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

Order read for resumption of adjourned debate on Question [3rd August, 1960],

`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."'.-(The Prime Minister).

Question again proposed.

2.52 p.m.

Mr Ong Eng Guan (Hong Lim): Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister's speech yesterday was intended to confuse the real issues facing the people. After the Hong Lim Branch of the P.A.P. had tabled its historic 16 resolutions at the P.A.P. Special Party Conference called on 18th and 19th June, the Prime Minister used all the State and private organs of propaganda at his command - the State organs are like Radio Singapore and the private organs are all his agents, together with a rigid control of the Press - to systematically divert the attention of the people from the real issues by disseminating smears and distortions, by calling names as what he did yesterday, by concocting charges and smearing my work in the City Council and the Ministry of National Development. The offensive propaganda was carried out on a grand scale, which the Lim Yew Hock government had not learned. But it was all the same - ineffective. Why was it ineffective? It is because of two basic reasons.. Firstly, the people have known for some time of the deviation of P.A.P. aims and policies by the Prime Minister and his able lieutenant, the Minister for Finance, who are the two persons responsible for steering the P.A.P. along its present actively pro-colonial course. Secondly, the Prime Minister is as good a propagandist as Dr Goebbels of the last war was. He tells the intellectuals one story. He tells the farmers, hawkers, workers, petty traders, and so on, another story. He tells the businessmen a third different story, and he goes on ad infinitum.

To give an example, Mr Speaker - the so-called Minutes of the Party Conference were given to the Press in two different and distinct versions, one for the English-speaking members of the public and the other for the Chinese-speaking members of the public. But what happened? People meet at one time or another; the hawker could meet the clerk, the businessman could meet his employee, and the others, the bilingual and trilingual speaking public who could read both the Chinese and the English Press, when they compare the reports they find that they have been receiving different stories, in other words, different propaganda. Thus the people realise that it is mere propaganda, like Dr Goebbels' propaganda, and not the truth.

The truth, Mr Speaker, is this. At the Badminton Hall rally, round about 30,000 people attended, half inside and half outside. Is it necessary for me, Mr Speaker, to convince you with photographs taken at the Hall? We can pass them around later if Mr Speaker will allow.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Member is giving me a very difficult task, and that is to draw a line somewhere. I do not think this Assembly is concerned with the internal strife of the Party itself. What, I think, the Assembly is concerned with is the overall picture which that strife perhaps has created in Singapore. Therefore, I ask the hon. Member not to go into too many details, like producing photographs and things like that. Perhaps if the hon. Member will bear that in mind, we could then get back to the motion which is before the House.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Thank you, Mr Speaker. All my remarks are related to the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech and to the Prime Minister's address. Though I have to make the necessary clarification, I will not produce the photographs any more.

After the rally at the Badminton Hall, the Prime Minister was convinced that he had failed to divert the attention of the public from the Hong Lim resolutions, despite his intensive propaganda campaign and rigid suppression of the Press and mass rallies. The Ong Eng Guan scapegoat is not good enough; too small fry.

In the past week, there has been little talk about Ong Eng Guan being anti-"collective leadership". No more. "Dr Goebbels'" first shot has failed. This is because we have effectively exploded the so-called "collective leadership" of the P.A.P. Nobody in Singapore believes it anymore. So, yesterday we heard in this Assembly of a new scapegoat, the so-called Left-wing adventurers. The first scapegoat - Ong Eng Guan. The second scapegoat - the Left-wing adventurers. And the third scapegoat, most probably, will be the Minister for Labour and Law.

The people who turned up at the Badminton Hall rally were, by implication, the work of Left-wing adventurers, and not because the masses supported the Hong Lim resolutions. Mr Speaker, how would you explain the masses gathering at P.A.P. election rallies held before the P.A.P. formed the Government? Two Wednesdays ago, at the opening of this Assembly, there was the necessity to direct six lorry loads of Work Brigade members to stand in front of the Supreme Court to cheer and shout "Merdeka". As I said yesterday, you can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot force it to drink. The Brigade workers on that morning did not shout "Merdeka". I repeat, Sir, how would you explain the masses gathering at P.A.P. election rallies before the P.A.P. formed the Government? Was that the work of Left-wing adventurers? You cannot effectively explain away the masses who turned up at the Badminton Hall. They turned up because they supported the Hong Lim resolutions which were concrete expressions of their hopes and grievances. They turned up because they had bottled up in their hearts for the past one year the bitter disappointment of the Government which they had voted in and to which they gave such an overwhelming majority, and which now betrayed their fundamental interests.

It is not true when the Prime Minister said yesterday that "there was an absence of deep and abiding grievance among the people." Mr Speaker, how would he know? How would the Prime Minister know when he does not see the people but shuts himself up in the City Hall?

The fight in Singapore today is still between the colonialists and the pro-colonialists on the one side and the people on the other side. The Prime Minister did his level best in his speech to convince us that his Government is still a progressive Government. His tactics are simple. After 14 months of strange silence, the Prime Minister started admonishing the K.M.T., the colonialists, the European interests, the colonialist newspapers. These are very simple kindergarten exercises. I hope this time the Speaker will not refuse me to practise a simple kindergarten exercise. I remember when I was in school I used to play this type of exercise. On one finger is a piece of paper. "Mr Speaker, see, this is right." But immediately I put this finger down, and I put another finger up, and the paper becomes left. So we are doing the same thing here.

The Prime Minister admonished the K.M.T. and so on. He detained two journalists in the name of K.M.T. right-wing subversion,and he thus hoped the people will consider him left. And then the Prime Minister went on further to say:

"The policy of the Communist Party... is to unite with all progressive forces, of which the P.A.P. is acknowledged as one, to struggle against the forces of reaction, viz. colonialism, imperialism and feudalism."

And he said again:

"We are not unaware that with the Communist on one side of us and the British colonialist on the other, each side will want to pull us to its side."

Now, Mr Speaker, are these simple kindergarten exercises convincing? They would be as convincing as when the former Chief Minister, Mr Lim Yew Hock, said in this Assembly, "Gentlemen, I am anti-colonialist." Were the two journalists detained for K.M.T. sub version? Were they leaders of the so-called K.M.T. subversive organisation in Singapore? What I know is that one of them was detained 15 minutes after my Press conference on Sunday, 3rd July, 1960, on his way to his office near Cable and Wireless at Robinson Road to cable my Press releases to his paper in Kuala Lumpur. I do not support this paper because it always writes sensational articles. But what happened is this. Being a paper printed in Kuala Lumpur, its editors could not be called up and be intimidated, as editors of Singapore newspapers have been regularly intimidated, Mr Speaker. Sometimes this intimidation goes on for hours. This paper in Kuala Lumpur exploited the rigid control on Singapore's newspapers, arid its sale were boosted up from several hundred copies to many thousands of copies. So the best way was to detain these two journalists and teach the Singapore journalists a lesson. The Chinese proverb says: "Kill the cockerel in order to teach the monkey."

How about the colonial newspapers which the Prime Minister mentioned yesterday? What the Prime Minister attacked was not the Straits Times. The British editorial writers of the Straits Times are good, of course. They wrote two editorial articles dated the 22nd of June and the 24th of June praising the stand of the Lee Kuan Yew Government. Why did the Prime Minister not mention about the Voice of America which was praising him? The person the Prime Minister attacked in his speech yesterday, by implication, was a local writer named Mr Huang Tze-chin, alias Francis Huang, who wrote a series of articles in the Sunday Mail about the present political crisis. Our present Minister for Culture also used to write similarly. There is nothing wrong about it. Francis Huang is one who believes in liberal capitalism, if I can sum it up in two words, and if that is a correct description. After his first article in the Sunday Mail on the first Sunday after the Party conference, I believe he was called up and grilled for four solid hours. His second article negated his first article. I hope, gentlemen, to refresh your memory. And being not happy about it, Mr Huang wrote a third article which negated his second article. So the first article was his article; the second article was the Government's article; and the third article was his artic1e to negate his second article. He negated his second article by writing a third article and indirectly telling the people that he had written his second article under Government pressure. So we have these articles of Mr Francis Huang which are his own - the first article, the fourth article and the fifth article. What had Mr Huang Tze-chin written about which the Prime Minister said had confused and deluded the public? Mr Huang Tze-chin considered himself a political scientist, and advised the present ruling clique of the P.A.P. to come out in open support of liberalism and capitalism. He was not happy that now they were only supporting it in the dark. At the moment, it is actually a game of hide-and-seek. Mr Huang Tze-chin advised a national coalition.

Mr Speaker, you will remember that in the days of the Lim Yew Hock Government, there had always been shouts of a national coalition, and the Singapore People's Alliance was thus formed. Mr Huang Tze-chin said:

"The way can be prepared for a national coalition only if the suspicions left over by history are dispelled through a genuine revival of the bourgeois freedoms and the creation of an atmosphere of genuine liberalism."

Suspicions - about whom? About Lim Yew Hock? No mention is being made of a coalition with whom. Does it imply a national coalition with Lim Yew Hock?

Mr Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has been mentioning the name of Lim Yew Hock very often. When he says "the Lim Yew Hock Government", perhaps it is excusable. But when he says, "Lim Yew Hock", I think he ought to say the Member for Cairnhill.

An hon. Member: He is a popular man!

Mr Speaker: Order.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I think I should explain what I meant when I said "Lim Yew Hock". It is not so much the Member for Cairnhill himself, but the political force that he represents in Singapore. I am not referring to the present Member for Cairnhill as he is himself.

Mr Huang Tze-chin then continued in the Sunday Mail. He gave these alternatives. He said:

"What are the alternatives to the liberal analysis?

One is to allow things to drift towards a smash-up in 1964.

Another is to launch a wave of repression to mop up Ong and all who are not against him."

There will be many, many hundreds of thousands who are not against him.

"A third is to intensify the present crisis into a constitutional crisis, thus inviting British intervention.

A fourth is to give it all up as a bad job.

None of these alternatives bear thinking about, if one shifts one's gaze from the tiny cockpit of Hong Lim to the decisive arena of the 1964 general election." Mr Huang Tze-chin concluded his article dated 17th July, 1960, with an attack on the Government's detention of the two journalists. And what did the Prime Minister think about this? He said this in his speech yesterday:

"All this talk of absolute democratic rights, laissez-faire liberalism, freedom and human rights, in the face of the stark realities of an underground struggle for power, can only confuse the English-educated world."

In other words, he believes also in guided democracy. In other words, he also believes in sending riot squad vans to P.A.P. branch meetings, intimidation of Party members by sending C.I.D. men to see them in the dead of night, calling them up and subjecting them to secret trials and so on, which the people have seen in plenty in the past six weeks.

Mr Speaker, by implication, the Prime Minister, in his reference to Huang Tze-chin's articles, although he does not mention those articles by name, wants the European imperialists, colonialists, the bosses of the Straits Times who control the Sunday Mail, to clamp down on writers like Huang Tze-chin. It was the same when the Lim Yew Hock Government wanted the Straits Times to clamp down on writers like Mr S. Rajaratnam, who is at present the Minister for Culture. Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister does not want to clamp down on British editorial writers who praise the present Government.

Again, the Prime Minister in his speech yesterday talked about the Communist Party on the one side and the colonialists on the other. So a very simple exercise again, trying to imply that the Government are in the centre and they are not therefore pro-colonialists. How would the Prime Minister explain then the presence of expatriates like Thomson, Blades and Meadows in control of key positions in the machinery of the State? So these expatriates are not colonialists at all. And again he implied:

"People say the P.A.P. is progressive, so I, the Prime Minister, must also be progressive."

The members of the P.A.P. are progressive. The P.A.P. Assemblymen and even some of the Ministers are still reasonable. The Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Home Affairs and our Minister for Culture are reasonable and nice gentlemen. But it is these two persons, the Prime Minister and his able lieutenant, the Minister for Finance, who have in the past year steered the present Government along a pro-colonial course. The Prime Minister said yesterday - this one is important-yesterday was 3rd August, 1960:

"The British want to preserve their economic and military interests ... for as long as possible."

May I repeat it again?

"The British want to preserve their economic and military interests...for as long as possible."

"Economic and military interests" are, like in a magic show, switched back again after our exposure at the Badminton Hall rally on the 12th July, 1960. A year ago, on the 17th July, 1959, after the Government was formed, the Prime Minister wrote these words in the Petir editorial:

"The British force is a negative one from cur point of view. They are interested in Singapore as a base and only indirectly to a much lesser extent in Singapore and Malaya remaining outside the Communist bloc."

Mr Speaker, please note, that there was no talk on the 17th of July, 1959, about British economic interests. The British were not interested in economic and other interests any more in July 1959. Suddenly, in August 1960 they are interested again. What has the Party manifesto said about this? "Colonies were acquired mainly for commercial reasons. They retained them for the same reasons. The economic structure which a colonial power creates and maintains in an independent territory reveals the true motive for empire building. The primary function of a colonial economy is to increase the wealth of the mother country." If I could sum up in a few words, Mr Speaker - in 1955, the Colonialists' main objective was economic. After the Government was formed in July 1959, the British were not interested in economic interests but only in a negative way in Singapore as a base. Then after our attack, on the third time, the British are interested in economic interests again.

Mr Speaker, political issues cannot be settled the way the Prime Minister is settling them, by magic words, by twisting the facts and by shifting the issues. You can notice the changes in the Prime Minister's basic stand - one day, one stand. As I said yesterday, when I listened to the Prime Minister's speech, it was like listening to the voice of Lim Yew Hock. And when I mention Lim Yew Hock, it is the same as what I have said just now. It is most pleasant reading through the Hansard - three big volumes - and I advise everybody to buy a copy! Could you, Mr Speaker, reduce the price?

Mr Speaker, political issues cannot be settled by shifting the issues. The masses have voted us in and asked us not to tax the poor. That is all. You are shifting the issue to socialism. The people asked for constitutional talks and you shift the issue to independence. Everybody knows that the present so-called internal self-government is a mockery. Have we really internal self-government? What about the other issues like military land, assessments, tax on British military trucks and so on? The 1958 Constitution departs in many fundamental aspects from the White Paper drafted by the all-Party team. The people in Tanjong Pagar accepted it because half a loaf is better than no loaf. You shift the issue to independence. You talk about our water supply as what the Progressives did. The people asked for talks with the Federation on merger. This was contained in item 3 of the 1955 Legislative Assembly election manifesto of the P.A.P. Now, Mr Speaker, Sir, I have a copy of the election manifesto of the People's Action Party for the Legislative Assembly elections in April 1955:

"Item 3 - Unity with the Federation. The P.A.P. believes that immediately after the elections in Singapore and the Federation, negotiations should be started to bring about the unification of Malaya."

I remember immediately after the elections, I raised this matter with the Prime Minister. He did not want to reply. I am just wondering about his sincerity on merger. You cannot shift the issue by asking a question which is irrelevant. This is what the Prime Minister said yesterday:

"What is it to be? Independence through talks with the Federation for merger, or independence for Singapore alone through talks with the British?"

There was no direct reply whether the Prime Minister was interested in the election manifesto of 1955.

The people talked about fighting colonialism. The Prime Minister tried to intimidate them. At a special Party conference on Saturday, 18th June, 1960, he said that to fight Colonialism was to fight British troops. "Now we have no machine guns and if the British troops leave, Indonesian troops will come in." That is what he said on 18th June, 1960. Yesterday, the Prime Minister implied this. He said that Singapore "can be so easily captured and destroyed. Have they forgotten that some 80,000 British troops had to surrender in Singapore 10 days after the Japanese captured Singapore's water supply situated in Johore?" The Prime Minister should have said this in November 1955 when the P.A.P. was formed. Mr Speaker, the P.A.P. have fought British Colonialism for five years and we did not fight British troops. We can only solve political issues by facing them and not by shifting the issues.

Do not talk about the August 1957 affair in the P.A.P. any more. It will do more harm to the Prime Minister than he knows. From what I know, there was a group of people in the P.A.P. who wanted to capture 8 out of the 12 seats in the Central. It was not a movement against anybody. The Secretary-General managed to retain his seat and save his skin, because I heard some weeks ago that he gave several hundreds of admission cards to non-Party members -

Mr Speaker: Order. I wonder if the hon. Member can assist by relating those remarks to the question before the House. It seems to me they are quite irrelevant.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I have got to point out this August 1957 affair. Yesterday's speech of the Prime Minister was meant to smear me. What I am attempting to do is to give a short note to clarify about myself. That is all that I am trying to do.

Mr Speaker: I think what the hon. Member should do then is to quote from the Prime Minister's speech. Then I will decide as to whether or not his remarks are relevant thereto.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I beg leave for a few seconds to get the relevant section.

Mr Speaker, this is what the Prime Minister said:

"This man, whom they detested and despised to the point of conspiring to oust him in August 1957, they now find a useful lever for pushing the P.A.P. into what they hope would be a more malleable and plastic position."

