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

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Order read for resumption of adjourned debate on Question [10th 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.

2.31 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr Lee Kuan Yew): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I first touch on two matters upon which the Member for Cairnhill laboured the day before yesterday?

First, the deregistration of the four federations. There is a lot of smoke over this. Sir, as a result of the Member for Hong Lim and the Member for Cairnhill being on the same side in wishing to generate smoke. Obviously, something must have gone wrong. Otherwise how could a Government register a federation and a few days later deregister it along with the other federations? Suffice it to say, Sir, that this was not unconnected with the issue of an entry visa for a Communist Russian representative to come to Singapore. From time to time, the Singapore Government is queried by the Internal Security Council for not taking the advice of the Singapore Government's own Intelligence section. The Intelligence section had recommended against the issue of a visa for a Russian communist representative to come to Singapore for trade. However, the Minister for Finance, together with the Minister for Home Affairs, had over-ruled this objection and had allowed the visa. Meanwhile, the same Intelligence department of the Singapore Government had given advice that a certain general employees' union should not be allowed to register with a federation unless their rues were changed to comply with the new Trade Unions Ordinance and they had first divested themselves of those sections of their membership not qualified to be members of the union under the new trade union laws. This advice was endorsed by the Minister for Home Affairs but, unfortunately, it was overlooked by the Minister for Labour and Law, for he had allowed a federation which included this particular general employees' union to be registered on the' promise of this union that when the new laws came into effect they would comply with them. The question that had been raised in the Internal Security Council was over the visa for a Russian representative on the principle that the Singapore Government had on an important matter ignored advice from the Singapore Government's own Intelligence department. The view of the Singapore Government was that it had the right to over-rule advice from its Intelligence section where it deemed it was in the public interest, and where it considered no grave security risk was involved. But in the case of the advice on the registration of the federation, this advice from the Singapore Government's own Intelligence department was endorsed by the Minister for Home Affairs, and a non-observance of this advice was difficult to defend on principle. Therefore, for reasons of security arising out of an issue of principle in the Internal Security Council, the Singapore Government decided to rectify the mistake made in the case of the registration of the federation. It was decided to deregister all the federations and allow them to re-register after the new trade union laws had come into force. The new trade union laws would make it incumbent on general unions to comply first with the 19 categories laid down in the Schedule before they can register as federations.

I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker, Sir, I have just received a note to remind me that we are now multi-lingual.

Sir, about the visa for the Russian representative, the Member for Cairnhill made great play of what could or could not be discussed in the Internal Security Council. I am glad that he stood up for the right of the Singapore Government to decide what was right or wrong in matters of internal self-government. Questions of trade and immigration, Sir, are matters within the competence of the Singapore Government, but because, in exercising its competency in a particular instance, the Singapore Government had over-ruled the views of its own Intelligence branch, the Internal Security Council had made an issue of this. However, the Member for Cairnhill raised another by-issue on this, for he wanted to make capital out of a denial by the Minister for Culture. I did not hear him say this, Sir, the day before yesterday, but it was reported in the Straits Times that he had said these words: "Then Mr Lee issued another statement verifying the Tunku's claim was materially correct." [Interruption] Sir, I am glad that the Member for Cairnhill has denied making that statement, because he was so reported to have said it. What happened was this. The Minister for Finance, immediately after the issue was raised by the Federation Government in the Press and after the Minister for Culture had issued his statement, wrote to his counterpart in Kuala Lumpur setting out the facts. If I may just refer to the relevant parts of that letter which was subsequently released to the Press and whose contents were made known in Kuala Lumpur. Sir, I do not wish to waste the time of the House by reading the full letter. All I wish to point out is that the view of the Singapore Government was that the Russian delegation to the E.C.A.F.E. Conference on small-scale industries did not constitute a Russian trade delegation, and that one representative coming here did not constitute a trade delegation, particularly as he had come in here with the specific purpose of attending an E.C.A.F.E. Conference on small-scale industries. I can only add that the Minister for Culture had no intention at any time to state other than what he personally knew to be the truth and that, in fact, in his and in the Government's view of the matter, there was no Russian trade delegation as such.

Sir, I am more concerned, however, with the mendacious line that has been taken by the Member for Cairnhill when he suggested that the P.A.P. was Communist-infiltrated and Communist-dominated. He suggested, Sir, by insinuation that we were keeping in our membership a number of Communist sympathisers and activists. Sir, as someone who has been intimately connected with the organs of the State, the hon. Member must know what stupidity it is to make so dangerous an allegation of a Government in power. The fact that we did not, and do not still, take a hysterical anti-Communist line is quite a different matter from harbouring Communists and others who are insincere in their loyalty to the aims and objectives of the P.A.P. Otherwise, how on earth can we govern with effectiveness and firmness? It is a pity, Sir, to hear this dangerous drivel emanating from people whose former positions should at least have given them a sense of responsibility, or should have imparted in them some wisdom.

Sir, the Member for Cairnhill denied that Communist forces had gone underground before the last elections. I do not know what he was inferring by that. If what he stated is true, then what he is, in fact, saying is that his two purges - one in 1956 and one in 1957 - were completely ineffective. That, Sir, to my mind is a foolish statement. The fact that fringe elements were left out of the purge - and they were left out for a definite purpose - because it was wise policy not to treat fringe elements as Communists, and the fact that the bulk of the Chinese-speaking was so convinced that the last Government was a corrupt force, anti Chinese language, education and culture that they set out actively to work to destroy the hon. Member in the last elections, do not make them Communists, Sir. Whatever the price the last Government paid for losing the propaganda battle and the battle for the minds of the Chinese in the two purges, they succeeded in disrupting the efficacy of the Communist open front organisers and the rest of them did go under cover - to his knowledge. Whether he was wise in taking on the fight on his own behalf when the challenge was, in fact, to be met ultimately by the British is another matter which I shall deal with later on in my speech. But I feel sad, Sir, that an ex-Chief Minister should make a half-hearted call for general elections. It is only a gesture to show that he is not a spent political force. For 4½ years, his Labour Fronters clung on to power in this Assembly upon the strength of nominated Members, and jobs for every one. Here is a Government determined to govern within the limits of its power, invested with the power and the right to govern, and the hon. Member calls for general elections! Sir, let me add that he may find his wish fulfilled earlier than he expects if the eventuality should arise in which the Left-wing adventurers find themselves not just taking on the Singapore Government but also "the referee", as the Member for Cairnhill has called the Internal Security Council.

