of education and upbringing. And they provided their offspring with a complete set of cultural values which they thought proper. And the misfortune we are faced with now is that there are broadly four large linguistic and cultural groups with different sets of values. If it was a question of one man one vote in the early days where only the English educated voted, this problem would not arise. The problem arises in an acute form when all the other language-groups vote. As far as Malaya and Singapore are concerned, the bulk of the population are either Chinese or Malay educated, and the bulk of the present leadership of both the Federation and Singapore are English educated.

Sir, may I assure the Member for Farrer Park, two Ministers of the Government side studied and took examinations in Constitutional Law and Practice the Rule of Law, and both passed their examinations. Six of the nine Ministers spent part of their education in colleges abroad, and are quite familiar and conversant with the rules and principles, and the trappings and the forms of the democratic system. But all the Ministers and Assemblymen. English-educated, Chinese educated, Malay educated, Tamil educated, understand one fundamental rule, and that is, if a thing is not made suitable for the people, that thing is useless. And I put the issue as simply and plainly as this: that the mass of the Chinese educated and the Malay educated and the Tamil educated and even the English educated in this country have never read Dicey on the Rule of Law, or Wade and Phillips, and have never heard about Hansard. If they decide that the democratic system which they hear has come into being after independence in the Federation and internal self-government in Singapore, does not make any difference to their lives, if it only perpetuates the follies, the stupidities, the inequalities, and the injustices of the past, then at the end of five years, or maybe ten years, we have only ourselves to blame if they decide that this system is unsuitable. And if we try to pay attention to forms and not to substance, then surely we will fail.

Let me reduce to its barest essentials what we on this side of the House believe to be the democratic system. It means a system where each man has as much a right to live in this world as the next man, and where it is possible for the majority of the people to bring about changes in the social order without resort to force. Translated into political terms, it means giving one man one vote, and allowing him to decide who should govern, and how they should govern for a specified number of years. It means the right at the end of that specified number of years again to pass judgment on that government and on others who may present themselves for the mandate of the people.

Let me tell the Member for Farrer Park that there is nothing which this Government does that is undemocratic if it is within the framework of this Constitution, and that is, on the hypothesis that this Constitution is democratic; and I have not heard any of the Members on the other side say that this Constitution is not democratic, let alone the old Progressive Party loyalist, the Member for Farrer Park, But despite all the democratic forms and procedures and the spirit which this Constitution tries to provide for democracy, fundamentally it is not a democratic Constitution: because there is an over-riding provision which gives the British raj the right to revoke it. I have not heard the Member for Farrer Park complain against this. At the bottom of his heart he is thinking that if anything goes wrong, well, what to do. He will be rescued by the British raj. He is not complaining about this. That is the reason why I say this: in his preoccupation with forms, the outward manifestations, the robes and regalia of democracy, the rules and by-laws, he has forgotten the fundamentals, and that is, the will of the people of the majority shall prevail, on how they should be governed and by whom. And at periodic intervals they will re-assert their right to decide.

I tell the Members opposite quite frankly that if you try to run the undiluted, the British-styled democratic system in the context of South-East Asia, you will collapse. It is not possible. I have not heard the Member for Farrer Park nor the Member for Cairnhill say that the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance is undemocratic. According to the book of rules of the British type Constitutions, it is undemocratic. But if you pay just lip-service to little by-rules, the frills of a democratic state, then you have no chance of survival. You must try to translate into actual reality the basic objectives of a democratic system within the conditions which exist in Singapore, in Malaya, in the milieu of South-East Asia in revolt. In the whole history of South-East Asia, there has never been an epoch where there is so much ferment and turmoil as has taken place since 1945-a whole system of society crushed and crumpled up. Many of our neighbours have yet to find the final form in which they will be governed. Let me read this for the benefit of the Member for Farrer Park. I am reading now from a very sober Sunday newspaper, The Observer of London, from their correspondent in South-East Asia; 14th June, 1959, page 9, where it says:

"The Lights Are All Going Out All Over Asia

For those who believe that political salvation lies only in political democracy as it is understood in the West, the lights of Asia are one by one waning and going out. Military leaders have taken effective power off the hands of politicians in Pakistan, Thailand and Burma. Indonesia is on the brink of a constitutional revolution designed to give President Soekarno and the Army the real control of national affairs. In Laos the Conservative Prime Minister now enjoys special powers which reduce Parliament to a cypher. The general elections which are due to be held in three different countries of South-East Asia this year have been postponed."

Let me read out another passage:

"After the war nationalist movements gain momentum and the Asian countries won or were granted their independence, but the humiliation did not end there, Their new, often jerry-built imitations of Western democratic systems were in too many cases exploited by opportunistic politicians, wrecked by bureaucratic boneheads and plundered by the pocket-lines. Economies ran down the hill, corruption and inefficiency poisoned national administrations, and the result is chaos." I say without any hesitation that if we have to make variations and adaptations to the forms and trappings and the frills of a democratic system, we shall do so, because the business of a government is to govern and we have the mandate to govern. What is more, we had the courage to put down what we intended to do and had a clear mandate on it, unlike Members on the opposite side.