I have to clarify this because these are hard words used against another Member.

What I was trying to say is that the movement in August 1957 was not a movement against anybody. The Secretary-General managed to retain his seat, because I heard recently that he gave several hundreds of admission cards to non-Party members to go to the Badminton Hall to vote him in. It was not enough. And I believe the ballot papers were not properly counted. I bear no grudge against anybody because I was out. The Secretary-General pleaded with Tann Wee Tiong and myself to come back to the Central later so that he could have enough men for his "front" to fill up the 12 seats. This is all the clarification I wanted to make.

Mr Speaker, in the Government's policy speech nothing has been said about the social revolution. The Prime Minister said in cols. 83-5 of Hansard, Vol. 3, No. 2 of 22nd April, 1958:

"Sir, I said, not as an idle boast, that the P.A.P. will win the elections if they were held tomorrow, or next year, short of something catastrophic happening or something very foolish that we do. And we will win them, apart from the question of having a better organisation and having better personnel, because the other Parties do not attempt to understand the meaning of a social revolution."

Social revolution!

"Have they not ceased to wonder why in the last four months the Government was Just swept aside and the attention of the people of Singapore was focused on the City Council? Why? Because it had captured the hearts and minds of the workers.... For the first time they begin to understand that these magnificent institutions like the City Council, which they had viewed as institutions of bureaucracy and petty oppression could be turned into public institutions for their protection, welfare and benefit. Albeit, they needed some colourful gesture like throwing out the mace to drive the lesson home. But that is the lesson the Labour Front must learn if they want to know what is going on, and have a chance to compete at all. The Labour Front leader in the City Council said - as it was reported in the last few days and with a great deal of silent praise from the English language press - "Oh well, let's have the Mayor of Penang here but let's have none of this nonsense about, `Down with colonialism and all that,'" because obviously by implication, his Party is not in favour of it. For the first time, the City Council is going to mean something to the people."

The Prime Minister continues:

"If we - this year or next year - we are prepared for it any time, - cannot do the same transmutation for the institutions of Government and make, them become symbols of the people's rights and privileges instead of symbols of colonial bureaucracy and oppression, then at the end of our five-year term of office, we will be out on our heels and deserve to perish.".

The Prime Minister continues on:

"When in pursuit of a social revolution, never pay the slightest attention to the present English language press. Praise from them means destruction.

Decide what you have to do, decide what is right and press on. The more they howl against you, the more you can be certain that you are on the right track.".

But, this is what we now hear in the policy speech. "It would no doubt have, been advantageous, before an election, to have come forward with lavish promises of independence and socialism." Mr Speaker, the socialists do not expect socialism during the P.A.P.'s present regime. Socialism is not the issue. But what has the Government done during the past year? Almost nothing, except to pass a multitude of laws, none of which touches on the basic economic fabric of our existing society, but mostly laws which are meant to consolidate the power of the present regime.

Mr Speaker, we do not like to talk about social revolution before the elections, and do another thing after the elections. We stand for the P.A.P. as the people have understood it, and on which they have pinned their hopes, and for which they have voted the P.A.P. into power. It cannot be denied that the present institutions of Government are still being looked upon by the people as symbols of colonial bureaucracy and oppression. We stand for what the Prime Minister said in April 1958:

"For the first time they begin to understand that these magnificent institutions like the City Council, which they had viewed as institutions of bureaucracy and petty oppression could be turned into public institutions for their protection, welfare and benefit.".

Mr Speaker, Sir, we believe that the Government departments and other public institutions can be transformed, as the City Council has been transformed, into symbols for the people's well-being.

According to the policy speech, the second year is to be a year of construction - the so-called decisive year. We hope this is so. We hope it will be a year of construction. More than seven months of 1960 have passed, but the construction projects contained in the 1960 Budget still remain largely untouched. In many cases, plans have not even been initiated. The construction projects in the 1960 Budget were meant as a propaganda show-piece. In 1959, there was hardly any construction at all. The $9 million surplus of 1959 which was boasted about in the policy speech is not necessarily wise public finance. The money has come from the various taxes on the poor and the white-collar workers. The $9 million surplus should have been spent on public work projects like the building of roads, houses, and so on, to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and to alleviate the acute problem of unemployment, particularly during this time of trade recession and acute unemployment. The savings from the pay-cuts of the civil servants are not being used for useful construction work which would help the economy but for unnecessary and wasteful expenditure; for instance, like overseas trips, provision of cars and bodyguards for Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, $20,000 to beautify and air-condition Sri Temasek and change its marble which is already in tip-top condition, and other wasteful items of expenditure which even the Lim Yew Hock Government did not think it fit and wise to incur.

The Government has hardly done any construction work during its one year of office. Most of the projects which the Ministers opened were projects conceived and initiated - and some almost completed - under the Lim Yew Hock Government: the Thomson Road Hospital, the St. Michael's Road Market, the post offices, the micro-wave stations, the St. James Power Station and many other projects. The exceptions were the community centres which cost about $20,000 each. The Public Works Standing Committee, which is under the direct control of the Prime Minister, is in charge of all these construction projects.

Mr Speaker, nothing has been mentioned in the policy speech about the funds to finance the proposed construction projects in this "decisive" year of construction. Is this to be dependent to a large extent on British and American aid? The British Government has promised $65 million in grants and loans to finance projects many of which are of military significance and are of no direct benefit to us. What type of aid are we going to obtain from the United States through the World Bank? Mr Speaker, this is very good magic! You do not borrow money from Mr Lee Kong Chian, but you borrow money from the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation. From what we have studied of other countries, none have survived by being dependent on American aid; as none have survived from praises by the Straits Times. We believe in making an attempt to find the funds from our own people first. I asked the Minister for Finance in August 1959 to allow the S.I.T. to float housing bonds, but this was rejected. We could have mobilised the people to buy these bonds, as we have mobilised them to build various projects. At least we could have made an attempt, Mr Speaker.

The unemployment situation is now worse than before. The Lim Yew Hock Government tried to find scapegoats. It blamed the P.A.P. is the present Government going to find scapegoats in similar fashion? Mr Speaker, blame Ong Eng Guan! The people do not expect us to find a complete solution to our unemployment problem, but they expect the Government, in which they had so much faith, at least to make a sincere and determined attempt to alleviate this problem. No honest attempts have been made. Is the Work Brigade an attempt to give jobs to some of the unemployed? No. One of the purposes of the Work Brigade was, as I said yesterday, to shout "Merdeka" outside the Supreme Court building. The Work Brigade and the community centres are to be the "second line of defence" of the present Government when the Party members have melted away, when few people go to the P.A.P. branches, and when they cannot get the voluntary workers to do work at mass meetings. They also want the Work Brigade to appear as "masses" at meetings.

In the policy speech there is nothing very new about the activities of the various Government departments. These departments are just linked together like a street directory. Compare it with any of the three policy speeches on the activities of these departments under the Labour Front Government, and you will see little difference. Most of the plans put forward in this policy speech were shaped, planned and initiated by previous Governments. For instance, the chapters on shipping, the Port Authority, civil aviation, postal services, and so on. During the past year, the present Government have not been so much interested in construction and solving the problems pf the unemployed and the building of a better Singapore, as in consolidating their own position and seeking their own ends.

The question of housing is a typical example. The S.I.T., after reorganisation in August 1959, planned to build 10,000 units in the first phase. The only two local architects at that time with public housing experience in Malaya were recruited. Schemes of work were ready. Plans and specifications were drawn up. Housing sites and levelling were ready, and in some places piling was completed. The Prime Minister saw them with his own eyes when he visited the Queenstown, Kampong Koo Chye, MacPherson Road and Kampong Tiong Bahru sites on Friday, 16th September, 1959. Tenders were advertised. Arrangements for the laying of water, gas and electricity and storage services were made. The drainage scheme in the MacPherson Road area was completed in record time, partly to alleviate the danger of flood to the farmers in the Geylang Serai area, and partly to dry up the MacPherson Road site for the building of S.I.T. flats. But one thing was not forthcoming. The Minister for Finance refused to give the money though he had the money. I have the correspondence to prove it. Instead the Minister for Finance went further and refused to defreeze the funds which were promised to the S.I.T. in the 1959 Budget under the Lim Yew Hock Government: $7 million for the general construction of flats and $4½ million for the building of flats on two fire sites. The present 4,000 units being let out by the Housing Board as described in the policy speech were all planned by these same two architects whom we engaged. Out of these 4,000 units, tenders for 1,968 were advertised before the Housing Board was formed. We could have advertised for more if we had the money. The reason given by the Minister for Finance was fantastic. I did not believe it myself. It was that as little money as possible should be spent in 1959 so that in the 1960 Budget a big sum would be provided which would serve as a good propaganda front to boost up the economy. Mr Speaker, you do not eat today, so that you can have "two" bowls tomorrow! The tens of thousands of applicants for S.I.T. flats have to suffer in this magic show. The purpose of the 1960 Budget, which provides for big construction projects but is never meant to be fulfilled, is to "boost" the economy. My impression was that only a small fraction of the projects would be built. You cannot "boost" economy by bluff. Neither can you consolidate your position by passing laws and building community centres and organising Work Brigade. The masses which turned up in their tens of thousands to support the 16 resolutions at the Badminton Hall rally is a concrete and glaring example of the bitter disappointment of the people. Their hopes and their dreams have been bitterly shattered.

The P.A.P. has always stood for honesty and integrity. We believe in telling the people what we think we can and cannot do. We believe in real construction, the way it was done in the City Council. Targets were set. The staff and the masses were mobilised when required, and an all-out effort was made to reach and surpass the targets.

One year has been spent, not on construction, and not for the benefit of the masses who have supported the P.A.P. But one whole year has been spent in order to consolidate the power of the present leadership, so that when the masses have made up their minds after some doubts: are these the people who have really betrayed them? Are these the people who have departed from the fundamental aims and policies of the People's Action Party which they have voted in and on which they have pinned their hopes and dreams? - when the masses decide to fight, the Lee Kuan Yew Government will be consolidated for such a fight. How do they consolidate? These are some of the ways:

(i) laws to control and regulate trade unions, mass organisations, political parties and societies;

(ii) laws to give undue advantage to the present regime in elections;

(iii) creation of so-called mass organisations like community centres and Work Brigade to prepare them for the time when the Party members in the branches and the masses have melted away;

(iv) television to be immediately installed to take the place of mass rallies, because there will be fewer attendances at the mass rallies. The Prime Minister will be able to speak to the masses through television. Direct and indirect control of the means of propaganda;

(v) suitable arrangements to ensure that finance is not lacking;

(vi) military exercises, ample bodyguards, security guards and fencing for the houses;

(vii) control of the key positions in the Executive, the Judicature and the control of P.A.P. Assemblymen.

Mr Speaker, there are three sources of constitutional power in a democracy: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judicature. These sources of State power must be firmly controlled in the hands of men whose loyalty to the present regime and the colonial interests is beyond doubt. The Lee Kuan Yew Government can only maintain control of the Legislature if the P.A.P. Assemblymen do not rebel - like the three of us here, when the struggle between those who stick to P.A.P. policies and those who have betrayed P.A.P. policies begins. From the very early days, they have tried to control the Assemblymen by devious ways; for instance, brainwashing by Mr Thomson, the softening-up process, overseas trips. But the most effective way is the provision of a way of life to these Assemblymen which makes them identify themselves with the status quo and have nothing to benefit by the social revolution. The Executive, which is the second source of constitutional power, must be in the control, of persons whose loyalty to the Prime Minister and his Minister for Finance and what they represent is beyond doubt. That is why we have the Meadows', the Thomsons, and so on, controlling more State power today than in the previous government. The Judicature must also be in safe hands. The story I heard about the non-confirmation of Mr Tan Ah Tah, the Chief Justice, is something which the public will be shocked to know. I quote what the Secretary-General of the P.A.P. said about the Judicature in l956 - Hansard of 5th December, 1956, col. 1082:

"The second issue on which the White Paper has been silent is the Supreme Court judgeships, it is an open secret that there has been political wrangling over the appointment of two new judges, dating from the time when the Labour Front Coalition Government was led by the Member for Cairnhill. We now know from the estimates that only one more judgeship is to be created. We wish to make it clear that, whatever this Government says in this White Paper, my Party believes that the principle of the inviolability of the judiciary can only be accepted after we Malayans have decided who shall fill those positions. We do not accept that those whom the colonial Government has appointed as our judges are inviolate, and cannot be removed by this Legislature or this Government. However honest, however good as lawyers they may be, they are part and parcel of the colonial machinery which is unacceptable to any Malayan nationalist. In no territory of the British Commonwealth in South-East Asia were European judges allowed to remain in office when the British imperial power finally departed. The only exception was in Ceylon where a white Chief Justice, who I notice is already a model for the Chief Justice of the Federation of Malaya, was allowed to remain because the Ceylonese Government wanted him to remain. But when that Government decided that he should go, he went. That is a principle which we must first establish before we accept the principle of the inviolability of the judical service. It would be unfair to many distinguished judges if my remarks were to create the impression that I think they were all dishonest and useless instruments of British imperialism. The former Chief Justice of Singapore, for instance, was a man of great learning and balance of judgment, for whom all members of the Bar, whether white or black, had considerable respect. That does not in the slightest way detract from the principle that we cannot accept a white judiciary imposed upon us. We want the principle established that if we want them to quit, then they must go. Then when we appoint our local men, they will be inviolate. They cannot be removed either by the Government or the Legislature except by the most stringent of procedures."

Mr Speaker, I just want to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to his speech made in 1956. As I have said, the three sources of constitutional power, the Legislature, the Executive and the Judicature, must be in safe hands. By the end of the first year of office, the Lee Kuan Yew government hopes to see itself strongly entrenched with the approaching storm. They know that the betrayal of P.A.P.'s aims and policies cannot be left unchallenged for long by the Party members and the people. This is what the Prime Minister meant when he said that "the first year of office was one of reorganisation, consolidation and preparation." Reorganisation, consolidation and preparation.

The Lee Kuan Yew government still considers that the fundamental conflict in our society is one of language and not of economics. He splits Singapore society into the Chinese-speaking and the English-speaking - you will find this in his speech yesterday - he considers the Tamils and the Malays as numerically unimportant in Singapore and not what socialists do: into economic classes. This will serve to explain the attitude towards Nanyang University. They always talk about external influences in Chinese textbooks, for instance. But they never talk about British colonial influences, in text-books used in the English schools and printed by British commercial firms in Singapore. Due to a wrong analysis of the basic contradictions of our society, the Nantah (Nanyang University) problem has resolved itself into a deadlock.

Mr Speaker, we do not believe that language separates us. We believe in a united Malayan nation of all races. A society is not divided into the languages that the people speak.

Our attitude towards education is this: we stand for real equal treatment in all the four streams of education. We consider the fundamental conflict in our society as an economic problem, and not one of language. We do not deny, that when Malay is made the national language, the present language barriers will be removed. But the conflict in the language barriers is not fundamental. We need a phased programme of targets to be reached in order to make Malay the national language. We believe in Malayanisation of all text-books step by step.

We welcome the effort to promote industries in Singapore. But how can we promote industries within the present political context? Industrialisation is in direct conflict with the interests of the colonial power. This is what the Party manifesto said in 1955 about industrialisation:

"The need for industrialisation has been stressed even by advocates of colonialism. Yet very little has been done about it, and very little besides the highest exhortations will be done so long as the colonial structure is maintained in Malaya. The colonialists primarily regarded it as an outlet for the manufactured goods of the mother country. The colonial power cannot, therefore, be expected to be enthusiastic about the setting up of local industries which might seriously affect the import of manufactured goods from the mother country." The Party manifesto went on to say:

"All the Constitutional concessions granted so far have been particularly careful to protect and perpetuate the basic economic and political interests of the colonial power. The retention of basic colonial interests runs through all Constitutional arrangements. since the reoccupation in 1945."

At present, Mr Speaker, Sir, investment policy is concentrated on how to attract foreign investors. We do not reject foreign investors, but concentration should be on how to encourage local businessmen to turn to industries. Local investors should be given more favourable treatment than foreign investors, and not the other way round.

The policy speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara mentioned that:

"The Government does not wish to give the impression that there have not been mistakes and shortcomings during the past year."

Mr Speaker, this was repeated by the Prime Minister in his speech yesterday [Straits Times of 4th August]:

'"Minor mistakes of haste, born out of impatience to put the world right, were committed. They were errors, not of the rashness of the policy to be implemented, but of the intemperate haste in not preparing and carrying the people, and could have been avoided by consultation and discussion."'

Mr Speaker, what I gathered from the Prime Minister's address on the policy speech and from a recent Petir editorial is that these mistakes are not on fundamental principles but mistakes of triviality - going a bit too fast on legislation. It means that the Minister for Labour and Law, who, as I have said just now, is another possible scapegoat, has gone ahead with too many pieces of legislation during the past year. It is not so much with the laws themselves as with the speed with which they were passed.