Sir, before I leave the other minor points in the speech of the Member for Cairnhill, may I correct some of the more obvious mistakes made in either the speech or the report of his speech in the Straits Times? May I mention incidentally, Sir, that to deny and refute every untruth, every half-truth and every half-lie made in this Chamber would be an extremely tedious and a time-wasting process? So far as we are concerned, Sir, any allegation made in this Chamber, unless admitted, is denied and traversed generally.

An hon. Member: Ha, ha, ha!

The Prime Minister: Sir, the hon. Member has said that I had told him that he was fishing in troubled waters and that I had expressed to him great confidence in my then colleague the Minister for National Development. Sir, this was supposed to have taken place in March this year, to my recollection, when I warned him not to fish in troubled waters. But what I did tell him was not to fish in troubled waters, and I said no more, because by March this year the weaknesses in the former Minister for National Development had already become apparent. And I could go on ad infinitum, all these little misquotations, misreferences, that I had called people "little boys" and all the rest of it; things that I have not said are imputed to me. I would like it to be put on record that nothing is admitted unless it is specifically admitted, and that anything else which is not admitted is specifically traversed and denied. As a pleader, my learned friend should know that that is an economical way of dealing with mendacious opponents.

Next, Mr Speaker, Sir, may I turn to what to me is a sad and painful thing, to have to denounce a man who has been a colleague for many years, a person who, through one phase of the struggle for freedom, we thought shared with us a common cause. We knew he had his weaknesses; we did not realise, however, how much power was to enlarge and accentuate his weaknesses to reach breaking point. The trouble with the Member for Hong Lim, Sir, is that he is more a plotter and a schemer than a thinker and a planner. It is all right shouting slogans, working out cunning little lines on the details after the broad policy has been settled by a team of thinkers. How is he going to fight colonialism in this phase of the battle? He no longer believes in the programme or the political analysis of the P.A.P. What is his alternative? How is he going to bring about merger? How is he going to bring about independence for Singapore by itself? These are abiding issues of great political import. I hope from now onwards we will from time to time divert ourselves from our more mundane duties to pay attention to these long-term problems.

However, let me first point out to him some of the rather obvious absurdities and contradictions of this propaganda line - the Lee Kuan Yew Government. Sir, everybody is a nice man, except me.

Tun Lim Yew Hock: You are nicer!

The Prime Minister: As I said yesterday when explaining the definition of "people", it is always useful to start off with one opponent first. The rest are the "people". You fight that opponent and, after you have destroyed him, you go on with the process of elimination.

Sir, you are a fine gentleman. I do not know the distinction between a fine and an unfine gentleman; obviously there must be.

Well, the Minister for Culture is all right; he is a reasonable chap. So is Mr Byrne except when he loses his temper. The Minister for Home Affairs is a nice man, quiet and peace-loving. And Dr Toh, who unfortunately is away today attending to multifarious other duties and trying to clear up some mess left behind by a former colleague, he is also all right. But I forced the Assemblymen - 40 of them, Sir - to sign statements against him. I packed a gun and surrounded all of them with Sten guns, and my henchmen pulled them in. Sir, the whole Cabinet, the whole Central Executive Committee, consist of weak, vacillating puppets. Is this not a little bit too obvious? May I suggest that a little bit more balance, less accentuation of simple black and white, would make his line a little bit more effective? Does he realise that these are men not so completely devoid of self-respect as to be humoured in this amateurish manner? Are they stooges of the Secretary-General? If I am the evil man who manipulates the puppets, and I am strong-willed, ambitious and powerful how does this square up with the other line of the stooge of the English - me, a stooge of Blades. Meadows, and Thomson?

Sir, the projection of a dictator with wild ambitions, determined and obviously successful in manipulating all the Central Executive, the Cabinet, the Party Secretariat, the officials in the Party - is this not a process of projection of one's own motives, one's own plotting, one's own thinking and methods, which failed so miserably? Sir, on the one hand I am a stooge, weak, feeble and docile, and I am, in fact, run by Blades. Thomson and Meadows - they run me, they run the Government, they run the P.A.P. On the other hand, I am a powerful character who manipulates my colleagues by terror and with bribes, guns and jobs, and perks. Sir, I do not pretend to be suffering from any psychiatric disorders at the moment, and I hope I never will. I think those of us who have been in this Chamber for the last five years will know that from time to time we get this malady in this Chamber. In fact, I was thinking the other day that it was absolutely vital that we should amend our Singapore Legislative Assembly Elections Ordinance, because it is out of date. There should be a clause there to say that a doctor must certify an Assemblyman compos mentis before he makes a major speech in the Assembly. We have seen it enacted before in the past.

Sir, I am no `Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. Does the Member for Hong Lim believe that Dr Toh, whom he denounced anonymously in the name of his Hong Lim Branch Committee, was guilty of what he called the Chairman's undemocratic conduct? Does he believe that Dr Toh is a stooge?

Mr Speaker: Deputy Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: Deputy Prime Minister, Sir - a research scientist, with no personal political ambitions of greatness. Why should he be a stooge, Sir? I am not looking after the funds of the University to supply him with expenses and equipment for his laboratory tests; unless he is carrying out tests on some mysterious creatures which I am providing him with.

An hon. Member: Beetle!

The Prime Minister: And the Member for Crawford, the Member for Kampong Glam, and the Member for Telok Ayer. I am glad, Sir, that he did not say that the Member for Sembawang was a nice gentleman, because he has been going around telling all the Malay Assemblymen here what a nasty fellow be [the Member for Sembawang] was, and that he was a stooge of the Secretary-General. It is a good thing he did not have the audacity to say so, for I think he knows that the Member for Sembawang is a man likely to take him out and tear him to strips.