If we preoccupy ourselves with forms and procedures then we shall all be wasting a great deal of time in the next five years, because some of the forms and procedures which may have to be followed may not be in accordance with the best traditions of Westminster or the British Government at Whitehall. But I give you this assurance. That this is a Government which is fully aware of the essentials of a democratic state, which it believes are worth preserving, and at the same time is sufficiently knowledgeable of the realities of the situation to try and make the system work in the context of South-East Asia. I would tell the Members opposite this - more important than the dead letters of a Constitution are the actors who bring it to life, If you have Mr Mak Pak Shee trying to play Hamlet, or worse, Chew Swee Kee trying to play Shylock, then even Shakespeare becomes a farce.

Finally, your system is as good as the best men who operate it. And let us never forget that. For over thirty years, the only political Party that constantly organised to get the best actors on its side was the Communist Party of Malaya. And they recruited and trained them. The nationalist Parties did not emerge until 1945. If you want to play the democratic drama, then you must have the dramatis personae to make it worthy of listening by the people to whom you are presenting it. That is really the crux of the problem. I say, without the slightest immodesty on the part of my colleagues and myself, that we are the only group that has the coherence, drive and the convictions to build up something more than ourselves -a democratic, socialist movement within a revolutionary situation. The issue is as simple as this. If we do not continue recruiting as we have done in the past five years, then we shall eventually wither and die, It is only if we recruit and we grow in strength within the next five years that we can face the world at the end of it, with the aplomb and assurance as befits a Party which has dedicated itself to the interests of the mass of its people. And you can only recruit if you convince those whom you intend to recruit that you are recruiting for a worthwhile cause.

Let me draw one lesson for the Members on the other side. There is not one single Member - apart from the U.M.N.O. Members who are representing a portion of the Malay people - who represent the people. They represent a group which is spent, lost and exhausted. Why have they got no Chinese-educated with them? Because they are unable in their preoccupation with mayoral robes, rules and procedures, to bring home the message that the democratic system can work in the interest of the majority of the people, if there are men and women of integrity, honesty, drive and purpose to make the system work.

I tell the Member for Tanglin this - that going to Sunday school once a week to preach is no good. Go down and work for the people every day of the week if you want to bring home to them the fact that the elected representatives are worth electing, and that the system that elected representatives are working is worth the keeping.

If the power of the State which we now control is used not to enrich the lives of many of its people but to line the pockets of a few of the ruling hierarchy, then verily we shall all perish.

In conclusion, Mr Speaker, Sir, may I say that the P.A.P. Government had put its cards on the table before it assumed office. We did it over three months of campaigning beginning from the famous day of 15th February at Hong Lim. It was there the Deputy Prime Minister said things and set off a chain reaction which finally ended with the routing of the rogues and scallywags that used to haunt this Chamber. We have placed before the people the mandate that we sought of them. We did not try to deceive anyone. We know exactly what is expected of us because we have made these promises. Unlike the previous Government, we gave no hostages to fortune. Plainly and simply, we took the stand which we knew was necessary and in the interest of the survival of the democratic state in order, first, to cleanse the system of the evils of the past, and to retrieve some of the liberalism, the tolerance which were the good things we should carry into the future.

I tell the Opposition this. They provide us, and I hope they will continue to provide us in the next five years, with that vivid contrast which will throw up the virtues of the P.A.P. into magnificence. But if we fail, let me tell them that this is not a constitutional position of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Democrats and Republicans in America, or Tories and Labour in Britain. If we fail, and we are unable to make the system work, it is not they who are going to come back. They will be fleeing for their lives, because behind us there is no other alternative which is prepared to work the democratic system. And therefore, in the last analysis, if we fail then brute force returns.

I am sure no one in this House nor any one in the country would want this to happen. And therefore, I say to all those who wish us ill, that if we fail, woe betide them. But to those who wish us well, I give this message. This is a Government consisting of people who put their ideas, their ideals and the welfare of their people above themselves, This is a Party which has the courage of its convictions, which is prepared to pursue what it believes to be right in the interest of the people without deviating for opportunist reasons.

This will be an era which will light up the dark pages of the history of Singapore, post 1945. If we succeed, as we intend to, in building a climate not only of national solidarity but a climate in which the ordinary people begin to believe that institutions of Government in the country are run by people who are loved and revered because they are working for the mass of the people, then we will have done a service, not only to ourselves, our Party and our movement, but we will also have done a service to the democratic socialist movement. Until the advent of the P.A.P. no group proclaiming the democratic socialist cause ever struck roots in the mass of the people. Let me say, Mr Speaker, Sir, judge us not in the next five years by the standards of the British House of Commons and the British Government in Whitehall. Judge our performance in the context of our objectives and the realities of our situation, and at the end of five years you will certainly not find us wanting in courage, in skill, and in sincerity.

Mr Speaker: Dr Toh, in reply?

Dr Toh Chin Chye: Yes. Mr Speaker, we began this debate by quoting the conclusion to the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech. Let me now end this debate by quoting the introduction to his speech. We reiterate that, through peaceful and constitutional means, we will take the social revolution a step further. We are a Government pledged to bring about a more just society.

Finally, if it consoles the Opposition, I will say that we, the P.A.P., do not believe in throwing stones at those who have already fallen into the well.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the following Address in reply to the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara be agreed to:-

"We, the Legislative Assembly of the State of Singapore, express our thanks to the Yang di-Pertuan Negara for the speech which he delivered on behalf of the Government at the opening of the present session of this Assembly."