Mr Speaker, we are different. We are not worried about these little mistakes of technicalities and form, because no person can avoid these little mistakes in running his Ministry. What we are more concerned with are the mistakes of the content of policy and fundamentals. If we are sincere in rectifying our mistakes, then we rectify mistakes of policy and fundamentals, such as reaffirming the faith of the present Government in the revolutionary manifesto of the P.A.P.; reaffirming the faith in the struggle against colonialism, and all the aims and policies of the P.A.P. before it formed the Government; fighting for the detainees of the Internal Security Council to release them without conditions. I made my stand clear in a meeting on 28th August, 1959. Since then I have not been allowed to speak any more.

Re-register the trade unions without conditions. What was said by others yesterday was not, I believe, what happened.. Mr Speaker, in the Straits Times of 25th May, 1960, the Minister for Labour and Law gave reasons for the de-registration of trade unions:

"Mr Byrne gave two reasons for the Government's action. He said, `There should be no registration of any federation of trade unions within any of the categories of unions set out under the new Trade Unions Ordinance, 1960, until the Ordinance has become law.'"

Mr Speaker, these reasons were later withdrawn and substituted because, if they had persisted, the Trade Unions Ordinance would become law some time or other; perhaps it would not become law in May, but in June, July, August, or even September, and they would then have to restore the unions' registration. So in the meantime they had to think out another reason, a "really good sound" reason - the Internal Security Council, which always comes in useful. Anybody in the trade union movement knows that the two reasons contradict each other.

The gambling Bills reversed the P.A.P.'s taxation policy, and is meant to tax the poor and subsidise the rich; not to tax the rich and subsidise the poor. Mr Speaker, there are several types of government. The British capitalist government taxes the rich to subsidise the poor. They follow the Keynesian theory. Our so-called socialist Government taxes the poor to subsidise the rich.

Rectify all the mistakes as enumerated in the Hong Lim resolutions. You cannot fight these political issues by intimidation on a scale bigger than that of the Lim Yew Hock government, by suppression and by temptation. For instance, you cannot just ring up the Press after a Badminton Hall rally and order them to black out the speeches made, and after protestations by the Press, allow them to limit the speeches to 500 words. Yesterday I mentioned that Mr Thomson's articles in the Press are not limited to 500 words. In the Nanyang Siang Pau, Mr Thomson wrote an article on the Police Force, propounding his colonial political philosophy, and that article is not less than 2,500 words.

The present Government does not ring up the Nanyang Siang Pau and the Sin Chew Jit Poh and say, "Boys, 500 words for Mr Thomson, and Mr Ong Eng Guan 1,000 words." Spicy words! "For Mr Thomson, you can write any amount of words you like. For Mr Ong Eng Guan, 500 words or 300 words." I wonder what is going to be the directive tonight? I am sure it might be 1,000 or 750 words. At one of our Press conferences one Sunday, there was much bargaining: 300 words, 500 words, 750 words, and later, after much bargaining on the counter, 1,250 words.

You cannot win the political battle by detaining a journalist 15 minutes after he had attended my Press conference on his way to cable my Press releases to Kuala Lumpur, so that you can use him to intimidate other journalists. You cannot win the political battle by sending C.I.D. and other people to the houses of Party members.

Mr Ong Pang Boon rose -

Mr Speaker: Order. Is it on a point of order?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: On a point of information.

Mr Speaker: If the Member will give way.

Mr Ong Eng Guan resumed his seat.

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have heard no less than five times mention of sending C.I.D. detectives to intimidate Party members in connection with the 16 resolutions. I wonder if the Member for Hong Lim can quote one specific instance as to who has been visited by C.I.D. detectives in connection with the 16 resolutions.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, form a commission of inquiry into the restriction of freedom, and I will produce the evidence and the witnesses.

You cannot win by intimidating the printing press, and here I give the evidence -

Mr Speaker: Order. I am just wondering whether I am guilty of all these faults. The hon. Member must remember that he is addressing the Speaker. The use of the second person might confuse us.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I must apologise to you. You are a very nice gentleman. "You" means the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: It is also a relic of colonialism!

Mr Ong Eng Guan: The Prime Minister cannot win by sending C.I.D. and other people to the houses of Party members to intimidate them. He cannot win by intimidating the printing press which prints my speeches which were blacked out by the local Press according to the Government instructions. The proof is here. Could I read it out, Mr Speaker? The proprietor is the Chip Bee Press, and it is dated 26th July, 1960.

`I am directed to draw your attention to the following sections of the Printing Press Ordinance:-

"5.-(l) Every document printed within the State of Singapore shall have printed legibly on its first or last printed leaf the name of its printer.

(2) No person shall print or publish or distribute or assist in distributing any document which does not comply with the requirements of this section.

7.-(1) No person shall print or publish or assist in the printing or publishing of any newspaper in the State of Singapore unless the proprietor of such newspaper has previously obtained a permit in writing under the hand of the Minister authorizing the printing and publication thereof, which permit he may, at his discretion, grant, refuse, or revoke, or grant subject to conditions to be endorsed thereon."

and to point out that you have not complied with the said Ordinance in connection with the printing by you of the pamphlet "How to fight colonialism" containing public lectures held at the Singapore Badminton Hall on Tuesday, 12th July, 1960.'

Mr Ong Pang Boon rose -

Mr Speaker: On a point of order?

Mr Ong Pang Boon: On a point of clarification.

Mr Speaker: If the Member will give way.

Mr Ong Eng Guan resumed his seat.

Mr Ong Pang Boon: Mr Speaker, Sir, even until yesterday the said Chip Bee Press was publishing material supplied to it by the Member for Hong Lim.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, this is not a good reply, because the proprietor of the Chip Bee Press refused to be intimidated. Of course, it is at the discretion of the Lee Kuan Yew Government to cancel his printing licence. It is very simple. When the proprietor comes to renew his licence, the Government can put all sorts of troubles and restrictions in his way. It is very simple. They can say, "Why do you print this piece of paper from the Member for Hong Lim? I will teach you a good lesson."

Now, Mr Speaker, this letter is in connection with "How to fight colonialism", printed by the Chip Bee Press, Singapore. This letter contains two points. One, every document must bear the name of the printer. And C.B.P. means, in short form, the Chip Bee Press. And if this letter does not contain it, how can the Ministry of Home Affairs have written to the proprietor of the Chip Bee Press? The other point is that the printing of a newspaper requires the obtaining of a licence. But, Mr Speaker, I am not printing a newspaper. This is a pamphlet - it is free of charge - and I thought I have sent you a copy.

Mr Speaker: Order. I do not think the Member for Hong Lim should drag the Speaker into this debate. Anyway, it seems to me that the Member is, in fact, embarking on details which are quite irrelevant to what we are discussing today. He will have to satisfy me that those details are, in fact, relevant. But up till now I am inclined to say that they are irrelevant.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: I am sorry, Mr Speaker. What I have got printed by the Chip Bee Press was not a newspaper. It was a pamphlet. And this letter from the Ministry also mentioned "pamphlet".

Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister cannot win by offering jobs back to those P.A.P. members whom he has sacked from the S.I.T. He can only win by one course - by going back to the pre-1959 May, pre-election days, if that is ever possible with him. We are sitting here today because the Prime Minister has forced us to sit here.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think that part ought to be cured. The fact is that the hon. Member and the Members for Punggol and Aljunied are sitting on the Opposition benches because of the decision of the Speaker. The Speaker received information from the Leader of the House that the three Members are no more Members of the Government Party. So, acting under the powers given to the Speaker in the Standing Orders, he has decided that the three Members will have in future to sit on the Opposition Bench.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think I have been misunderstood. What I have been trying to convey to the House is the political nature of the change of seats not the physical nature, nor the constitutional nature. If the Prime Minister and his erstwhile colleague, the Minister for Finance, had not controlled the gun, then the position in this House today would have been different. That is what I am trying to convey. If the Prime Minister had acted according to the rule of law, the Party Constitution and the democratic process, then the situation today would have been basically and radically different, and we would not be here on this side. The people of Singapore know at this very hour who represent the true P.A.P. They know that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance represent colonial interests and that they have betrayed the revolution.

Mr Lim Cheng Lock (River Valley): Mr Speaker, Sir, in the introduction of the constructive and inspiring policy speech delivered by the Yang di-Pertuan Negara on behalf of the PAP. Government, it was necessary to emphasise the limitations under which the Government had to work. This has to be brought home to the people in order to make them understand the political situation and the political problem in Singapore today. These limitations were clearly defined by the P.A.P. before the elections. The elected Government has to operate under a constitution which did not give it complete freedom and political power. The P.A.P. realises that Singapore, being a small island with no natural resources, and dependent on the non-productive trading economy for its livelihood, cannot be expected to become a socialist society overnight, and as long as Singapore is separated from the Federation. Knowing the political and economic limitations, the P.A.P. has accepted the reins of Government so that we can advance the course of the people as stated in our Party manifesto.

Mr Speaker, Sir, what I have said is nothing new, but has been repeatedly said by my Party, by my colleagues and even by my ex-colleague, the Member for Hong Lim. It is not my intention either to bore you or this House by repeating it over and over again, but I particularly wish to stress this point, because there are forces in Singapore today, forces which the Prime Minister has termed Left-wing adventurers, who are trying to lead the people astray by desperately shouting that we should abandon the Constitution and reopen fresh talks with the U.K. Government; Left-wing adventurers who are out to bring chaos to this country and misery to the people.

Yesterday, Mr Speaker, and just now, I was watching the performance of my ex-comrade, the Member for Hong Lim. He was never so fiery in all the 14 months he came to this Chamber. What a change, Mr Speaker! Yesterday, the Member for Hong Lim brought volumes of the Hansard and reminded the Secretary-General of my Party what he had said over a number of years. I am confident the Secretary-General of my Party knows the stand of the Party and what he has said over the years.

Mr Speaker, if you will permit me, I would like to quote the speech by the Member for Hong Lim which he delivered in this House at the opening session of this Assembly. The words which he spoke will reply to his fiery speeches today. It is at col. 347 of the Hansard, Vol. 11, No. 6 of 21st July, 1959:

"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 PAP. 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..."-

Mr Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Member is going to read the whole speech. If he is, then, of course, he is completely out of order. He is only permitted to read extracts.

Mr Lim Cheng Lock: Mr Speaker, if you will permit me to read certain parts of the speech. I am not going to read the whole speech, but only certain parts of it to draw out my -

Mr Speaker: Only extracts?

Mr Lim Cheng Lock: Yes.

Mr Speaker: Please continue.

Mr Lim Cheng Lock: "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.".

And then he goes on by saying:

"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.".

Mr Speaker, time has changed and so has the Member for Hong Lim. It would not be a surprise if he were to say that he did not write his speech. He was forced to read it. He did not believe all this when he spoke in this Chamber.

Mr Speaker, there are forces that stay in this country today which believe that Singapore's economic ills can be cured by shouting anti-colonial slogans and abandoning the present Constitution now. They believe by shouting anti-colonial slogans and abandoning the Constitution the workers will automatically get more dollars tomorrow. The taxi-drivers and the hawkers will earn more money. The farmer's hen will lay the golden egg. More schools, hospitals and employment opportunities could be found. The P.A.P. Government has no intention of leading the people of Singapore to a national suicide. The P.A.P. Government has stated that it has no intention of recklessly abandoning the aims and policies arrived at after long deliberations.

Does the Member for Hong Lim honestly believe that with his 16 resolutions the people of Singapore with an empty stomach can defeat colonialism? No, Mr Speaker, the Party has stated that the anti-colonial struggle requires more flexible and effective tactics.

Mr Speaker, the basic problem in Singapore today is to find expanding opportunities for our youth, and only economic and industrial expansion can solve this problem. The people of Singapore today need more expanding opportunities for employment. Schools, health services and housing - and this is what the P.A.P. Government intends to do for the people in this year of construction. No one can deny that with the P.A.P. Government there is now greater economic and political stability. The people no longer fear the Government servants and the Government buildings. The large crowd that swarm the Labour Ministry and the Ministry of National Development is a demonstration of the people's faith and confidence in the P.A.P. Government to solve their problems. These people enter these buildings no longer with fear but with dignity and national pride. The previous year, as has been said, was one of reorganisation. Naturally it has not been able to show results yet. But in the present year, the year of construction, lots of things - constructive plans - would he done for the people. For instance, the common commodity market talks are being held now; private investments of 13 major concerns have applied under the Pioneer Industries Ordinance so that they could give more jobs to the people in Singapore; the Jurong Industrialisation Scheme and the Government's Five-Year Economic Plan - all these schemes will be put into effect this year and the coming years.

4.29 p.m.

Dato Abdul Hamid Bin Haji Jumat (Geylang Serai): (In Malay): Mr Speaker, from the speeches made yesterday and today by the Prime Minister and the Member for Hong Lim, it appears to me that this Chamber is being used as a House to debate Party differences. At the beginning, I was of the opinion that we were wasting time, but the points brought up by the Prime Minister and the Member for Hong Lim reveal clearly that the atmosphere in the P.A.P. is unhealthy.

We should go into the main issue, that is, the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. My Party and I are of the opinion that the speech made by the Yang di-Pertuan Negara is unsatisfactory. It is also unsatisfactory to the public. It refers to what will be done and not to what has already been done. I have read the 24-column speech many times. What is most strange is that there is no mention at all about the policy of the Government. I have gone through the speech in detail, but I have not come across the phrase "a non-Communist, democratic Malaya" which was previously used by the Prime Minister. It may be that since the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara two weeks ago in this Chamber, there has been a change in the attitude of the Government. It is not positive in its stand on the political situation in Singapore or in Malaya today. Does it mean, Mr Speaker, Sir, that the Government, after 14 months in office, has now awakened to the danger of Communism which could bring about its downfall? Does it also mean that the Government, after 14 months in office, has now only realised that there do exist elements which constitute a source of danger to it and to the people of Singapore? I say this because the Prime Minister in his speech admitted that the Malayan Communist Party is re-organising its forces with a view to damaging the economy and the trade union movement in Singapore. If this is the state of affairs in Singapore today, then I think it would be most propitious for the Government to change its attitude from that of non-Communist to that of anti-Communist-Then only would it mean that the Government is positive in its stand. I feel that we should be frank and honest. The Government has always been harping on the fact that it is a non-Communist Government and that their actions show that they are anti-Communist. Is there another side to the picture? Could it mean that the Government will still adopt a non-Communist attitude but that outside forces will put pressure on the Government to take anti-Communist steps? I think the Government should clarify their stand.

In his speech, the Prime Minister has said that the object of the Government is to establish a non-Communist, socialist Malaya. My Party and I are of the opinion that it is difficult for us to create a socialist Malaya until the people of Singapore feel a sense of loyalty to the State. This is the fundamental issue in all independent countries in Asia and Africa. We have seen the different isms' put into practice: Communism, Socialism and Liberalism. But the most important factor is that the people of the State must feel a sense of national pride. If no such feeling could be aroused among the people, it is not possible for us to create any kind of ism' - whether it is Communism or Socialism. In this connection, this national feeling is akin to a tree. If the roots of the tree are not watered, it will die.

[Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr G.KANDASAMY) in the Chair]

Dato Abdul Hamid Bin Haji Jumat (Geylang Serai): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to refer to the economy of the State of Singapore. The Yang di-Pertuan Negara in his speech has said that the State of Singapore is now more stable both economically and politically. I do not see how the Government can arrive at such a conclusion. It is clear and obvious that the economy of Singapore at this moment is very unhealthy. Thousands of people are unemployed. We have heard in this Chamber that not less than 58,000 people have registered for employment in the Labour Exchange. The Government has failed to give a guarantee to the effect that the 58,000 registered unemployed people will be given employment. Furthermore, there are many thousands of unemployed persons who have not registered for employment. In all, there are not less than 100,000 people in Singapore who are out of job. Normally, when the prices of rubber and tin are high, Singapore stands to benefit, although these commodities come from the Federation of Malaya. But today, although the prices of rubber and tin are high, yet the people of Singapore are not enjoying the prosperity that is experienced by the people of the Federation of Malaya. In this connection, how can the Government say that the economic stability of Singapore is healthy?