However, let us get on to the facts, Sir. Allegations and counter-allegations - very wise and judicious, in the opinion of the Member for Farrer Park, because they leave him very much in the dark. Let us first get these three bogey-men out of the way: Mr George Thomson, former Director of Information, a powerful man in the old days and, to the Member for Hong Lim, an even more powerful individual now. What were his duties in the last Government, Sir? For the last few years before 1959, he gave the political line and the political content, and he was the propaganda machine for the Chief Minister. He did the political thinking for the Chief Minister's Ministerial colleagues, a thing which they did not do for themselves. And we denounced them because they did not have the ideological substance to do their own speeches. We denounced them for just mouthing the speeches of an expatriate officer. It is not to say we did not recognise Mr Thomson's ability and usefulness to us for a particular job. We had to re-educate our civil servants on the problems which confronted us and which he, as Director of Information, should have known something about, and because it is our business to make the civil servants more alive and alert to the dangers and difficulties of the revolution in Asia. Is the Member for Hong Lim prepared or intellectually equipped to do the lectures and to teach the civil servants? His only contribution to political thinking in all his years in the P.A.P. has been one article in this Souvenir number to which he had pledged his loyalty and support. It is entitled "Since I became the First Mayor of Singapore". Is he going to educate the civil service with this? Fortunately, Sir, the P.A.P. is not altogether devoid of leaders who can undertake the intellectual task of making an ideological exposition of democratic socialism. Let us get this clear. Mr George Thomson is a functionary in the Political Study Centre. He arranges the lectures and the discussions. The political line, the policies, the programmes of this Political Study Centre were laid down and are still being laid down by a Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, consisting, amongst others, of Mr James Puthucheary, Mr Devan Nair, Mr Jek Yuen Thong, Mr S. Woodhull, and Inche Rahim Ishak. Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Political Secretaries, Sir, personally go there from time to time to conduct discussions and lectures. The only Minister who has not done so and has not been invited to do so was the ex-Minister, the Member for Hong Lim, because it would not have done the political leadership any good to put up a slogan-shouter in the Study Centre, or put him forward as a serious thinker. Sir, he should have attended these lectures given by Mr Devan Nair, Mr James Puthucheary and others. Then perhaps he might have acquired some ideological knowledge to coin some of the new slogans which he must now forge if he wants to survive politically.

Next, Sir, is Mr Blades, this evil man. Whom does he manipulate? Does he manipulate the Minister for Home Affairs? Sir, on the one hand, I am being accused of complete control and manipulation of the Police Force. On the other hand, I am told I have been manipulated by Mr Blades. The Member for Hong Lim has to make up his mind. A propaganda line has to be clear, simple, lucid, and not contradictory. Either I am strong and I manipulate both the Minister for Home Affairs and the Commissioner of Police; or the Commissioner of Police is strong and manipulates both me and the Minister for Home Affairs. The Member for Hong Lim thinks that by glossing over all this, he has prevented injury to the personality of the Minister for Home Affairs, who is an important Party functionary - the Organising Secretary in charge of the Party apparatus. Does he not know that, by saying all this, what he is, in fact, saying is either the Minister for Home Affairs is my stooge or Mr Blades is his stooge, or Mr Blades is a stooge of both? And he thinks that that is a clever line! Sir, has he forgotten how seriously we thought over this problem of the Police Force, and how we strongly pressed for the promotion of the most senior local officer as Deputy Commissioner of Police, and are pressing for arrangements whereby those local officers can prepare themselves for their new and vigorous responsibilities? Sir, no one knows better than these officers themselves how inadequately the colonial government of the past had equipped them as officers to take over the top jobs of the civil service in the Police Force. And they themselves had told the Malayanisation Commission that for several years to come, they would not be ready to take over the top jobs in the Police Force.

Sir, the Member for Hong Lim, now that he is deprived of power, is only interested in bringing the house down. We are not going to allow that to happen. We are here to see that the State and the machinery of the State functions, and no amount of challenge, either insidious or otherwise, by Left-wing adventurers or whoever else is going to put us into a false position.

Sir, in extremis, one could get a situation like the Congo Army, where a Serjeant major suddenly finds himself as general in charge of an army of all corporals and no privates, because all the privates have been promoted to corporals. I do not believe the situation in Singapore is anywhere remotely near that, but it is our business to ensure that the efficiency of the organs of the State is maintained.

Sir, Mr Meadows - this man on Intelligence duties. The Member for Hong Lim wanted to keep Mr Meadows in his Ministry to help him. When he found that Mr Meadows was unwilling to be his personal minion, he sent him out to the Southern Islands. When Mr Meadows came back from the Southern Islands, he found that the walls of his office, which had been put up on the orders of the ex-Minister, had been knocked down, and the air-conditioner removed. And this Intelligence duties man reacted in a manner unbecoming of an Intelligence agent. He did a human thing. He wanted to resign, to give up his job of spying. Then, Sir, the ex-Minister again wavered. He swung to the other side of the pendulum, because Mr Meadows was doing a good job of his Southern Islands task. But you cannot humiliate a man one day, pat him on the back the next, and tell him to forget that you kicked him in the teeth the day before. I did not plan to have Mr Meadows in my Ministry. He was to have been transferred to the Ministry of Home Affairs or the Ministry of Finance. But the Member for Hong Lim started his smear campaign, and so I asked for Mr Meadows to be transferred to my Ministry. It is one of my duties to put my foot down on what I know to be wrong and vicious. I allotted Mr Meadows a task which he should have performed for the Minister for National Development, namely, that of distributing the departments of the City Council and integrating them with the Government Ministries - a job he was never permitted to perform when he was in the Ministry of National Development.

Sir, all these three bogey men are supposed to be occupying more powerful positions than before. The truth of these allegations, if left unrefuted, however wild and scandalous they may be, might find some takers. Therefore, it is my business, and I hope the House will bear with me if I go into some detail, to go through all these wild allegations on Malayanisation and expatriate officers making stooges of the Ministers of this Government.