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I do not wish to speak at length on the City Council, but I would like to draw the attention of the Members of the House to an article in the P.A.P. Petir and in other newspapers clearly pointing out that the previous Government did not use its dictatorial powers when it took over the functions of the City Council, although at that time there were many allegations levelled at the then Government. However, there is one question which I would like to put to the Prime Minister himself. When will the Government establish the Public Utilities Board to run the utility services? This is not a new suggestion, as it was decided by a Committee (formed by the previous Government in 1956) on which members of the P.A.P. also sat. We would like clarification from the Government as to when this Board will come into existence.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as I have said earlier, the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara is most unsatisfactory to U.M.N.O. in respect of the special position of the Malays. Yesterday, my colleague the Member for Kampong Kembangan spoke at length on this subject, and I would like to add further to what he has said. In the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara, there is no mention at all about the special position of the Malays. However, I am confident, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, that the Government can implement the provisions contained in the preamble to the Constitution. But what the Government has done during the past 14 months is far from satisfactory. In the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara, no mention has been made as to how the Government is going to put into effect the provisions in the Constitution which was agreed upon by U.M.N.O., the Labour Front, the Liberal-Socialists and the P.A.P. as a result of the constitutional talks in London in 1957 and 1958. The Hon. the Prime Minister and other Members of the P.A.P. have said that the Malays would be helped in the field of education. I agree with that, but this should not mean that this is the only way we could render assistance to the Malays. Education is good and beneficial for our children who will become adults in the future. But what about the Malays in general today - those who are out of job and possess nothing? Are these people to be victimised? What are the ways and means by which the Government proposes to help these people who are suffering? Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, it is well known that Malays are unable to get jobs in commercial firms, except a few British commercial firms which are prepared to offer employment to the Malays. We know that a great majority of the traders in Singapore refuse to offer employment to the Malays for Unknown reasons except as syces or gardeners. Therefore, the Malays are forced to turn to the Government for help. The Malays are forced to leave their fate in the hands of the Government. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the Government to offer jobs and help to the Malays in Singapore.

I also hope that as far as the Malays are concerned, Government will relax the terms of employment and conditions governing promotion of serving officers. The Prime Minister, in his speech, has said that in view of the shortage of staff in the Government service, it is right and proper that academic qualifications for employment be relaxed. Therefore, it will be in order for Government to relax the terms of entry into the civil service, as far as the Malays are concerned.

Likewise, on the question of housing, the Yang di-Pertuan Negara in his speech has said that the Government will construct 52,000 units at a cost of $210 million. I hope that this expenditure will not be concentrated only on the building of flats at Kallang, Queenstown, and like places, but also that Government will set aside a portion of this sum on projects like the Jalan Eunos Resettlement, where houses are sold to the poorer Malays on an instalment basis.

On the subject of health, I have just received the report of the Ministry of Health for the year 1958. I have read the chapter on Infant Mortality, and it is clearly seen that infant deaths are 35 per thousand among the Chinese, and 40 per thousand among the Indians. But in the case of the Malays, I am surprised to find that out of every thousand infants born, 85 die before they reach the age of one year. Therefore, I would ask the Minister for Health to institute a committee to investigate this high mortality rate, and to put up views and suggestions to Government as to how to resolve this problem.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will now turn to the subject of the Alsagoff Estate. Not long ago I raised a question in this Chamber as to what were Government's plans in regard to this estate. Then I was of the opinion that Alsagoff Estate would soon be sold and the position of the residents there would be helpless. It is therefore proper that Government should draw up a plan to look after the interests of the residents. But at that time the Minister for Finance replied to the effect that he had no information whatsoever that Alsagoff Estate would be sold. Until about five months ago, Government was not able to do anything about it. The position of the residents there is akin to that of the people living in Nee Soon, where the tenure is very insecure. So, I hope that Government, in its Five-Year Plan, will spend part of the money voted for reconstruction purposes in purchasing this estate, cutting it into lots, for ultimate sale on instalments to the residents.

Finally, I will speak on the Islam religion. The Yang di-Pertuan Negara in his speech said:

"The Government will introduce comprehensive legislation for the regulation of Muslim marriage and divorce and Muslim religious affairs on the lines of legislation in the States of the Federation of Malaya."

This is ideal and good. This time I hope that Government, in introducing such legislation, will give ample time to the Opposition for study, and that free copies of the legislation translated into Malay will be given to the Muslims in Singapore so that they could closely follow the legislation that affects their religion. And I also hope that Government will take into account the matter of zakats and wakafs in Singapore, because such matters are now in a chaotic state, and should receive the attention of the Government. The Government also should base its proposed legislation on the lines of legislation in the States of the Federation of Malaya.

4.54 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health (Dr Sheng Nam Chin): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the motion of thanks moved by the Prime Minister.

In moving his motion, the Prime Minister has given a critical review of the past and a bold and realistic analysis of the future. It is my fervent hope that Members of the Opposition would study this excellent piece of political discourse so as to at least understand the political forces at work in Singapore. Whether they agree or disagree with the P.A.P. stand is immaterial. But what is important is that they should be aware of the existence of a perpetual struggle between the forces of the extreme Left and the extreme Right.

The People's Action Party is a socialist Party, pledged to eliminate the unjustness of a colonial society and the exploitation of man by man. We believe in the principles of socialism and of the building of a more just and egalitarian society. It is therefore out of the question to expect the P.A.P. to move to the extreme Right and, as suggested by the hon. Member for Kampong Kembangan, to adopt a fanatical anti-Communist stand. On the other hand, the methods of bloody revolution and of totalitarianism of the extreme Left convulse us with horror. We value too much the democratic ways of life, the freedom of the individual, the privileges of the people, to be governed by a government of their own choice. It becomes therefore equally out of the question to expect the P.A.P. to join hands with the Communist forces towards its own extinction. We stand for what we believe in, and we do so with a firm and unshakeable conviction for the establishment of an independent, democratic, non-Communist, socialist Malaya. As the Communists believe that history is on their side, so do we believe that history is on our side. This belief is evolved not out of cheap plagiarism, but out of a scientific and realistic analysis of the special conditions obtaining in Malaya in relation to the tendencies of international political trends. In so far as the present political leadership of Soviet Russia dismisses the idea that war would inevitably lead to a Communist victory `and Communist expansion, we believe that present-day Marxists are capable of moving and modifying their ways with the change of times. The present deadlock in the cold war cannot be sustained forever. There must be a third force to resolve these two antagonistic and opposing forces in the world.

In Malaya, we believe that non-Communist socialism is the answer. We believe this with such deep conviction that it would be hopeless for either the extreme Left or the extreme Right to coerce us into any unholy alliance.

Sir, having spoken but on very few occasions in this House, it is my privilege, of not only being unlikely to be misquoted or quoted out of context both in relation to time and text, but also of remembering what I have said in this House. On one occasion I was reputed to have used language that got past the excellent parliamentary vigilance of the Speaker. I vividly remember that during the last Budget session, I spoke on the need for the Opposition not to use alarmist tactics, not to make mountains out of molehills, and not to delude the people with false alarms and half-truths. I am indeed sad to note, Sir, that my advice has fallen upon barren soil. I have always prided myself on being somewhat popular with ladies of all ages, and of all sizes! In consequence I have developed a human virtue, or feeling, or whatever you may call it, of chivalry. Notwithstanding this acquired disposition, I find it hard to let some of the remarks made by the Member for Mountbatten pass by without comment.

I refer again to her alarmist antics, though I must admit to remaining a silent admirer of her very Carnegiean eloquence and pedagogic ease with which she handles the Queen's English, puns and all. She kept on harping about the fleeing of capital, even to the absurdity of suggesting that the P.A.P. Government was incompetent and not fit to govern, and that Members of the P.A.P. Government were but political playboys. I wish she would understand the realism of politics or at least the realism of everyday life. I find it ironical that I have to explain to a matured schoolteacher with rich experience that people resist change, and that to every action there must be an equal and opposing reaction, and that we cannot and must not expect capitalists to love socialists. In fact, only 14 months after a socialist victory in the elections, Government have not only managed to stop the out-flow of capital from the country but actually induced private investment in Singapore. This is eloquent testimony to the ability of the P.A.P. leadership to respond to the needs of our people and of our State.

In many countries, Sir, the advent of a socialist government is followed by a transitory unsettling period. This period has been universal and consistent. Every socialist government, be it the first Government of the United Kingdom or of Australia or New Zealand, has had to face difficulties with the commercial world and the civil service. In Singapore in particular, we have a civil service the upper echelons of which are geared to a British standard of living and way of life, whilst the labouring classes stagnate at the Asian level. The unsettling effect must necessarily be expected to be both exaggerated and prolonged. It is hard to expect a class of individuals, with newly acquired privileges and pleasures, to jettison these privileges and pleasures overnight. There has been sufficient dissertation on the philosophy of the English-educated elite, of which I am one, that I would not wish to repeat the arguments in this House. Suffice it to mention regretfully that most of the English-educated elite, nurtured by a colonial education, confused by capitalist-controlled English newspapers, and deluded by promises of the previous government, were not protagonists of the silent revolution led by the P.A.P. and inspired by the Asian revolutionary fervour. The natural tendency and response of these people to a P.A.P. Government was to quit, if alternative employment was available and in the case of the more highly paid Government officers - the doctors - not only was there the availability of alternative employment, but there was also the lucre of private practice. This clearly gives the lie to the statement of the Member for Mountbatten - that the Minister for Health has only one will, and that is the will to see doctors resign from the service. On the contrary, every effort is being made to encourage the doctors to remain in the service.

It might be pertinent here, Sir, to mention that the doctors are the first to be offered professional allowances. In fact, the professional allowances were negotiated by the doctors to their benefit, so much so that the other professional officers became rather unhappy. The professional allowances payable are: -

$225 for officers receiving a basic salary of $1,000 and above;

$150 for officers receiving a basic salary between $900 and $1,000;

$75 for officers receiving below $900.

The salary scale of medical officers commences at $820 per month, while the other professional officers start at somewhere around $600. Therein lies the grudge of the other professional officers. They take a longer time to reach the maximum of $225 allowances per month. The Government is also aware that many of our local officers are keen to go overseas for higher studies and postgraduate qualifications. Because of the relative shortage of medical staff, they have to be held back. Plans have therefore been set afoot to solve this shortage by recruiting doctors overseas, so that our own doctors may not be deprived of the opportunity to specialise. In this respect, I am pleased to announce that plans are ahead for the recruitment of doctors from Japan.

Sir, I am indeed happy to say that today the unsettled period is over, both in the world of commerce and in the civil service. The English-educated, despite their lack of revolutionary fervour, has many virtues. In general, the English-educated is more liberal and is non-communal in outlook. In particular, the civil service is diligent, intelligent and able to adapt themselves to the circumstances and respond to the needs of the people. In the Ministry of Health, we have the fullest co-operation from all our staff.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I would like to emphasise for the benefit of the Opposition in general, and the Member for Mountbatten in particular, that in the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara at the opening of this Parliamentary session, the grammatical tenses must necessarily be prevalent in the future tense. Any government, to stress on the past in such speeches, would indeed be a dead duck.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr G. Kandasamy): Order. Is it a convenient time to suspend for tea, Mr Deputy Prime Minister?

Dr Toh Chin Chye: Yes.

Mr Deputy Speaker: I suspend this debate until 5.30 p.m.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 5.05 p.m. until 5.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 5.30 p.m.

[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]

Question again proposed.

5.31 p.m.

Dr Sheng Nam Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I was both amused and amazed to hear the Member for Mountbatten touch on Utopian socialism when she got carried away by her flight of rhetoric on standpipes. I stand to correction, Sir, but I do recall that she said that the solution to the criminal and sinful waste of water due to abuse of public stand-pipes can be, and will be, solved by installing water pipes in each and every household. Perchance she is unaware that housewives and householders do not allow water to flow freely and unnecessarily from their water pipes because the waste is charged in terms of dollars and cents; or perhaps she was suggesting that Government should supply free water to all households. If so, the Government would also have to supply free electricity, free housing, and free transport. It all sounds very nice and very Utopian. But where do we stop? Who will foot the bill for these enlarged free social services?

The Member for Kampong Kembangan, in his usual long-windedness, spoke on things which he has always spoken in this House. The only new note he struck was to appeal to the P.A.P. in all his naive sincerity to drop its non-Communist stand and adopt anti-Communism. It is perhaps asking too much of him to understand that the P.A.P. stands for non-Communist socialism out of conviction and belief, and not out of expedience and convenience. In his enthusiasm he allowed himself to be carried over dangerous ground. And he affirmed his faith in communalism which the Federation Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, has denounced as political bigotry and adventurism. He went to the extent of quoting chapter and verse from a book of fiction to prove that the Malays founded Singapore. But is all this effort necessary when the special position of the Malays is already written into the preamble of our Constitution? Surely, Mr Speaker, Sir, in this era of enlightenment and scientific advance, a person should be judged by his ability and capability, and not by the house unto which he was born.

The Opposition has always suffered from political and emotional immaturity. Nor has the recent reinforcement on the Opposition benches helped to remedy this defect. Having been schooled not to accept a book by its cover, I had always thought that behind the youthful charm of the `Member for Hong Lim there lay hidden political maturity and judgment. His speech in the House has disabused me of this illusion. I cannot help feeling disappointed to hear him rant on colonialism and Malayanisation, in notes which sounded both false and hollow. Disappointed -

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the word "false" with reference to a speech made by a Member of the Assembly is completely unparliamentary, and must be withdrawn.

Dr Sheng Nam Chin: When I referred to "false", I referred to the tone of the speech, Sir.

Mr Speaker: I do not think the hon. Member should try and debate with the Speaker. I ask him to withdraw the word "false".

Dr Sheng Nam Chin: I withdraw the word "false" unconditionally as the Speaker demands of me, and perhaps -

Mr Speaker: Order. I hope I am not being accused of intimidation. The point I want to make is that there are certain Standing Orders which must be obeyed in this House, and I, as Speaker, am here to see that those Standing Orders are obeyed. The word "false" is unparliamentary and must be withdrawn unconditionally.

Dr Sheng Nam Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I was not trying to debate with you or imply that you were unnecessarily harsh. I was merely complimenting you on your very excellent parliamentary vigilance. I shall now withdraw the word "false".

I said I was disappointed because the Member for Hong Lim saw fit to shout at us in this House slogans out of context, both in relation to time and space. I state categorically that the P.A.P. is anti-colonialist. But we are realistic enough to know that in order to survive the inter-play of forces between the extreme Left and the extreme Right, we must compromise. Singapore cannot be independent by itself, either politically or economically, unless with merger with a larger entity. I am sure the Member for Hong Lim realises this. As long as we cannot be independent, we have no other choice but to accept the terms of internal self-government. The alternative is political suicide, not only for the People's Action Party but also for the people of Singapore. Unless increasing numbers of factory chimneys emit smoke into the Singapore skyline, unless the P.A.P. policy of industrial peace with justice is made real, socialism and independence for Singapore will have to remain myths.

The Member for Hong Lim talked at length on Malayanisation. Surely he should know that the right time and the right place to express his concern was in September 1955, when the Malayanisation Commission, chaired by my friend, teacher and colleague, Dr Sreenivasan, was in session. Surely he cannot be unaware that Malayanisation involves the payment of compensation to entitled expatriate officers. May I, Sir, quote from a booklet entitled "Scheme for compensation for loss of career." Page 1, paragraph 1:

"The object of the Retirement from the Public Service (Compensation) Ordinance, 1956, is to permit the payment of compensation to certain officers of the Singapore Government whose services may no longer be required... The Ordinance is in effect a scheme to award compensation to certain categories of officers in respect of whom the Secretary of State accepted responsibility when they were appointed and whose conditions of service will have been fundamentally altered."

In the second paragraph of the same booklet, it says:

"In addition to earned pension or gratuity in lieu, entitled officers who retire under the Ordinance will he eligible to receive compensation..."

In paragraph 11, it again says:

"Every entitled officer will be informed of his future prospects by being sent with his option form a letter either requiring him to retire or offering him a minimum period of assured further service in Singapore. The period of further service may subsequently be increased but will not be decreased."

I repeat, Mr Speaker, Sir, the "period of further service may subsequently be increased but will not be decreased." Again quoting paragraph 25:

"Compensation is the capital amount paid for loss of career and will be calculated in accordance with the Second Schedule to the Ordinance. In brief, the lump sum is the product of an officer's total annual fixed emoluments and any personal pensionable allowance and the compensation factor appropriate to his age and length of service."

In paragraph 24, it again says:

"Section 19 of the Ordinance provides for loans against compensation. A loan must not exceed three-quarters of the compensation for which an officer is eligible, and will be subject td interest at the rate of one quarter per cent per mensem."

And it might be pertinent to mention, Sir, that in the case of expatriate officers, most of them have taken this loan.

In the circumstances, it is not only illegal to malayanise any post prematurely, but gross folly and indeed brinkmanship to rid the country of expert officers after having paid very dearly for their services.

It might be relevant again to note, Sir, that the Malayanisation Commission, which was regarded to be too Left by the previous Government, stated in its interim report. I quote, Sir, "The Interim Report of the Malayanisation Commission", page 13, paragraph 15:

"Caution must be exercised in the case of departments whose needs require knowledge and skill so precise and exacting that anything less would invariably mean chaos in those departments. We have in mind departments like the Public Works Department, Telecommunications, the Postal Services and Civil Aviation. These are departments where inefficiency would mean chaos, but on whose efficient running depend the revenue and the lives of people."

In paragraph 16, it says:

"Though we bore in mind that our task was to Malayanise as rapidly as possible we did not hesitate to postpone or prolong the period of Malayanisation of posts if that was in the best interests of Singapore." Surely, Mr Speaker, Sir, the unnecessary resignations of engineers and architects from the P.W.D. cannot be construed to be in the interest of Singapore or of Malayanisation. The collapse of governmental machinery in certain newly independent countries must surely serve as a warning note to us that we must not be too hasty and too rash in such matters as Malayanisation. Let us malayanise by all means, but let us not be too impatient lest black-outs become a regular feature again in Singapore.

Yesterday the Member for Hong Lim ranted like Hitler. Today he became a petty vendor of recklessness and sensationalism.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Member must be careful with his language. I think that whole expression must be withdrawn. It is completely unparliamentary.

Dr Sheng Nam Chin: Mr Speaker, Sir, could I withdraw that statement and substitute thereto "a merchant of inaccuracies"? I listened with horror when he sounded a very false - I beg your pardon - I was in horror when I heard him state that the Prime Minister said at the conference of the 18th of June of the P.A.P. that if the British troops were allowed to march out of Singapore, Indonesian troops would march in. I can state here, Sir, that as a member of the Secretariat which was responsible for the minutes of the conference - and I say so on behalf of the whole Secretariat of the P.A.P. which were taking down the minutes of that meeting - that no such things were mentioned and no such recklessness was committed. Perhaps the Member for Hong Lim, who has not been of sufficiently high quality to merit inch columns in newspapers, is taking the opportunity of ranting in this House, hoping that the newspapers will report him not because he is the Member for Hong Lim but because he is saying this in the process of an Assembly debate. I state here again, Sir, very categorically that no such statements were made at the conference, and I can produce minutes to prove this.

The hon. Member for Geylang Serai in his speech again harped on communalism. Already the Government is providing free education at all levels for Malays. Already all privileges are given to Malays both in respect of higher studies and of employment, and still he harps on it. His latest technique is to introduce into this Assembly the very well-known infant mortality rates of the various races. The Malays have an infant mortality rate of 85 per thousand up to the age of one year. Surely, Sir, this cannot be attributed to any mistake of the present Government. Surely, if it reflects anything at all, it reflects the ineptitude and the incompetence of the previous Government. [Interruption] Why not? Of course, it must reflect the incompetence of the previous Government because the figures today show the inefficiencies of the administration yesterday. In any case, there is very little that the present Government can do about these rates, because the previous Government had not thought it fit to teach the Malays the acceptance of the modern methods of science and medicine. It is well known that the Malay is conservative in so far as Western medicine is concerned. He still believes in the bomoh and would be reluctant to go and see a doctor until a very late stage when the doctor can do very little. It is the intention of the Government to educate these Malays to better understand that the facilities provided by modern medicine is in their interest. It is in this connection that we have stressed in the speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara that:

"Two Out-patient clinics will be opened at Jalan Kayu and Lim Ah Pin Road. More Maternity and Child Health centres will be built next year, particularly in the rural areas.".

The fact that the infant mortality rate is high for .Malays cannot be attributed to the lack of provision of doctors for curative care for the Malays, but to the lack of understanding and acceptance by the Malays of the maternal and child health services in general. It is, therefore, the intention of this Government to increase the number of child welfare centres so as to give the Malays in the rural areas a better chance to be educated and a better chance to make use of the facilities offered by the Government, whose only interest is in the interest of the people.

5.49 p.m.

The Minister for Labour and Law (Mr K. M. Byrne): Mr Speaker, Sir, the year that has passed has been one of sustained activity in the promotion of the well-being of our growing working population. When the reins of political power passed into our hands just a little more than a year ago, we boldly declared that we were a Government solidly on the side of the workers and we have by our actions in the past year honoured every word of that declaration.

We took immediate stock of the position and found that much of the past labour discontent was due to the failure of the previous Government, i.e. the Lim Yew Hock Government, to implement the provisions of legislation which were enacted for the benefit of our workers.

The officers of our expanded labour courts have spent much of their time in the last year adjudicating on individual and union claims for arrears in respect of overtime, holiday pay, annual leave and other benefits of which our workers have been wrongfully and shamefully deprived. These arrears in most cases were such that if all defaulting employers were obliged to meet the full extent of these claims, most of the smaller employers would have been put out of business. For that reason, a Ministry directive had to be issued to the officials of our labour courts instructing them to limit these claims for arrears when they were received, to a period of one year only.

In fact, we have had to issue directives to protect certain employers from their own past wickedness, Sir.

Most of the disputes which have taken place in the past year have not been over wage demands but over retrenchment and temporary lay-offs. Industries are sometimes forced to take this action because of the fluctuation in the demand for their products in overseas markets, or because of a shortage or non-availability of the raw materials they require. The unions have, because of the present surplus of labour, resisted very strongly such action by employers, and industrial peace, therefore, cannot be maintained under such conditions until a remedy is found. Immediate attention will be given to the introduction of a relief scheme in respect of our manufacturing industries so that workers who are unfortunately retrenched or temporarily laid off will be provided with temporary relief funds to tide them over the period when they are retrenched until they get new employment; or when they are laid off, until they are re-employed. It is obvious, Sir, that such a relief scheme, if it is to be successful, must be limited to manufacturing industries which are tied to the Government's industrial expansion programme. Commercial enterprises which engage only in the import and export trade as well as banking, insurance, shipping, transport and other such concerns will have to be excluded from the scheme. In circumstances where the relief scheme is applicable, the funds will be provided by contributions from both employers and employees. There will have to be a minimum contribution period and a maximum benefit period. An official well versed in the operation of such a scheme will be recruited under the Colombo Plan to advise on how such a scheme should be set up and to set up the machinery required for the operation of the scheme.

Mr Speaker, Sir, when the industrial expansion programme of the Government gets under way, there will have to be closer liaison between the planning and organising side of industry and the Ministry itself so that the Ministry will know in advance the potential labour requirements of industry and will be able to adjust the supply of labour accordingly. When such liaison is established, it will be possible for the Ministry to know well in advance which industry will be laying off staff and which will be requiring more staff within a foreseeable period of such things happening, and planned switches can therefore be arranged. For this purpose a section will be set up in the Ministry which will offer to labour and employers an efficient Labour Market Information Service which will help to reduce and minimise the hardship which labour at present often experiences when large numbers of employees are suddenly laid off.

The Employment Exchange will be considerably improved so that employers will be encouraged to make fuller use of the facilities which it offers by placing their labour requirements with the Exchange. Legislation will be introduced later in the year to make it an offence for any person, who is already in employment, to register as a job seeker, and registered job seekers, who find jobs either through the Exchange or on their own account, will be required by law to notify the Exchange so that their names can be taken off the register. The use of the Exchange by persons in part employment or seeking a change of job will thereby be prohibited. Those whose names have long been on the register without finding jobs either because of age, physical disability or because of lack of aptitude or skills will be regarded as unemployable and will be taken off the register. Their needs will be better served through Public Assistance than through the Exchange.

Powers will also be taken under legislation to be introduced to require all employers who propose employing non-citizens to notify the manager of the Exchange of their intentions and to obtain the prior approval of the Ministry before they can proceed to do so. There will be simplification of the documentation required for record purposes, and classification of the records will be made on the basis of the answers given at interviews. The questions asked at these interviews will be designed to elicit the information required for a proper classification to be made. At a later stage when the Exchange is more up-to-date, trade testing will be resorted to so that in due course there will be available at the Exchange, reliable information on the numbers and various kinds of skilled workers who are in search of jobs.

A special effort will be made to keep a proper register of those who are seeking their first jobs. It has been found that in the past those seeking their first jobs rarely made use of the Exchange. The placement of those leaving school in industry will occupy a good deal of the attention of the Ministry in the year ahead, and employers will be encouraged to send teams on their personnel and management side to our schools to popularise jobs in their concerns amongst young persons about to leave school. Employers will also be encouraged to prepare brochures explaining the opportunities their concerns offer to those who wish to make a career in their concerns on leaving school, for distribution in the schools.

An Employment Bill will be introduced which will repeal the three Ordinances dealing with the conditions of labourers, clerks and shop assistants, and the new Bill will considerably extend the scope of these Ordinances to include the aforementioned categories of employees as well as all other employees who were hitherto excluded from the scope of our labour legislation. A uniform scheme of benefits will be provided under the Bill and a uniform scheme of working hours introduced for all employees. Those who work on their own account, whether they are paid at piece rates or on a commission basis on premises provided by the employer, will be deemed to be employees for the benefits of the new law. Power will be taken under the new Bill to enable the Ministry to fix the opening and closing hours of shops and other establishments where the nature of the business done is such as not to require these premises to be opened after their employees have rendered a full eight hours work. This will put an end to the wholesale evasion of our labour law which daily takes place in such premises where employees have to work for much longer periods than eight hours a day without the payment of any overtime.

Enterprises which are not tied to the Government's industrial expansion programme such as those which engage in the import and export trade, commercial, insurance, banking, transport, shipping and other such concerns will be required to provide retrenchment pay on a scale laid down when staff are laid off. This will put an end to the confusion which at present exists when retrenchment pay is either refused or given at varying rates by different employers when staff in these concerns are laid off. Under the new Bill, power will be taken to enable the Ministry to make special regulations providing for the conditions of work and benefits of domestic servants. The scope of the definition of "domestic servant" will be limited so that such service rendered in or about a private dwelling house will reckon as domestic service, whereas service of a domestic nature rendered in hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, bars and private clubs will reckon fully for all the benefits provided for an employee under the new labour law.

Provisions implementing the recommendations of the Contract Labour Commission Report will also be included in the new Employment Bill. Contract labour will be prohibited in certain industries, but where it is permitted, contractors and sub-contractors employing labour will be required to register and to provide security in case of default in payment of wages. There will also be written into all labour contracts, whether of a principal contractor or a sub-contractor, as a requirement of law, a fair wages clause. Where an employer owns factory premises and the machinery in it, he will be required to employ those working in the factory direct. Employment of labour under contract to supplement the permanent labour force in a factory to cope with an increased demand for goods or services will also be prohibited.

The Trades Union Bill will be reintroduced with amendments to enable the new unification policy centered around the 19 categories of trade unions and the dissolution of general and miscellaneous unions to be fully implemented. This Bill passed through three Readings at the last session but was not assented to by His Excellency the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. Amendments have been proposed for the consideration of the Singapore Trades Union Congress which will require all existing general or miscellaneous Unions:

(i) To amend their rules to confine their membership to employees in any one of the categories specified in the First Schedule to the Bill.

(ii) To terminate the membership of any of their members who do not belong to the category specified in the rules.

(iii) To submit a return to the Registrar of Trade Unions showing that they have complied with these requirements.

The Singapore Trades Union Congress has been asked to consider a further proposal that a general or miscellaneous union should comply with these requirements before it is permitted to federate with other unions in the same category. Agreement on these proposals has so far not been reached with the Singapore Trades Union Congress.

The Industrial Relations Ordinance will be implemented by the appointment of the President and panels of Members of the Court and the recruitment of the necessary staff. The Court will be housed in the former Estate Duties Office in the Supreme Court Building and plans have already been approved for the conversion of this office into a suitable Court Room. In addition to the Court Room, accommodation will be provided for the President and members of the Court and there will also be meeting rooms for the employers' side and the employees' side. There is also to be a Central Registry and for the purpose of setting up the machinery required for the implementation of this Ordinance, the Registrar of the South Australian Court of Arbitration is now here under the Colombo Plan to advise the Ministry. Many collective agreements have already been concluded between employers and unions of employees and these agreements will be registered with the Central Registry of the Court as soon as it is set up. These agreements will be published in the Government Gazette after they are registered.

A Committee will be set up with representatives from the Singapore Trades Union Congress to advise on the designing and detailed planning for a Trade Union House to be built for the use of the S.T.U.C. and its affiliates. A very central site in the city has already been earmarked for this purpose within convenient distance of the major bus routes serving the city. This building will provide all the amenities which a Trade Union House requires in the way of a large meeting room, union offices, an office for the Secretariat, a library and a fully equipped research unit. The grounds will also be spacious enough for outdoor sports activities.

The work of the Work Brigade will be considerably expanded and 15 sites have already been selected for work camps. One camp has already been completed at Pasir Ris and work is now progressing on the widening and channelling of the Sungei Api Api from its source to the sea. This will improve the drainage of the area and bring under cultivation a very large area of swamp land. Work on the construction of camp sites at Jurong for the completion of a 2½ mile link road between Chua Chu Kang and Jurong, at Kaki Bukit and at the Paya Lebar Airport for the improvement of the drainage in the Geylang Serai area and for extending the existing resettlement scheme in this area and at Andrews Avenue, Sembawang, for the establishment of a new Malay Settlement in the area formerly occupied by the Bukit Sembawang Hill Rubber Estate, is now progressing at top speed. As these camps are completed and the development schemes associated with these work camps are in operation, new work camps will be started. The present planning provides that by the end of the year, 15 work camps will be built and 15 development schemes will be in full operation. The strength of the Work Brigade will then have increased to 3,000.

A Special Planning Unit for the Work Brigade has been set up. This will enable professional and technical officers who are now seconded to the Brigade from the Public Works Department to return to their own duties so that the development plans of other Ministries will not be impeded. The administrative side of the work of the Work Brigade has been taken over by the permanent staff at the former headquarters of the Civil Defence Corps and when the work of re-organisation at these headquarters is completed, there will be more Chinese-speaking officers at these headquarters to deal with the administrative matters affecting the Brigade. A special Transport Unit for the Brigade will also be set up.

The work on which the Brigade is engaged is very varied and those working in it will be able to learn useful trades in the course of their service. In road making schemes they learn to construct road side drains, lay down water pipes, metal roads and construct road side pavements. In drainage schemes they learn to construct bridges and weirs across streams and in re-settlement schemes, they learn farming and the building of houses and camps. A directive has already been issued from the Ministry of Finance to Government departments and quasi-Government bodies instructing them to give the first preference to all vacancies for tradesmen and skilled workers in Government service and in these quasi-Government bodies to those who have passed through the Work Brigade. Boys from the Gimson School have already been absorbed into the Work Brigade and those from Pulau Senang who make the grade will also be given an opportunity to serve in the Work Brigade before they regain their place in society. As our industrial expansion programme progresses, employers will see the advantage of recruiting their labour force more and more from members of the Work Brigade.

As soon as the new Trade Union Ordinance is introduced, a Labour Advisory Council will be set up on which there will be representatives of industry, the trade unions and Government. The work of the Council will be:

(i) to advise Government in relation to employment, industrial relations, employee welfare and related industrial and economic matters.

(ii) to advise the Ministry of Labour and Law in relation to matters on the labour side of the Ministry's work.

It will be the function of this Council to keep itself fully informed of the developments in both the public and private sectors of investment and arrangements will be made for meetings of the Council to be addressed by the Minister for Finance and members of the Economic Development Board. It is in this Council that organised labour with representatives from the Singapore Trades Union Congress will be fully consulted and associated in the task of implementing our Five-Year industrialisation programme. The views of organised labour in the matter of the maintenance of good working conditions for our workers while our industrialisation programme progresses will be brought to the notice of both employers and the Government in this Council. The Council will provide a forum in which organised labour, capital and Government will be able to formulate and work out plans for the promotion of industrial peace with justice as our industrialisation programme gets under way.

On the social welfare side of the Ministry, medium and small community centres will continue to be built in all areas which are thickly populated and small community halls costing not more than $5,000 each will be built in attap areas both in the urban and rural parts of the State. We have already built seven community centres since we assumed power and from next month, three community centres will be opened each month and four in December. We have planned a network of these community centres and community halls through which the People's Association which has already been set up by legislation will be able to organise the leisure activities of our growing young population. The inaugural meeting of the People's Association will be held this month at the National Recreation Centre and it is through this People's Association that we hope to integrate the activities of the various associations which are members of the People's Association in the greater purpose of organising the leisure activities of our young population in these community centres and community halls. The community centres and halls will in future afford a point of contact between the work of these associations and the masses and instead of functioning as they do now in more limited circumstances, these associations will in future be able by this contact to find a larger base upon which they will be able to expand their own activities. As an example, the Boy Scouts Association has already been approached to form scouting groups in our community centres and well known coaches like Wong Peng Soon are now moving front community centre to community centre to coach our young people in the art of playing a good game of badminton.

The Women's Charter which lapsed after reference to Select Committee owing to the prorogation of the Legislative Assembly will be re-introduced. The Bill will have regard to the proposals for amendment which were made to the Select Committee of the last session. Deficiencies in the Bill which were noticed when it was under reference to Select Committee will be removed and points of detail which were overlooked will be introduced. The basic feature of this Bill which puts a stop to polygamous marriages, except for those who are Muslims, as from the 2nd March of this year will however remain unchanged.