First of all, Sir, Mr Owen - the famous Mr Owen. Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Mr Owen got fame and glory overnight. He was sacked from the City Council. Three expatriates who retired were asked to return by me. The Member for Hong Lim says I am a stooge man, Sir; a weak, vacillating character, and could not do without my expatriate masters.

He said that Mr Estrop, a local electrical engineer, was going to be promoted for a big job in the electricity power station at Pasir Panjang, but he was thwarted by wicked, evil me. Let us confront the Member for Hong Lim with these facts.

First, Malayanisation of the City Council. Sir, I do not want to run through these names. It is very tedious. There are a lot of details. Those of us who have' leisure time might browse through them. They might find considerable interest in them. So I propose to table these lists for the delectation of both the hon. Members of this Assembly and such members of the Press as may be interested in checking the veracity of my statement. The City Council Malayanisation policy was introduced into the City Council and passed by the Member for Hong Lim, as the then Mayor, on the 30th June, 1958. And there is a verbatim report of the ordinary general meeting held on that day which has been placed in the records.

Sir, the ex-Mayor proposed that of the 71 expatriate officers then in the City Council, only 8 were to be malayanised immediately, leaving 63 to be malayanised as follows:

5 guaranteed employment until retirement;

16 until 1st June, 1959, or retirement at 55, or optional retirement at 50;

11 until 1st January, 1964, or retirement at 55, or optional retirement at 50;

11 until 1st January, 1962,

a total of 63 from all departments - technicians, technocrats in the Electricity, Architects, Water, Analysts, Chemical, Gas and other Departments.

Now let us turn to Mr Estrop - the local man whom I was alleged to have thwarted. He is a qualified electrical engineer, Sir. He was posted by a man called Lui Boon Poh. I think it was mentioned that he had a peculiar habit of waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning - that is about his only virtue, I think. He was in charge at one time of cleansing. Then he became Deputy Administrator. He posted Mr Estrop to be No. 2 in charge of the Pasir Panjang Power Station without Mr Estrop having the necessary legal qualifications for the job - a requirement laid down by the Machinery Ordinance and the Rules thereunder. I know that in the process of revolution one could ignore the niceties of the law. But when it came to my notice that a man who did not have the necessary mechanical qualifications was put in charge of a power station, it left me aghast. It says here in this Factories (Persons-in-Charge) Regulations, 1960. Regulation 3.

`No person shall be in charge of any boiler, steam engine or internal combustion engine, except as provided in these regulations.'

And it says here:

`(7) Where the heating surface of a steam boiler or the aggregate heating surface of steam boilers connected to a common range exceeds five thousand square feet a first grade steam engineer shall... be in charge... to ensure that there shall not be more than two steam boilers to each attendant.'

Mr Estrop was not a first grade steam engineer. He was put back to what he was qualified to do - a distribution engineer. I am sorry, Sir, Mr Estrop is a serving officer. There is nothing against him. But I would like to mention that I have had to make reference to him purely because he was brought up as an issue. But he had no mechanical engineering experience or steam experience. The man who did this hazardous and, in my view, completely stupid piece of posting was Lui Boon Poh, then Deputy Administrator in charge of the three mechanical trading departments of Gas, Water and Electricity.

Mr Lui Boon Poh was educated at Batu Pahat where he attained Standard VIII. He had previously been a salesman.

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

The Prime Minister resumed his seat.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, Sir, before we posted Mr Estrop to the Pasir Panjang Power Station, we had a meeting with four or five qualified local engineers in the Electricity Department. The meeting was held in the Ministry of National Development. It continued for 2 or 3 days. It was agreed among us that Mr Estrop was a fit and proper person to be deputy to the Superintendent of the Pasir Panjang Power Station. After we had made the decision, I instructed the Administrator to carry it out.

The Prime Minister: I am obliged for all these further details, and that there were some minds brought to bear on this problem. But there is just one simple point. Wisdom accumulated over years of manipulating this dangerous equipment has laid down that there should be a man with a certain kind of training to look after this kind of machinery, and our law enacted by this Legislature, through subsidiary legislation, has so specified. Mr Estrop was unqualified. He did not have that particular qualification, and the posting was illegal. It was contrary to the law. That is all.

Let us go back to Mr Lui Boon Poh - obviously he was a stooge man, it did not matter - who was told to do it. He was not really responsible for this. He was educated -

Mr Speaker: Order. If the Prime Minister is satisfied that this man, Lui Boon Poh, is a stooge of a group of people, as he has mentioned, then is it fair now to go into details about the character and the career of this man? I know the Prime Minister is protected by freedom of speech in this Assembly, but perhaps he would think twice before he carries on this line.

The Prime Minister: I am sorry you should anticipate evil motive when there is none, Sir. The whole thing is -

Mr Speaker: Order. I hope the Prime Minister does not say that the Chair has imputed evil motive. I am just indicating -

The Prime Minister: Anticipating.

Mr Speaker: I am just indicating that the Member for Hong Lim has pointed out to this House that this particular decision was not a decision of this man Lui Boon Poh. If the Prime Minister thinks that, in spite of that, he wishes to continue in `this line of speech, then of course he may do so. I cannot stop him. There is freedom of speech in this Assembly.

The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker. I do not propose to waste the time of this House more than I can help it over this sordid matter. It does no credit to us, because we are responsible collectively for this misdemeanour - more so me as primus inter pares. I want to get certain facts straight. Malayanisation is the issue. If this is Malayanisation, then I say I fight it. My colleague, the Minister for Labour and Law, has referred to Batu Pahatisation. This is just an instance. It is important because it is a question of principle, an indication of the type of mentality that operated this policy.

Sir, Lui Boon Poh was educated at Batu Pahat where he passed Standard VIII. He had previously been a salesman with Fissions Chemicals, selling patent medicines amongst other things. He was appointed first as Superintendent, City Cleansing Department and then as Deputy Administrator (Public Utilities). He was not dismissed immediately after I took over. He was given three months to show that, despite the fact that his past experience and qualifications were somewhat not in keeping with the job he was holding, he is an extremely competent administrator. Unfortunately, after three months, our high hopes and expectations were not realised. He is now back in the Federation, having been refused re-employment as a salesman by Fissions Chemicals.