On the law side of the work in the Ministry, it is proposed to expand the service of the Legal Aid Bureau in civil cases. Instead of free legal aid being a responsibility of Government alone, the local Bar will be associated and a scheme devised on the lines on which the legal aid system is operated in England. In such a scheme provision will be made for contributory legal aid so that a larger section of the population will be able to benefit from the scheme. An officer will be sent to study the legal aid scheme in England with a view to introducing a modification of the English system here.

Legislation will be introduced to enable graduates in law of the University of Malaya to be admitted to the local Bar after a short period of pupilage and after passing an examination of a practical nature. In association with the Government of the Federation of Malaya, a joint Examinations Board on the model of the Council of Legal Education in England will be set up to examine candidates at the local University who are required to take this practical examination after completing their period of pupilage as well as candidates who have completed their legal studies overseas. It is hoped that in time there will be reciprocal arrangements between the Governments of the two territories to enable a candidate called to the Bar in one territory to practise at the Bar in both territories.

Legislation will also be introduced to protect honest traders from the fraud of insolvent and dishonest persons who set up spurious business concerns for the sole purpose of defrauding honest traders with whom they pretend to do business. As our State is the largest commercial emporium in South-East Asia, it is essential that our honest traders should be fully protected against such frauds.

New court houses will be built at Kallang on the vacant site next to the National Recreation Centre to house two district courts, one criminal and one civil, and two magistrates courts. A magistrate's court will also be built at Sepoy Lines and a court to deal with juvenile and maintenance cases will be set up at Fort Canning. These new court houses will relieve the congestion in our subordinate courts and will bring our courts nearer to the homes of our own people.

Comprehensive legislation for the regulation of Muslim marriage and divorce and Muslim religious affairs on the lines of legislation enforced in the states of the Federation of Malaya will be introduced during this session.

If I may revert once again to the labour side of my Ministry. The year ahead is one of construction and as the Party forming the Government we are committed to the realisation of our policy of full employment through industrialisation within our term of office. Any setback in the year ahead will make it impossible for us to realise the target we have set ourselves. Although we as a Government have done many good things for the benefit of our people during our term of office, none of these good things will be of any avail if we fail to find a solution for our growing unemployment problem. The solution of that problem is our main concern, all other things being subsidiary. In finding a solution to this problem, however, we will never be unmindful of our duty to ensure that with industrialisation and the expansion of our national income, our workers will continue to get fairer and better rewards for the fruits of their labour. We feel that as a Government, solidly behind our workers, it will be possible for us to obtain their goodwill and cooperation in achieving the task that we have set ourselves.

Let me, in conclusion, answer some of the matters raised by the Opposition. We make no apology for having imposed the pay cuts. The first point about it is that we imposed the cuts on ourselves first before we imposed them on others. These pay cuts were in the circumstances very necessary. When the former Chief Minister invited the Head of the Indian Civil Service, one Mr Bapat, to Singapore a few years ago, to advise him on how to reorganise the civil service on Asian lines, I remember that when speaking to him he expressed very great surprise that a comparatively junior Assistant Secretary in our civil service, with three years' service, received the same salary as he was receiving. As Head of the Indian Civil Service, he was then receiving 2,000 Rupees a month, or $1,240 per month in our money.

I would like to make it clear to all concerned that those in the lower income groups and in the lower bracket of the middle income groups have not been affected by the pay cuts at all. My former colleagues in the civil service, who are in the higher brackets of the middle income group and in the higher income group, know that with Malayanisation great opportunities for promotion have come their way, which more than compensate them for the pay cuts of which they complain. Barely five years ago, the highest posts to which a person starting as a clerk in the service could hope to rise to were a handful of prize posts for Office Assistants. Today, those with ability can make their way to higher appointments via an echelon of higher posts which are available to them. There are today opportunities for promotion from clerical posts to higher clerical posts, Executive Officer posts, Higher Executive Officer posts, Senior Executive Officer posts, timescale posts in the Administrative Service, and from there on to the Superscale posts in the Administrative Service. It is true today to say that there is no impediment in the way of an officer of ability enabling him to rise in the service from the post of a junior clerical officer to that of a Permanent Secretary in a Ministry. The same rapidity of promotion is also available to junior officers in the time-scale administrative and timescale professional and technical posts. With the disappearance of the expatriate hierarchy in the Superscale posts of these services, many of them have already very early in their career obtained promotion to these posts which would never have been within their reach, were it not for the Malayanisation policy. My former colleagues in the civil service also know that the pay scales in the civil service have never remained static in the post-war years. They are very familiar with the work of the various Commissions and Committees which have constantly reviewed the pay scales of civil servants to bring them to what these scales are today.

Civil servants must realise that with the large unemployment problem which faces us today, it is essential that there should be economies if we are to find the money to finance the Industrial Expansion Programme which we have planned. As I have said earlier on, it is only with industrialisation and the expansion of our national income that we can hope to assure all our workers, including those in the civil service, that they will continue to enjoy their present high standard of living. It is important, therefore, that the civil service, especially those in the higher brackets of the middle income group and in the higher income group should not lose sight of these weighty considerations. They would certainly be the losers if, for any reason, we as a Government failed to achieve the target which we have set out to achieve within our term of office.

We have been taken to task by the Opposition for not having given more attention to the need for tracking down the kidnappers. It is strange indeed that this charge should come from the lips of the Opposition. In January this year when we introduced the Offences Relating to Vehicles Bill to provide heavier penalties for those who were convicted of stealing motor cars and bicycles, this is what the Member for Farrer Park had to say [Hansard, of 14th January, 1960, Vol. 12, col. 103]:

"What this Bill proposes to do, Mr Speaker, Sir, is to increase the punishment in the hope that increased punishment would reduce the crimes."

I still quote him:

"...may I with respect again say that the difficulty is not that our laws do not provide the remedies-they do-but that the Police are not able to arrest the thieves, however much the punishment might be:".

He goes on to say this:

"To suggest that it is necessary to bring in this Bill because the theft of vehicles is so prevalent, is not a proposition which I can accept. I would suggest to the people who enforce the law that it is not increased punishments that will stop the theft of vehicles, but the catching of the thieves that is going to stop it."

On that occasion, Mr Speaker, Sir, in reply to the Member for Farrer Park, I said [col. 104]:

"If we allow the situation to drift, then one day the Member for Farrer Park will come here and say, `Does the Government not know that the situation is getting from bad to worse? What is the Government doing about it? I have also lost my motorcar! What is the Government going to do about it?'"

I assured the Member for Farrer Park then that when the Bill was passed, he would have the security of his motor vehicle for so long as the Offences Relating to Vehicles Ordinance remained in our Statute Book. His reply was that he only owned a bicycle. I mention this. Mr Speaker, to show that we did not get any support from the Opposition then, when we were trying hard to do the right thing for the people of Singapore.

Rich businessmen have been in to see me complaining of the prevalence of kidnapping, and amongst other things they mentioned that many of the businessmen themselves were partly to blame for the present sorry state of affairs. They told me they knew that many more kidnappings had taken place than were reported in the Press. They said that the victims of these kidnappings had resolutely refused to make any complaints to the police, and that this remained their attitude in spite of the fact that they had been urged by other businessmen to lodge formal complaints with the police. It must be apparent to Members of the Opposition that the police force works under a very real handicap when those who complain that the police have not done enough to bring the kidnappers to book, themselves refuse to cooperate with the police. Furthermore, we have had it from the lips of the Members of the Opposition themselves that laws enhancing the penalties for certain crimes will not in themselves reduce the incidence of these crimes. We believe that if more cooperation is extended to the police by those who now complain that the police have not done enough to track down the evil-doers, then more can be achieved in bringing these miscreants to justice.

On the question of the re-employment of those who have left the civil service, I can assure the House that since we have been in Government, to my knowledge not a single officer has been required to leave the service otherwise than through the disciplinary procedure governing dismissals in the service. No civil servant has, to my knowledge, been arbitrarily dismissed from his post. There have been resignations from the service, but such resignations are beyond our control. Under the Government General Orders, any officer who voluntarily resigns from the service forfeits his gratuity or his pension and is not eligible to be considered for further employment should be change his mind later and wish to be re-employed.

Conditions, however, have been different in certain departments of the former City Council, where it is known that officers of long service with good records have left their employment prematurely for fear of discrimination and other reasons. As the Prime Minister has already told the House, those amongst these officers who have sought re-employment have all been reabsorbed or offered re-employment in the service of the State.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will now proceed to deal with some of the submissions made by Members of the Opposition. You will remember, Sir, that yesterday the Member for Mountbatten, who is dozing off now, said that no capital could be attracted into Singapore since we became the Government. She claimed that there was a great loss of confidence. Mr Speaker, Sir, it was the lot of the Member for Mountbatten to have been a good school marm before she became a Legislative Assembly-woman. My lot has been in other spheres. I had been holding a very senior appointment in an essential planning Ministry of the Lim Yew Hock Government, and I have known of the various schemes of investment that they were trying to attract to Singapore. There has been a lot of talk about the Central Wholesale Fish Market scheme. And there was a lot of argument as to where that market was to be sited - was it to be at the Old Kallang Airport or was it to be at the mouth of the Rochore River? There were lots of argument, but till today there is no wholesale fish market. There was talk of setting up a Japanese fish cannery, and Mr Cresson, the Industrial Development Officer, was sent to Japan to work out with the Japanese concerns there a joint enterprise. Where is that Japanese fish cannery? Then we were told that large overseas tobacco manufacturing concerns were going to set up new tobacco businesses in Singapore. Where are those concerns? The Minister whom I then served took a trip to America to attend the P.A.T.A. Conference. Amongst other visits, he spent his time in investigating the possibility of his personally setting up a tobacco industry in Singapore. But he changed his mind and thought that toothpaste was a better proposition, and he has since started a big toothpaste business. Mr Speaker, Sir, I have not been blessed with very good teeth, and I still prefer to keep to the good old brands. Mr Speaker, Sir, we were then told that there was a magnate from Hongkong, one David Soong, who was very interested in setting up a flour industry in Singapore costing $2 million. He was to visit Singapore and go into the possibilities, and if they were good, to set up a factory. Where is David Soong? Where is the factory? Then we were told that there was going to be a big sugar refinery. Millions of dollars were going to be invested. Where is that sugar refinery?

Mr Speaker, Sir, it was my duty then to popularise these ideas - ideas which everybody knew were just pipe-dreams. But we had to put them forward and say, "Yes, everybody is very interested. There are conditions of great stability under the Lim Yew Hock Government. Everybody is excited about investing." They soon forgot about these schemes and proceeded with the Singapore Constitution Exposition instead to distract attention. Just before the elections, they had to think of an industrialisation scheme. What did they think out? They talked of the Singapore River development scheme. That is the scheme considered by the World Bank when the Directors of the World Bank were in Singapore some years before. They published it. That scheme was in the form of a book which was pigeon-holed. They resurrected it just before the elections to make you believe that they had planned the scheme for industrial development.

Then again, Sir, they wanted to build low-cost factories, and there was a lot of talk about low-cost factories for small businessmen and so on. All the arguments were against it. The only thing they achieved was the Leng Kee Road Project. But that was a project financed and planned by the Malaya Development Society. That is the sum total of industrial development there was under the Lim Yew Hock Government.

Mr Speaker, Sir, this is the same hysterical remark that has been made since the P.A.P. Government came into power - that there is a state of general chaos and that no capital will be attracted. What are the facts? Dr Goh Keng Swee, before he left here, gave me a list of the various concerns which are investing in Singapore. I have got it here. The Marusen Toyo Oil Company with a subscribed capital of $25 million; the Malayan Flour Mill (Singapore) Limited with a subscribed capital of $4 million. Now where is David Soong? We have the Malayan Flour Mill with a subscribed capital of $4 million. The Sheng Huo Enterprise Limited, $1,011,000; Cold Storage Creameries Limited - expansion, $200,000; Friesland (Malaya) Ltd., $3 million; Metal Tubes and Chemical Products, $270,000; H. Dember, $500,000; British Aluminium Company Limited, $10 million; Chin Leong Company Limited, $2 million; Mizrahie Pharmaceutical Works Limited, $100,000; Hong Tye Tea Merchant Limited, $500,000; Kong Guan Flour Mills Limited, $1 million; Shell Oil Refinery, $54 million; a total of $101,581,000 subscribed capital and with an authorised total capital of $112,700,000.

Mr Speaker, we have not publicised all this. We have never made a fuss about it. It is only when we are challenged, when it is said that we are doing nothing about investment, and they get hysterical about it that we must come out and tell them that all these investments have been attracted.

Mr Speaker, Sir, on a very personal note, the Member for Mountbatten complained - I think she was very excited at the time - that it is very unfair that she was not invited to open the Mountbatten Community Centre last Saturday. Then she accused us. She said, "Look at it. What do they do? They get defeated candidates and others whom they want to build up politically to open our community centres." Mr Speaker, Sir, in fact, no defeated candidate was invited to open that community centre. We invited Dr Toh. And why did we invite Dr Toh? Because he is more at home -

Mr Speaker: Order. Of course, the Hon. Minister means the Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Byrne: I do, Mr Speaker. We all know those surroundings of tenement flats. All the people who live there are the people who were victims of the Tiong Bahru fire. They are all very poor people. They are people who mix socially with -

Mr A. P. Rajah (Farrer Park): The Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr Byrne: No - what is his official designation? The Member for Rochore. Now they mix with him socially. But in the case of the Member for Mountbatten, the way she dresses -

Mrs Seow Peck Leng rose -

Mr Speaker: On a point of information?

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Yes. Mr Speaker, Sir, when I said "defeated candidates", I did not mean "Mountbatten". I am sure the Minister knows what I meant.

Mr Byrne: I will come to that later. Mr Speaker, Sir, unless the Member for Mountbatten could accommodate herself socially with that gathering, bearing in mind that there are some gentlemen opposite who would be frightened to be seen in this House if they were dressed as we are, how can we ever ask them to open our community centres?

Mr Speaker, Sir, then we were charged with using Government funds for party purposes. This is a building that was put up. I think, by the late Tan Thoon Lip, and the money provided for this building came from Mr Lee Kong Chian. The people who put this building up still owe Mr Lee Kong Chian money. This building up to recently was in the occupation of the Katong Boys' Club Association. They ran activities here. Of their own accord they have handed over this building to us. They say that if they hand it over to us, they will be sure that all the activities will be better organised and that the building will be an asset to the poor people who are living around. Mr Speaker, Sir, it was Mr Lee Kong Chian who paid for the renovations. They cost round about $15,000 to $20,000. Where, have Government funds been used for political purposes?

Then we have been charged with leaving the Geylang/Katong Community Association severely alone. That is the Association in which the Member for Mountbatten moves about very gracefully. The members all dress, Mr Speaker, Sir, as she does; not the types that live in the old airport estate. Mr Speaker, Sir, we made inquiries. We wanted to know how they get on together, but we find that there are a lot of factional fights going on in that Association. We want to serve the people and work with them. We do not want to get involved in little factional fights. So we have decided to leave this Association alone and keep away from it. Is there anything wrong in that, Mr Speaker?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I now come to my ex-colleague, the Member for Hong Lim. During this debate yesterday and today, the Member for Hong Lim appeared in this House with many heavy tomes. I have never in my life before seen him carry so many books. All that he was doing was to look up all of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's anti-colonial speeches. Mr Speaker, Sir, he is very angry that the Prime Minister has refused to go on repeating himself like a worn-out gramophone record. I mean, if he has no policies, then all that he can say is, "I am anti-colonial. I am anti-colonial." That is all. "I put up standpipes because I am anti-colonial." That is all he can do. He has said that the Party leadership is also now pro-colonial. He says that he has not even troubled to look at the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech. He says that he is quite convinced now that this is a completely Lim Yew Hock Government's statement of policy. It is a pro-colonial statement of policy.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we have mentioned some things such as our intention to improve the conditions of our farmers. We have said that we intend to introduce legislation to give farmers better security of tenure, and that a Bill will be introduced in this Assembly during this session. We have talked about the need for improving the strains of chickens. I remember the Member for Hong Lim going on the radio and praising himself for the good work he was doing among the farmers and so on. That finds a place in the policy statement. Yet he did not say that his speech over Radio Singapore was pro-colonial. But he says that the same thing which appears in the policy statement is pro-colonial. Mr Speaker, Sir, this matter appears in the policy statement of this year - our undertaking that we will introduce legislation to give farmers better security of tenure. Last year in this House, we have had all sorts of promises from the -

An hon. Member: From the Government!

Mr Byrne: From the Government - yes. We must accept collective responsibility. But the person who did speak was the Member for Hong Lim, who was then the Minister for National Develop ment. He said that that legislation was going to be introduced. There were no ideas, and no contributions from him The file was passed on to him to work out a scheme. He could not think of devising -

Mr Ong Eng Guan (Hong Lim): On a point of clarification, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker: On a point of clarification.

Mr Byrne: Yes.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, the only radical legislation which the P.A.P. Government thought to bring up was legislation to give security of tenure to the farmers. This legislation, which would radically change the present relationship between the landlords and the tenants, and in a way change the present land system, was drafted and completed by the able Attorney-General in the Ministry of Labour and Law. But since this legislation touched too much on the interests which the Lee Kuan Yew Government wants to protect, it was deferred. The excuse given was that it was not good enough, although it was being prepared with the able assistance of the Ministry of Labour and Law, and I believe -

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Member cannot embark on another speech. Probably that is as far as he can go.

Mr Byrne: I am glad, Mr Speaker, that he has paid a compliment to the Ministry of Labour and Law since he considers that we are able to give him very able assistance. Mr Speaker, Sir, before you can set up any bit of legislation, it is necessary for you to tell the draftsmen what you want. But, Mr Speaker, Sir, there were no ideas, no contributions from his Ministry. We had to look up the Legislation in England. We had to put up all the proposals with regard to this legislation. Nothing was forthcoming from the Ministry of National Development. All that we were handed was a bunch of empty files.

Mr Speaker, Sir, there is one aspect of the Member for Hong Lim's speech that we all know does not accord with the facts. He says that we are pro-colonialists, that this policy statement is a pro-colonial policy statement. Mr Speaker, Sir, it is of no use to us to hark back to 1954, 1955, 1956. The purpose of this policy speech is to review what the Party has done in the last year and to forecast the trends in the new Session.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like the Member for Hong Lim to interrupt me and try to seek clarification for the things which I shall say from now on. I would like to ask him whether he did not, in fact, subscribe to the Party's manifesto which was put to the electorate and adopted in our publication "The Tasks Ahead". Mr Speaker, I should like to ask him whether he did not himself read out one of those policy speeches at one of the mass meetings. We know that all persons who are in the present Government read those policy statements at our mass rallies. Mr Speaker, Sir, he could have criticised us as pro-colonialists. If he thought that what we have said in our Party manifesto, the manifesto which we have put to the people of Singapore at the last election, was a pro-colonial policy statement, why did he not tell the people at the mass rallies, "Do not support that manifesto. That is a fraudulent manifesto. It has been put up to defraud the people of Singapore"? Did he have the guts and the courage to say that? Mr Speaker, Sir, ask him to interrupt me at any time for clarification of what I am saying? Did he not himself suggest the creation of the Ministry of National Development? Did he not try to get within his control nearly every important institution of government, including the City Council? Ask him if that is not so.

Mr Speaker, before we became the Government, we put this policy statement to the people. We had it accepted by the people and it was our duty as the Government to carry out the policy which has been supported and adopted by the people. What steps did the Member for Hong Lim take to integrate City Council departments with Government departments? What steps did he take to set up the Housing and Development Board? Mr Speaker, Sir, I say to this Assembly, he took no steps at all. He had no intention of implementing that policy at any stage. It was the Cabinet, collectively, which ensured that he did so. Mr Speaker, Sir, he showed his hand here in this Assembly yesterday. He said that he had only two enemies amongst us - the Prime Minister and Dr Goh Keng Swee. We were all -

Mr Speaker: The Minister for Finance.

Mr Byrne: The Minister for Finance, Sir. We were all his friends, he says. Now, Mr Speaker, Sir, why? Why does he single out Dr Goh Keng Swee for his -

Mr Speaker: The Minister for Finance.

Mr Byrne: Yes, the Minister for Finance - for the venom of his spleen? Why? It is because, Mr Speaker, Sir, Dr Goh Keng Swee - the Minister for Finance - would not allow him the full use of the City Council funds to build up a body of grateful retainers around himself. He would not allow that. Hence his great personal dislike of Dr Goh Keng Swee.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the Minister will recollect that I did endeavour to stop the Member for Hong Lim when he was embarking on details, and the Minister himself is perhaps guilty of the same offence. Perhaps the Minister will consider cutting out quite a lot of the details and going on to generalities.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, we all are responsible to the electorate who have put us here. On an occasion like this we review the activities of the past year. Each and everyone of us is accountable for what we have done in the past year. Mr Speaker, Sir, if I were to suggest to this House that the Minister for National Development had discharged his duties faithfully, then I have to ask myself why is it that the S.I.T. had only put up 124 housing units when the previous Government, whom we have all maligned, was able in its first year of office to put up more than 6,000? Why has there been an improvement only when we took steps to set up the Housing Board, Sir?

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Hong Lim said that all who sat opposite him were his friends. True, Mr Speaker, Sir, we were his friends. We were his colleagues. But we all wanted him to carry out the Party policy which he refused to do. That is why, Mr Speaker, he sits where he is and we remain as we are.

Mr Speaker, Sir, he said very kind things about me yesterday. He suggested that he was afraid that I would be made a scapegoat. He was the first scapegoat and I would be the second scapegoat. Mr Speaker, Sir, he referred to a statement in the speech where it is said that we were hasty in our desire to get things done quickly last year. That we should have consulted more with the affected interests, and that we should have taken a little more time to explain our policy. He suggested to the House that that was put in the policy statement to discredit me personally as Minister for Labour and Law. Mr Speaker, Sir, I say to this House that that is completely and entirely untrue, and he knows that to be untrue. All Ministers put in their contributions when-the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech is prepared. The Cabinet, as a committee, discusses these contributions. That was done in this case. We unanimously agreed that that clause should go in. It was never inserted at any time to bring discredit on me personally or on the Ministry of which I am the political head. Mr Speaker, Sir, we believe in collective responsibility.

Mr Speaker, Sir, take the Member for Hong Lim's attitude towards the Betting Bill, the petrol tax, help for taxi-drivers, de-registration of federations, decisions of the Internal Security Council He was fully associated in all that with us. There was a full discussion at all meetings. He was asked whether he agreed or disagreed with the policy. He said that he agreed. He went outside and said no, that he did not agree, and that decisions had been taken in his absence. He was a member of the Internal Security Council. I am not. He went to the meetings of the Internal Security Council. He did not want to carry a brief case, lest the people say that he was a stooge. But lie attended the Internal Security Council meetings.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in the case of the raising of the assessments and the setting-up of a National Construction Corps, we were his Cabinet colleagues, but we were never consulted at all till they were announced.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we have all read the headlines in the Straits Times of an announcement about a $400 million building scheme. The first time we knew about this $400 million scheme was when we saw it in the Straits Times. Then we asked him, "First of all, is this true? Did you say all that?" "No, no, no," he said, "this was a leak." Unfortunately for him I know the people to whom -

Mr Speaker: Order. I know it is a very difficult problem to draw a line somewhere. But I do not think, as I have said before, that this Assembly should be troubled with details of that nature which really reflect on the personal conduct of a Member of this Assembly. All we did hear would, of course, be completely in order if there was a substantive motion before the House dealing with the personal conduct of the Member for Hong Lim. As I have indicated, details of that nature would, to my mind, bring the matter within the mischief of that Standing Order. If the Minister can generalise, then he will be in order.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, I respect your ruling on this, but we are not trying to be unfair. I have said here that he can interrupt me any time if he wants to seek any point of clarification. I am quite prepared to hear him on all that he wishes to say.

Mr Ong Eng Guan rose -

Mr Speaker: On a point of order?

Mr Ong Eng Guan: On a point of clarification.

Mr Byrne resumed his seat.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I wish to draw the attention of the House that what the cigarette case Minister is doing now is a re-enactment of the special Party conference on the 20th of June, 1960.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, if you could be a little patient with me, when it was said to us that this was all a leak, we were surprised that the Minister for Finance -

Mr Speaker: Order. I think, on that point, the Minister has gone far enough, because I have ruled that it is a matter of detail touching on the personal conduct of a Member. If the Minister wishes to enlarge on it, he should choose another occasion and perhaps give notice of a substantive motion.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, we on this side of the House are not concerned with the political aspirations of individuals in our Party, nor are we in any way concerned with a struggle, if any, by individuals to gain political power. We on this side of the House come from all walks of life. Some of us are ex-civil servants, some of us are trade unionists, some of us are hairdressers, some of us are seamstresses, some of us are postmen. We are a mixed bag, Mr Speaker, Sir, but there is one common bond between us all, and that is the common bond of loyalty to the Party programme and its policies. It is that which binds us all together.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we have read of challenges in the papers, challenges put out by the Member for Hong Lim, asking us to declare our stand as Assemblymen on the 16 resolutions. We take up the challenge. We meet; we discuss our attitude to this challenge; we prepare in full meeting a reply to this challenge. We agree the Party's reply to these 16 resolutions. The next day, at our convenience, we meet at an appointed place and we subscribe our signatures to that document. When that is published, what does he say? We have been manipulated and coerced by the Prime Minister, Sir.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have said just now that we are a mixed bag; we are people who come from all walks of life; we are humble people; we have got our own self respect, each and everyone of us hero, even if the Member for Hong Lim has lost his. Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Hong Lim has said that all the Assemblymen get their living from Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Is, that a fair remark to make? We are decent human beings. We may be humble people; we may not be accountants drawing $5,000 a month. Sometimes when the hon. Member speaks to me, he speaks like a capitalist. Mr Speaker, Sir, we are humble people. But is it a fair thing to say that we all depend on Mr Lee Kuan Yew for our living?

Mr Speaker: The Prime Minister.

Mr Byrne: The Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, Sir, all of us know that the Prime Minister never tries to gain support from any of us by offering us any bribes. It is against his very nature. He does not expect a personal bond of loyalty to him from any of us. All that he expects is that we have a common bond of loyalty to the Party to which we belong. It is different with the Member for Hong Lim. He wants to buy our Assemblymen. He wants them to be personally obligated to him.

Mr Speaker: To allege that a Member wants to buy Members of the Assembly is, I think, perhaps going a little too far. That expression ought not to be used.

Mr Byrne: Yes, Mr Speaker, Sir, it is very difficult to keep on the official rails on an occasion like this.

Sir, there was a public meeting called to educate all the people of Singapore. I did not know that the Member for Hong Lim was an educationalist until I discovered that he wanted to educate all the people of Singapore. He wants to save the people of Singapore! There were many, Mr Speaker, Sir, who helped to organise that meeting and they wanted to know what his stand was on the question of the detainees and the do-registration of federations. They were not interested in Party matters. No, they wanted to know what his stand was. And I spoke to many of them. They went there and listened to him. All that he could say on the detainees and the de-registration of federations was that there was an Official Secrets Ordinance and that his lips were sealed. That was all he could say. They expected an exhibition of manly courage - "On such and such a date, I said to the Cabinet, Release So and So.' My colleagues (pro, colonialists) said, No.' " Nothing of the sort came from his lips. "The Official Secrets Ordinance was there and my lips are sealed." Mr Speaker, Sir, that was the general attitude of the Member for Hong Lim at that public meeting. You know, Sir, that there was a Party disciplinary committee set up. Everybody turned up. Twenty-two liars turned up. We were all there to face the Member for Hong Lim.

Mr Speaker: I think the Hon. the Minister is now going back into details. He went away from them but now he is coming back to them.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, we all did not meet him, but he posted to each and every one of us his reply. I was very interested in that reply, because there was mention in it that we, as the Executive Committee, were never consulted when Sir William Goode sent for Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

An hon. Member: The Prime Minister.

Mr Byrne: No, he did not send for the Prime Minister. He sent for Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The Member for Hong Lim suggested that the Executive Committee were never consulted and that there was displeasure. All of us in the Executive Committee cared less. We were not aspiring for higher office. We were returned as a Government. We had no such pipe dreams of wanting to be the Prime Minister. Mr Speaker, Sir, the only person amongst us who could validly have a claim for consideration is Dr Toh Chin Chye. He has always been the Chairman of the Party and he is respected by all of us. He has never on any occasion shown that he was ever interested in this appointment. He is a colleague and a friend, and all of us respect him.

Mr Speaker, Sir, there was a lot of talk about what dirty dogs we were, and how we have gone back on the whole Malayanisation policy. Sir, we all believe in Malayanisation, but what we .can never stand for is "Batu Pahatisation". The Member for Hong Lim got rid of local officers and replaced them with his friends. Do you consider that to be a policy of Malayanisation? He has mentioned the case of Mr Owen. We all know that Mr Owen is an Indian born in the Federation, and that he went to Australia with the Member for Hong Lim to study accountancy. He married an Australian girl. He came back to Singapore. He sought a job and when the Member for Hong Lim was the Mayor, he fitted him into a job.He got rid of senior local officers and put Mr Owen in. Things were running down very rapidly. Quite obviously you cannot put a young accountant in charge of about $120 million worth of funds. So when the Prime Minister stepped in, immediately Mr Owen owned up to it himself. He said that he was put into that job and not that he wanted it. He knew his shortcomings. And he was quite prepared to leave the service and go back and settle in Australia. If those were the facts with regard to persons whom the Member for Hong Lim did not approve of, then he would criticise these people. He would say, "You can not hold up these people as Malayans - people who go abroad, get married, return and work in their own country, then leave and settle abroad." He would call them mere expatriates, but because they are his friends, they are considered to be worthy of imitation.

Mr Speaker, Sir, he also dislikes Mr George Thomson. I do not know whether he is afraid -

Mr Ong Eng Guan: On a point of clarification, Sir.

Mr Speaker: If the hon. Member will give way.

Mr Byrne: Yes, certainly.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Since Mr Owen is now in Australia, I think I am duty bound to clarify the position for him. I have in my possession today a letter dated 24th December, 1959, addressed by Mr Owen to the Administrator, City Council, and I believe copies were sent to the Press, but they were stifled in time. If I can have your permission, Sir, I shall read out his letter because it concerns his personal reputation.

Mr Speaker: I am afraid that is not in order. If the hon. Member wishes, he can briefly summarise the contents of the letter in clarification but he cannot read the whole letter.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: The reasons for his resignation are briefly summarised as follows:

`I am most unhappy that the Prime Minister, in his talk with the Executive Committee members of the Local Senior Officers Association on 12th November, 1959, said this, "Mr Owen will probably find himself back in the Water Department or be sent to Tebrau to check petty cash."

The Prime Minister made reference to my age and length of service in the City Council.

The fact is that I was instructed by you to assume the duties of City Treasurer on the day following the departure of the substantive holder of the post.'

Now, who was asked to take charge of the duties of the City Treasurer when Mr Owen was removed from office? He is not an accountant but a student of geography!

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, this man Mr George Thomson is an obsession with the Member for Hong Lim. He is accused of brainwashing the civil servants, and so on. Mr Speaker, Sir, it is true that Mr Thomson was an Information Officer employed by the last Government. It is also true that he is a good lecturer. He was employed as a lecturer in the University of Leeds even before he came out here. The policies of the Political Study Centre are controlled by members of the Government, and he lectures within the scope of that authority. He cannot get out of that.

With regard to Mr Meadows, Mr Speaker, Sir, he and the Member for Hong Lim were once very good friends. The Member for Hong Lim had a job in the Southern Islands and he thought that Mr Meadows was the man to do that job. When the Prime Minister thought that there was need for the services of Mr Meadows elsewhere, I am told that one of the Parliamentary Secretaries was instructed by the Member for Hong Lim to make an official protest, because he needed the services of Mr Meadows for his development schemes in the Southern Islands. Mr Speaker, Sir, when did that intense dislike of Mr Meadows begin? It was when the Prime Minister appointed Mr Meadows to carry out the integration of the City Council departments into the Government departments. From that time, the Member for Hong Lim hated Mr Meadows, because he wanted to build up his City Council empire and he was not allowed to do so.

The Member for Hong Lim has a great personal dislike for the Minister for Finance, because the latter had the courage to put his foot down when he wanted to use City Council funds improperly.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have said quite enough this afternoon to bring out the points that we have had to make with regard to the charges that have been brought against us by the Member for Hong Lim. We have not done all this with a view to humiliating him. We have done this to defend ourselves against the unwarranted, unfair and unjust charges which he has brought against us. He knows that those charges are not true. He has said in this House, in your very presence, Sir, that there were two persons that he disliked amongst us and that the rest were his friends. True, we were always willing to be his friends.. In this House itself, we knew that he had made mistakes and we stood by his side right through to the end. We believe in collective responsibility and we have never let him down on this side of the House. In spite of all that, he took unfair advantage of us. He knew that his Ministry was not working as it should have been working, and he wanted to disclaim all responsibility for it. It is for that reason that he has brought these charges against us - charges which he personally knows to be untrue.

7.14 p.m.