The other character - also on Malayanisation, this time in the S.I.T. - is his brother, Mr Lui Boon Phor. He was appointed first as Chief Development Officer of the S.I.T. I will come to him when we deal with the S.I.T. Mr Lui Boon Poh has also a friend, a fellow salesman in Fissions Chemicals. His name is Mr Low Chye Chuan. He was first appointed as Labour Officer - obviously he was very good in human relations - and then as Superintendent. Cleansing Department, City Council. When Mr Lui Boon Poh was promoted to Deputy Administrator (Public Utilities), Mr Low Chye Chuan took over the Cleansing Department, as a result of which the incinerator was closed down in the interest of economy. There is a touch of the comic about these things. The only reason why we can afford to laugh about this is that we have put it right quickly. I wish Mr Low the best of luck. He is now back selling medicines for Fissions Chemicals

Now, Sir, Mr Owen - J. I. Owen, age 27, born in 1933. This is his career from the official records, and I think no more justice can be done to a man than to have the truth told about him. In October, 1950, age 17, till October 1951, he was a clerk in Rennie Lowick & Co., Singapore. In March 1952, he entered the University of Adelaide. From November 1954 to March 1955, an accountant clerk in Broken Hill Associated Smelters, South Australia. On 4th of April, 1956, he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Economics, Adelaide. On the 18th of September, 1956, he became a member of the Society of Accountants, which is not a professional qualification in Singapore. On the 29th of June, 1957, in the wicked City Council of which the Member for Farrer Park was a component part, he was employed in the City Council.

Mr Rajah: The only part?

The Prime Minister: Component part. I think there were 32 altogether. I am not sure. Sir, I think you were also a component part in that year before you came to this Chamber. I do not know whether that thought was out of the mind of the Member for Hong Lim when he referred to you as a fine gentleman. But perhaps you have repented.

Mr Speaker: Order. I think the Prime Minister ought not to involve the Chair.

The Prime Minister: Sir, he joined the City Council on the 27th of June, 1957. He was not qualified to be an accountant, so he could not go into the Assistant Treasurer's Department. He was employed as a temporary technical assistant. Then, at long last, on the 30th of October, 1957, he became a qualified accountant. On 1st July, 1959, I think, he became an efficiency expert for the City Council Administrator. He became Acting City Treasurer on 12th September, 1957 ($200 per month extra) and Deputy Administrator on 17th September, 1959. Sir, less than one year and 11 months after he had qualified as an accountant, he was put in charge of $121 million worth of public funds annually. We have all heard about the Belgian Congo sergeant major who became a general, Sir. But I do not think Mr Owen was very far off that rapid promotion. He is now working as an accountant in Australia.

Sir, I would like to make this point. Immediately preceding his appointment as City Treasurer, Mr Owen was number 6 in seniority in the department. There were Mr Scales, Mr Loveday, Mr Tan Beng Lay, Mr Tan Hoay Gie. They all resigned, Sir, and that left him as City Treasurer and Deputy Administrator. They had run away because of his Batu Pahatisation. They took their Provident Fund benefits and fled. Sir, of these officers, two of them were local officers, Mr Tan Beng Lay and Mr Tan Hoay Gie, and three were expatriates who had been asked by the ex-Mayor to stay - one till 1962. and the two others till 1964. Sir, I am charged with being a colonial stooge for not allowing $121 million worth of public expenditure to be in the hands of an accountant 27 years old who had just qualified two years ago. Mr Owen tried to make a political issue out of it and started making some noises. I am sorry to say that we had to slap him in the face publicly. I may also add that he had only one qualification (with distinction) which qualified him for his job. It was that he worked into the 1960 Budget of the City Council, in his short time there as Acting City Treasurer, an extra $5 million for the use of the Minister for National Development.

Sir, an Acting City Treasurer, Mr Owen drew up a $5 million, deficit budget, despite the stringent economies which was then the policy of the Government. It is significant, Sir, that those departments in the City Council whose expenditure was boosted were those which had been transferred to the Ministry of National Development. The City Engineers Department - estimated expenditure $28 million as against $19 million in 1959 and $18 million in 1958. Sir, the Minister for Finance appointed Mr Hibberd - remember the geographer, Sir, who could not multiply very well. He was sent there to have a look at the treasury millions, to unravel the budget, and put up a balanced budget in its place. And he did so, Sir. The $5 million was stripped off. Sir, Mr Owen, who has an Australian wife, has gone back to Australia. He probably saw a better future for his family there. And there the matter ends.

I am sorry that someone, who would have been happier not to have been mentioned in this august Chamber, was brought in by the Member for Hong Lim just to be one of his issues - Malayanisation.

After discussion with the Minister for Finance, I decided that Mr Scales, Mr Embley, Mr Lam, Mr Tan Hoay Gie and all those in the Treasurer's Department who had resigned were to be offered re-employment. Sir, it is quite simple. If the ex-Mayor thought that it was right that these expatriates should stay till 1962, or 1964, and they had gone in 1959, leaving a 27-year-old chap, it is right, now that the cause for their unhappiness was no longer there, that I offered them re-employment. Two of the expatriates returned, Sir. One did not. Unfortunately, of the two local men who left, only one, Mr Tan Beng Lay, returned. The other, Mr Tan Hoay Gie, had already committed himself to another job. Sir, I do not want to labour this point, but this startling business of Batu Pahatisation, not Malayanisation, led to the resignation of 38 local senior officers, not expatriates - I will come to the expatriates later. They took their provident fund and left, because they thought the ex-Minister was the boss man, the supreme authority, and, indeed, that they were all going to be Barn Pahatised. Sir, I have a list here * . I have left copies for Members of both sides of the House too.

• Appendix A, cols. 603-6. APPENDIX A - LIST OF LOCAL SENIOR OFFICERS WHO LEFT THE CITY COUNCIL UNDER MR ONG ENG GUAN (Cols 0603-0606)

Mr Speaker: That may be distributed later.