The Minister for Culture (Mr S. Rajaratnam): Mr Speaker, Sir, just over a year ago, one of our Members on this side of the House did suggest that if on some future occasion the Opposition needed assistance and help, we might be able to provide such assistance and help; and on this second occasion, when debating the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech, their strength has been augmented by three Members from this side of the House. You will notice, Sir, that the Opposition do not look as cheerful as they should, but perhaps after hearing the long story today and yesterday they may have occasion to.

In his monumental history of the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky, who was one of the authors of the Revolution, notes how during revolutionary times an intellectually and spiritually bankrupt social class is unable to discern the significant from the trivial. For example, he relates in his book that during the fatal month that preceded the revolutionary storm. Tsar Nicholas, who kept a regular diary, made no mention of the great momentous events that preceded the Russian revolution. As the tension and pressure grew, he noted such revelations as. "Got dressed. Rode a bicycle to the bathing beach and bathed enjoyably in the sea." Or, on the day following a serious mutiny by his own soldiers, he recorded the following for posterity, "Walked long, and killed two crows. Drank tea by daylight." I cannot help, Mr Speaker, but feel that the speeches of some of -the hon. Members opposite throw as much intellectual illumination on the great problems facing this country as did Tsar Nicholas' diary entries on the Russian revolution. Those who have spoken had a chance to trace for us the grand design of great events. But all we got was something not above the level of "Walked long, and killed two crows. Drank tea by daylight."

Yesterday, in his opening address, the Prime Minister tried to stimulate, or at least tried to elevate the discussion to an adult level by trying to draw a pattern of the dark and powerful currents of social change that moved beneath the tranquil surface of our contemporary political scene. Here were forces, he outlined yesterday, which could ultimately reshape the lives of every one of us in this Assembly, outside this Assembly, for good or for better. I had hoped that hon. Members opposite would have risen to the occasion. The Member for Mountbatten did rise, but unfortunately not to the occasion but only to her feet. What she did say, and she had a great deal to say, merely confirms the truth of Trotsky's statement about the intellectual black-out of social classes in the last stages of decay. The hon. Member was full of complaints about how life had become intolerable under the P.A.P. regime. The civil servants, she said, were seething with discontent. Unemployment, she said, had become a nightmare. She also reminded us that the hon. Member for Tanglin was cowering under P.A.P. intimidation. I thought the Member for Tanglin never looked more cheerful than he did in the last one year under P.A.P. rule. Capital, she said, was flying away. Lawlessness was widespread. In short, the country had gone to the dogs. Now, I will not insult the intelligence of the hon. Member for Mountbatten by saying that she really believed all this, any more than she believed her own election propaganda - that if the P.A.P. came into power, all well-to-do ladies would be deprived of their jewellery and trinkets. The hon. Member's jewellery not only scintillates, but has increased in lustre during the last one year. The unadorned truth is that the Party that the hon. Member represents has nothing to offer by way of political insight, political profundity, and political guidance to those of us who wan-t to know what this is all about. So they fall back 0n the fantasies which they purveyed during the last elections and which, for lack of a proper Publicity Officer, they have had to revive again today in connection with the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's address - to revive the old bogies, imaginary chaos, imaginary terror, imaginary oppression, and so on. If I may quote Trotsky for the last time, he says that an invariable symptom of a dying social class is that it deliberately turns away from realities and surrounds itself with what he des cribes as infantile fantasies.

Members of the S.P.A. have had very little to say, very little observations to make, on the analysis of the trends and forces outlined for the P.A.P. by the Prime Minister. It is at least -

Mr Speaker: Order. I suppose the Minister should have used the singular, the Member of the S.P.A. I think he embraces all Members of the S.P.A. Not all have spoken. Only one Member has spoken, according to my record.

Mr Rajaratnam: May I, as a former journalist, use the collective "we"? Anyway, thank you for your guidance in this matter. Even members of the journalistic profession, when they write the editorial columns, take unto themselves the colours of royalty and describe themselves as "we".

Mr Speaker: I am not a journalist.

Mr Rajaratnam: The Member for Mountbatten had very little to offer by way of comment on the analysis, which was offered by us for serious consideration, not because we want to impress the Members opposite with our erudition and profundity, but merely because we feel that what was said yesterday mattered a great deal for everyone of us. If we did not comprehend the social forces around us and if they were not constructively harnessed, then they could wreck our lives and our country. Because we had hoped that they would stop talking about "Walked long and killed two crows" and delve into more serious and worthwhile problems which were implied in the speech of the Prime Minister.

What some Members opposite may not realise is that politics is no longer a game of marbles. What we say, what we do or what we do not do, can mean happiness or tragedy for the one and a half million people whose future is in our hands. This is not a boast, it is a statement of fact. After the first year, the play of social forces has reached a stage where we cannot treat them as matters for academic discussion, but as offering serious problems and calling for serious decisions on which the whole future of a million and a half people would depend. So, I hope that when other Members of the Opposition get up to speak, they would not, by way of intellectual illumination, offer us horror comics and fantasies as was offered by the Member for Mountbatten. For example, in the face of these great problems, what the Opposition has to offer is an amendment by the irrepressible Member for Tanglin. "Restore pay cuts", he says. Would the restoration of pay cuts resolve these major problems?

Mr Thio Chan Bee (Tanglin): Yes.

Mr Rajaratnam: Is it seriously suggested that once the pay cuts are restored, the whole course of political life in Singapore is going to be altered? What should really worry the Members opposite is that, after one year, political insight and political understanding should not have gone further than "Walked long, and killed two crows." The pay cuts was the obsession last year when the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech was debated. This was discussed at great length, with great passion and with great fervour. A year later, this problem still constitutes their main theme. No doubt this old bone will be disinterred like a sacred relic, to be passed around with appropriate wailing and gnashing of teeth when the Yang di-Pertuan Negara's speech is debated next year. Why has the political thinking of the Opposition not evolved to a more adult stage? The reason is that they have not caught up with the fact that the English-educated civil servants, to whom this fossilized bone of pay cuts is offered as a bait, have also undergone a change of outlook during the past year. I quite well understand that the English-educated civil servants once provided the base for such political movements as the Progressive Party, the Labour Front and the S.P.A. During the past few years, they and their Right-wing friends tried to retain their hold over the English-educated by conjuring up fantasies that the PAP, was out to cut their throats, and that dire consequences would follow if they were under P.A.P. rule. It is true that the P.A.P. did not soft-soap the English-educated with promises of good life and lolly all round. Blunt truths had to be told and some of the truths were not pleasant, and it was easy to distort all this frank speaking as a campaign against the English-educated, and in particular the English-educated civil servants. But during the past year, as a result of the Government's action by way of lectures at the Political Study Centre, the Civil Service has grasped the fact that far from trying to destroy the English-educated, what we have been trying to put across to them has been a hard but hopeful way of ensuring a just, honourable and permanent place for them in the social revolution unfolding before us.

The Progressives and their successors under different guises tried to win over the English-educated by dangling prospects of good jobs, of speedy promotion when the expatriated were replaced, and they possibly held out visions for every English-educated civil servant of an M.G. in the front porch and a swimming pool in the back garden. But they hid from them the hard political realities, thus dangerously isolating the English-educated groups from the main stream of the social revolution. Now these hard realities have been made clear to them, and far from cowering before the approach of P.A.P. Assemblymen, the English-educated civil servants are resentful because these issues have not been made clearer to them by those who espoused their cause in the past. They may not be pro-P.A.P., and we are not interested whether the English-educated civil servants or any other member of that group is pro-P.A.P. or not. What we want them to realise is that, in the broad issue of national interest, the English-educated, like everybody else, should be prepared to do their duty intelligently, bravely and passionately. And once these issues have been put forward clearly to the English-educated civil servants, they have shown a willingness to take up the challenge that confronts them. That is why the S.P.A. now dangles this bone of pay cuts in an effort to retain the spectators who are now drifting away.

I do not know whether the Member for Tanglin can grasp what I am going to say to him, but I will try. The pay cut issue will not alter the course of history, nor will it resolve our major problems. The iron-mine age of Singapore politics is over. The civil servants, even if the pay cuts are unpopular, will not be so foolish as to save themselves by jumping into something which is already sinking. Sir, I will not take too much time by dealing with what pre-publicity in the Press led us to believe was to be an earth-shaking amendment by the Member for Joo Chiat. I was more impressed by his year's silence, which at least hinted at an unfathomable and mysterious profundity, a silence pregnant with unutterable but inspired truths. Now he has spoilt it all, spoilt this silent intimidating vision, with an amendment which could have been more appropriately dealt with during Question Time.

Mr C. H. Koh (Joo Chiat): You will see.

Mr Rajaratnam: Or as an adjournment speech if the Member is really bursting to speak.

Mr C. H. Koh: You will see.

Mr Rajaratnam: All I can say is that many of us will no longer be inspired by the sight of the silent, contemplative figure which sat before us day in and day out for 365 days, and who we thought had given himself over wholly to what they call "cerebration".

Now, Sir, to turn our attention to the new recruits on the other side of the House. I understand, Sir, that this afternoon, for some obscure reason, I was given a bouquet by the Member for Hong Lim who thought that I was really a good man fallen among angels. So let me in a very polite and courteous manner preface my remarks by saying that it is not an easy or pleasant thing to defrock publicly a former Party and Government colleague, especially also as he is one with whom I have had good personal relations. But knowing very well the political tactics of the Member for Hong Lim, I do not think that he will quite succeed in dividing and ruling this side of the House. The fact that I was given a bouquet, and the fact that I came in for special honour-able mention, together with the Minister for Home Affairs, will not stop me from saying what I have to say, not about the individual Ong Eng Guan, but about the Member for Hong Lim, because he has chosen to play a political role which, whatever the consequences for him, will, I am convinced, mean disaster for the country.

The second difficulty is that I know that when one, as I have said, defrocks a colleague publicly in front of the Opposition,, it will be relished to some extent by the hon. Members opposite; but if that is so, I hope they will realise that the Member for Hong Lim is himself a pawn in the game played by adventurers more skilled, more clever and more agile than he is. The Member for Hong Lim is also well aware what these political adventurers, who manipulate him, know his weaknesses, and therefore, play on them - he knows what these adventurers think of him, and that once the pawn has outlived its usefulness, it will be sacrificed in the interest of other more decisive moves. However, Sir, I am not interested in the fate of the Member for Hong Lim as such, but only in such of his actions and remarks which, I feel, would affect the welfare and future of this country, because it is not he who is determining events but those who are playing on his weaknesses. In order to understand the role-that the Member for Hong Lim is playing, it is necessary to bear in mind the analysis of the alignment of social forces which was made by the Prime Minister yesterday. Only then will the pieces and the pawns fall into their proper places, and the Member for Hong Lim is one such pawn tossed about by forces he does not quite understand, but which he thinks that he is using.

I do not know what conscious role his two associates are playing, but I do not think they matter very much. In his speech yesterday, the Member for Hong Lim said that what he described as the 16 Hong Lim resolutions is the charm that will ward off evil from this country. Both the Party and the Government are interested in any schemes and policies which they believe will strengthen the position of the Government and help resolve the many difficult problems that confront this country. No party or government would reject measures which could be proved to be for the benefit of the Government as well as of the country, particularly so when the suggestions come from a member of the Government who is one of our colleagues. But during the one year that the Member was in the Government, he did not put forward these magic formulae for discussion and consideration by his colleagues. As far as I know, these appear to have been jealously guarded secrets, something like the nature of the atomic bomb formula, which he apparently felt could not be safely entrusted in the hands of the Party and his Government colleagues. For the last one year we never heard of 16,600 or 6,000 resolutions. We never even had intimation that these resolutions were coming to birth in the mind of the Member for Hong Lim.

Sir, the first time we heard of this magic formula - these convenient 16 resolutions - was at the Party conference last June. But they were presented in such a manner as to suggest that they were not so much resolutions to solve problems as a challenge to indict and condemn the Party leadership and the Government. Sir, I need not go into the long history of his manoeuvres inside the Party to justify my contention that the 16 resolutions were part of a manoeuvre to reinstate and recoup his declining political fortunes within the Party. These manoeuvres have already been exposed in the statement by the Party announcing his expulsion. So I will not touch upon that. But what is relevant is the efficacy of the 16 resolutions which the Party aptly described "as a balm or ointment which, if applied in the right places, would cure our country of all aches, pains and winds." We have since then studied the 16 resolutions, because the political medicine man claims there is magic in these 16 resolutions which will save us from disaster. Even though he never bothered to take us into his confidence, we have, nevertheless, studied these 16 resolutions at great length. We have searched every word in the wrapper, as it were, which covers these 16 resolutions to discover any sense and guidance. But the magic formula of the 16 resolutions has turned out to be a vacuum enveloped in meaningless phrases. The 16 resolutions, on further examination, are discovered to be designed not so much to save the country as to save the political fortunes of the gentleman whose political charms have faded. The 16 resolutions, Sir, if you examine them carefully, are nicely calculated to win the favour of all sections of the population who he thinks will be useful to him.

Resolution one, for example, calls on us to reaffirm our faith in the 1954 revolutionary P.A.P. Manifesto. It is obviously a bid to win back following from within the Party or followers who have left the Party for one reason or another. Incidentally, the Manifesto itself was drafted by people who are still in the Party, and many of them have turned down the 16 resolutions as just pure ointment. The resolutions also offer something to anti-colonialists, to those who want the Constitution changed, to those who want merger, to those who do not like taxes, to taxi-drivers, to manufacturers of cigarettes, to moralists who do not like yellow culture or who think that we are not proceeding strongly enough against yellow culture, and also to those members of the Party who are smarting because they think they have not risen higher in the Party hierarchy.

Let me now closely examine the validity of some of his resolutions which are supposed to be able to cure us all of all ills. In his speech yesterday, the Member for Hong Lim tried to confuse matters by saying that he was evicted from the Government side by force and unconstitutionally by the Prime Minister. It is clear from the Member's speech in the Assembly and outside that he disagrees completely with the policy of the Party and Government. So what is unconstitutional in asking the Member and his colleagues to move elsewhere if they cannot quite agree with the Government's or the Party's policies? Secondly, Sir, he cannot expect the Party members from this side of the House to move over to the other side and let the three of them remain on this side. One thing about the Member for Hong Lim is that, either wittingly or unwittingly, he uses words the meaning of which he does not understand. For example, he said yesterday that force was used. He also remarked elsewhere that force was used to throw him out of the Party. On another occasion he said there were secret police armed with guns. He has these visions that things are being done when they are not being done. Yesterday he said that he was forced by the Prime Minister -

The Prime Minister: Evicted.

Mr Rajaratnam: Yes, evicted by force. I am sure, Mr Speaker, that is the last thing you would ever allow in this Assembly. But I think the Member for Hong Lim is not interested in what goes on in this Assembly, because he can win no regard or esteem here. But he hopes that publication of this debate in the newspapers when read by people who have not actually seen and known what is going on would win him esteem and regard. Rumours would now be spread that this solitary anti-colonial government in Singapore was forcibly evicted from one side of the House to the other by the Prime Minister. This business of picking out individuals for his political attack and to present these big political issues as issues between himself and the Prime Minister is an old propaganda device and one which has been elaborated in great detail by the late Adolph Hitler in his Mein Kampf Hitler says that the masses whom he despised cannot understand abstract political issues, and so mass leaders must make political agitations centred around individuals. Therefore, the Prime Minister is presented as the evil genius who really expelled the former Minister for National Development from the Government. The impression the Member wants to create is that the rest of the P.A.P. assembly are on his side. The Prime Minister, he said yesterday, was now in control of the police and the whole machinery of State; otherwise the position would have been different. I am not quite sure what exactly he means by saying, "otherwise the position would have been different", whether he would have been holding and controlling the police and the whole machinery of State, or whether he suffers from the delusion that he would be sitting here as Prime Minister. But let me say that the position would not have been different, because all on this side of the House are convinced that the 16 resolutions are a phony miracle ointment whose claims no one on this side of the House believes.

The removal of the former Minister for National Development was not the act of one man but of the Assemblymen on this side of the House, and he is at liberty now to challenge anyone of them whether this is not so. But again, as I said, it is an old propaganda trick. He is not interested in what impact he makes in this House, but he is interested in what appears in the papers so that the reader who might read these things would get the impression that the Prime Minister is holding back 39 rebellious and cowed Assemblymen who really want to join the ranks of the Member for Hong Lim. He alleged yesterday that the policy statement was, to quote him, "not a policy statement of the real P.A.P. Government". Are we to assume that there are, in fact, two P.A.P. Governments? The P.A.P. Government and the real P.A.P. Government. I look around, I look around, and I look around to see where is the true P.A.P. Government. There is one on this side. Where is the other P.A.P. Government - the real P.A.P. Government? Is it there? [Pointing]

Mr Speaker: Order. Moment of interruption. Further consideration tomorrow, I take it, Mr Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: Tomorrow, Sir.