The Prime Minister: Very well, Sir. I only want to mention one point. In the Remarks column it is shown that some of them resigned on dates after I have taken charge of the City Council. But in all those cases they had already sent in their papers and had resigned before I took over.. It was just a matter of taking leave before retiring from service.

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

Mr Speaker: If the Prime Minister will give way.

The Prime Minister resumed his seat.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, how would the Prime Minister explain the doctors, teachers and many other civil servants who had left the Government service?

The Prime Minister: Mr Speaker, Sir, we will come to that by and by. How would the Member for Hong Lim explain the people who returned to the City Council service after he was no longer able to terrorise them?

Sir, I have also a list here of officers whom we have re-engaged+. They are local officers and expatriate officers, and I so table them. I only have this to add. That the City Council Malayanisation policy moved by the ex-Mayor provided for 63 expatriates to stay. Only 13 have stayed. Because we offered re-employment to three-two in the Treasurer's Department and one in the Electricity Department-the total left is 16.

• Appendix B, cols. 607-8. APPENDIX B - LIST OF OFFICERS RE-ENGAGED (Cols 0607-0608)

Sir, one last point about this Malayanisation. I think we will begin to hear less about Mr Owen if I deal with it. First of all, it is something so wild and fantastic that people do not believe it. But it is being repeated.. In case it gains credence, the best thing to do is to nail the facts down. So I hope you will bear with me if I just wind up this particular aspect of the argument.

Sir, one further point is that of the many appointments made by the Member for Hong Lim, many were temporary appointments on contract, which is a device to avoid reference to the Public Service Commission and circumvent the provisions of the Public Service Commission Ordinance. Also a chosen few who were awarded new contracts had salaries with built-in variable allowances, so avoiding the cuts which the permanent service had to bear. Sir, of course those who received this favoured treatment must have received it for very special reasons. It gives me no pleasure, Sir, to recount all these things, but I am prepared to recount them publicly because each and everyone of these misdemeanour has been put right. Every one of the officers who were improperly appointed has been dismissed and the proper officers re-engaged. I am sorry, Sir, that a colleague gone drunken mad with power was for a few months able to do these things. On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I accept full responsibility. After the event, I can safely say that we did what was necessary and held the administration firmly and effectively together.

Sir, the same sad story can be repeated in the S.I.T. In four months, during which the former Minister for National Development made himself, first Chairman and then Manager of the Trust, he reduced it to near paralysis, unable to handle any housing or planning projects of any consequence. The manager, architects, planners, financial, estates and other officers all left. The position is something like this, Sir. Eight expatriate officers resigned and, of these, the Minister wanted to retain two. He told me that personally. He said he wanted two of them. They did not want to stay. Ten were retrenched. Two senior local officers resigned, one was retrenched, and 58 local junior officers were retrenched. Sir, in their places came a whole host of personal appointees - some qualified, many unqualified. Twenty-two others who took the place of the junior retrenched officers were either unqualified or under-qualified. An example is Mr Lui Boon Phor, the brother of the man who was told to send someone to the Pasir Panjang Power Station. Sir, he is also from Batu Pahat. He was appointed Chief Development Officer. On 20th August 1959, his salary was $450 per month as Lettings Officer. Then he was promoted. On 1st of October, 1959, his salary was $670. Sir, apart from just being the brother of Mr Lui Boon Poh - he had a few other things to commend him. One of these is that he was un-qualified. He was a part-time teacher in adult education. But he was, of course, put in charge of all the lettings in the S.I.T.

Sir, all these misappointments have been rectified and the right people with the right qualifications have been put into the right jobs. In the process, Sir, some 30 P.A.P. members who were under-qualified or not qualified had been employed on the personal instructions of the ex-Minister for National Development. They have had their services terminated by the Housing Authority. The Member for Hong Lim, Sir, believed that he could buy support in the Party by giving Party officials jobs which by-passed the Public Service Commission. Sir, we smacked this nonsense down. May I say, for the benefit of the Member for Cairnhill who alleges that it is "P.A.P.-isation", that I think he should look into the facts and figures before he makes these scandalous allegations against the P.A.P. as such? Jobs for the boys, Sir, was one form of political corruption by the Member for Hong Lim, in conspiracy with an expelled Assistant Organising Secretary of the Party, Mr Tan Gak Eng, designed to build up his personal empire in the Government and the Party. It failed, unfortunately for him, and even those who were to have been his grateful Party supporters through jobs and patronage have turned against him when they discovered what the game was about. Sir, let me add that only a political innocent would still be shouting the same old slogan of "Down with white officers - Malayanisation!" They are already politically down, and we can get them out any time we want to. Our problem is not a simple one of dislodging expatriate officers who were entrenched in deciding questions of policy, but who are now pure implementers of our policy. The problem now is how to find sufficient numbers of local men with the ability and the skill, capable and efficient, to learn quickly enough to carry out the functions of the State and maintain the efficiency of the administration.

Sir, I also wish to table a statement* of the position of Malayanisation in the Government Ministries which shows very clearly how far ahead we are now of the Malayanisation plans. They can be circulated after the speech, Sir.

• Appendix C, cols. 609-10. APPENDIX C - EXPATRIATE OFFICERS WHO RETIRED (Cols 0609-0610)

Only the half-witted, Sir, shout slogans after the position has altered and the slogans are no longer valid. Sir, "Malayanisation, and down with expatriate officers" was a slogan which we coined and shouted to meet a situation when expatriate officers were settling the destinies of the people of Singapore. They no longer are, and no stretching of half-truths can prove that they are. Sir, the easiest thing in the world today is to shout anti-colonial slogans and to pretend to be a fierce anti-colonial hero. There is no risk of personal injury in doing this, because you are denouncing people who are no longer dangerously in a position to hurt you. Sir, the British have been driven to the wall in Asia. Abuse and denunciation by the peoples of Asia - nearly all of which they deserve - is part of their daily bread. But, Sir, when we denounced the British in the early 1950's, that was the time when it was politically risky to do so, because then they were fighting. Sir, we fought the British administration and nearly brought the machinery of government to a standstill in 1953 by working in the unions and amongst the Government servants. Of course, the Member for Hong Lim was not there at that time. He finds all this very painful. We took him into the Party in 1955. He did not say a word publicly until the Tanjong Pagar by elections in July 1957. We trained him up as a slogan-shouter to project the Party's thoughts and shout the Party's slogans. But he forgets that without an apparatus and an outfit to think out the slogans for him - slogans based on political analysis and thinking - it would not be long before he comes unstuck and the mass turns sour upon him. Sir, does he believe that we can be intimidated by a mass meeting? Let me tell his associate, the Member for Aljunied, that we are a Party that learned and demonstrated how to work the mass movement and mass sentiments, and that it was in the P.A.P. that he was taught and he learned how to do it. If he thinks we cannot expose him and fight him in the hearts and minds of the workers, the taxi-drivers, the trisha-riders, the poor, the dispossessed and the small shop-keepers - never forget that whenever one defends the poor and the dispossessed - then I say that he has a rude awakening coming to him.

Sir, as the Secretary-General of my Party, I was alleged to have issued cards to non-members, presumably - it was not said but the implication was - to get the Member for Hong Lim voted out of the Party in August 1957. Sir, he denies by implication that it was the Left-wing adventurers (who had since been detained) who had picked up the admission cards sent to other members, who were missing or had otherwise gone away, at addresses in the unions, who had organised to vote him out. Sir, he has forgotten one non-Party member, like Mr Lim Ching Joo - he is still under detention, Sir, - who is a brother of a Political Secretary and who had turned up at the Party conference in August 1957 with a card which had been sent to somebody else in the Shop and Factory Workers Union. He organised the opposition and got the Member for Hong Lim out of the Central Committee. Sir, the hon. Member refers to these men whom he hated and feared as his comrades who are still in gaol. Sir, this is what Mr Lim Ching Joo wrote to me on 22nd December last year. It is a long letter and I do not propose to read it through. This is, in fact, a political exercise expressing his political views and convictions, but he thought it necessary to establish first his relationship by reminding and admitting his role in August 1957:

`Dear Prime Minister,

Though I have been for some time desirous to furnish you with some explanations regarding certain matters, amongst them the August 1957 issue in the Singapore Badminton Hall, I regret having had no opportunity to be granted the favour of an interview with you. Now the time has come that I should write to you without further delay. [I have seen him and discussed in greater detail the goings-on of the past few years].

As far as I am aware, I feel you have greatly misunderstood me over a certain matter and it is not unlikely that you are still in that mood even today. I refer to the incident, the P.A.P. Central Committee election crisis, which appeared in August 1957. You too are aware that it was rather unfortunate for me to be involved in the matter and that the attitude I then maintained was no different from what was adopted by those who disputed against you. And it was because of these people and their refusal to budge in their stand that the issue became worse.

Now that I have pondered over the matter and the relevant facts, I am beginning to feel that those people were as wrong as they were harmful in the attitude they adopted. No one can deny that the August 1957 incident was virtually a battle for power sufficiently indicating that the Leftist adventurers involved were both childish and unscrupulous in their acts -'

Mr Speaker: Order. The Hon. the Prime Minister knows, of course, that we are debating the policy speech of the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. May I remind him of Standing Order No. 13 which says - I have read this before and I might as well read it again:

`Debate [on the speech] shall be confined to the policy of the Government as outlined in the speech and on amendments (if any) moved ...'.

I suppose all these details could be touched on in passing, but when more and more details are mentioned, I think perhaps we are going a little too far from the motion itself

The Prime Minister: Sir, I am sorry. I have not as yet woven all these threads into a pattern. If at the end of this speech, Sir, I have failed to bring to your mind and the minds of the public a pattern, then I will have wasted the time of this Assembly in reading trivialities. There is a definite pattern: August 1957 and July 1960 - the same pattern, the same adventurers, the same risky careering that will take us, if we are not firm, back to the trials and tribulations of 1955. That is all I want to establish, Sir.

Mr Speaker: Order. That, of course, is perfectly in order, but it seems to me that perhaps the Prime Minister is labouring the point which he has already made.

The Prime Minister: Sir, may I, with greater assiduity and, I hope, with obviousness, weave the threads more closely together? The letter goes on to say:

`No one can deny that the August 1957 incident was virtually a battle for power sufficiently indicating that the Leftist adventurers involved were both childish and unscrupulous in their acts and I feel penitent about all the wrongs I have committed while involved in the incident.

However, there is one point that I must explain to you, that I was involved in the incident should by no means be interpreted as meaning that I was myself politically ambitious. I was, of course, somewhat opposed to the P.A.P. because of its political platform but other than that I have not the political maturity to remain firm in my stand. As a result, sentimental circumstances got the better of me.'

And they organised and picked up these cards and disposed of a person who was a colleague of mine, who had the same mind as they had - a plotter - and who supplied us with what we simple, straightforward and honest souls did not have - the skill to match a plot for a plot, a conspiracy for a conspiracy. And so they fixed him. I was the contestant in the arena, but they knew that the Member for Hong Lim was our plotter. Therefore, they disposed of him. Now, Sir, the positions are turned. The Member for Hong Lim says that they are his comrades in gaol. They are not, Sir,I can produce letters which will go into even more detail and which may one day make an excellent political dissertation. But what is important is this. The hon. Member seems to have forgotten that at that Party conference in August 1957 we learned our lesson. Firstly, the party card with photograph thereafter became essential; and, secondly, never to allow people to become members of the Party just by filling up an application form, paying $4 and attending the Party conference to decide on policy and discipline.

Sir, the Member for Hong Lim agreed with the Central Executive Committee, when introducing amendments to the Party Constitution in 1958, to ensure that thereafter only Party cadre members tried and found loyal to the Party principles and policies were to be entrusted with the control of policies and the execution of Party discipline. Is it not because he lost out in the inner Party struggle, knocked out in spite of trying to buy over Party members with jobs in his Ministry and in his statute corporation, the Singapore Improvement Trust, that he wanted to go back to the 1954 revolutionary spirit so that he could get his friends to pay $4 each and go to the Party conference and vote for him?

Sir, immediately before we took office, we obtained the release of all those men intimately connected with the Party leadership. The other were mostly not our comrades, Sir, but because they were detained at the same time as our comrades, we had, on a matter of principle and as a matter of honour, agreed to press for their release. The Member for Hong Lim said that he had made his stand clear in the Internal Security Council on 28th August, 1959, and that thereafter he was not allowed to speak. Sir, who did not allow him to speak in the Internal Security Council? I do not like the British, Sir; I think they are a lot of so-and-so's. But there is one thing that they do allow - and they have learnt that with some wisdom - and that is to speak, particularly when it is in private. Sir, has this fierce anti-colonialist been intimidated from speaking his mind after the 28th August, 1959? Were there people with guns surrounding him? Was he so frightened that he quietly acquiesced? I think the U.K. Commissioner, the noble lord, had not yet then taken the chair. The Member for Hong Lim only had to deal with Sir William Goode. He did not intimidate the P.A.P. for many years, and we had to deal with him from time to time. We turned up and demanded that we should hold protest meetings which he from time to time found it difficult to accede to. I do not remember the Member for Hong Lim, who used to accompany the Chairman of the Party or me, being intimidated from speaking. I want to ask him this: were there guns at the meeting when the statement entitled "Security and the Communist Challenge" was discussed, and subsequently read by Dr Toh in this Assembly in October 1959? Sir, he is not scared of the British any more, because he knows that the British will no longer lock up noisy but harmless slogan-shouters like him. But he knows, and has had personal experience with them, that these Left-wing adventurers are pastmasters in the art of smear and intimidation. Let me tell him this: today it requires courage, not to stand up and denounce the British and colonialist imperialists in Malaya, but to stand up to the Left-wing adventurers, just as it required courage in the old days to denounce the British, because you would be denouncing people who have the capacity to harm you. Why does he not admit that? He hates the Communist Left-wing adventurers for what they had done to him in August 1957, and he wanted to fix them; but he lacked the red blood corpuscles necessary for the task. And now, Sir, he hopes to solicit their support.

The Member for Hong Lim made a whole series of fabulous and fantastic, wild and untrue, statements. It is not my business to tire the House down. He says that I forced all of them to sign - they are all here, Sir. All I can say is that he is being exposed as an unprincipled, petty plotter.

Mr Speaker: Order. I do not think the hon. Member for Hong Lim,, as a Member of the Assembly, can be called "an unprincipled, petty plotter". Perhaps the Prime Minister would like to withdraw that expression.

The Prime Minister: Sir, in so far as the expression refers to him as an hon. Member of this Assembly, I withdraw. But in so far as it refers to an official of the P.A.P., Sir, I cannot think of words more kind and understated.

Sir, we are not concerned with the Member for Hong Lim as such, because he lacks an organisation and he lacks political principles. One can never have an organisation without political principles. It is a different kettle of fish with the Left-wing adventurers, Sir. Some of them are fanatical in their misguided beliefs, and have a reckless disregard not only for their own lives but for the lives and property of their fellow countrymen, and an equal and complete disregard for hard facts. Sir, they are the people whom we have to counter, not the Member for Hong Lim and his two associates. And in full knowledge of the extent of their cadre strength on the ground, we tell them that we will join issue with them every time they take up a stand that is against the interests of the people and against the policy and programme of the P.A.P.

Sir, the brazen opportunism which the Left-wing adventurers attempted over this little affair in the Party has decided us more than anything else to join issue with them now and forthwith. Sir, the Left-wing adventurers in the M.C.P. have made many mistakes in the past, to their great loss. If they misjudge our resolution or miscalculate our strength, they may yet add another sad episode to their blunders of the past. The biggest mistake that they are committing in Singapore is to believe that they can use Singapore as a base, a "Yenan" from which to liberate the rest of Malaya. Here, in a predominantly Chinese State, they are going to shout anti-colonial slogans to bring the situation to a boil.

Sir, the top leaders of the M.C.P. know that the independence of Singapore can only come with merger. The only argument in the P.A.P. analysis, "The New Phase After Merdeka" published in November 1958, stands unrefuted - after two years of dialectical arguments. We say that the task is not to build up tension and strife, If merger is the road to independence, then the foundation for merger and independence is, no longer the simple and straight-forward business of fighting the British. All these attempts to swing the political line back to the fluid, confused, uncertain position of 1955 can never succeed until these Left-wing adventurers can find the arguments to counter the logic and the realism upon which our analysis is founded. And for two years they have not found the answer.

Sir, there is just one point I would like to make here, because my colleagues have drawn my attention to the fact that, reading just the English Press and the banner headlines, one gets the impression that a serious emergency has already arisen. With sensational banner headlines, they create a completely false picture of what I actually said - the real position - and even the Member for Farrer Park believes that Rome is burning. Sir, Rome is not burning, may I assure him? What I drew attention to is that the smouldering fires of the old revolution, which started in 1948 and which have never been quite put out, are smouldering again; and it is not a watering-can that we have standing by, but a fire brigade. What is happening, Sir, is not an immediately dangerous position, but a position which, if left unchecked, would create an extremely dangerous situation perhaps by 1962, or maybe even 1963, but certainly by 1964.

Sir, I want to take the point, which was vaguely insinuated by the Member for Cairnhill, about the appointment of these Political Secretaries. He attempted to make out that this was a bit of political opportunism on the part of the P.A.P. - either to silence them or to discredit them. The trouble with all these people who give these reasons is that they always project their thought processes. That is what they would have done. More, the reason why they would have done it. But that is not the reason, Sir.

Mr Rajah: What is a good one?

The Prime Minister: If they will bear with me, I will tell them. Sir, five persons closely connected with the Party leadership, who were in prison for 2½ years from 1956-9, were released at the behest of the P.A.P. on 4th June, 1959. They issued their political manifesto to the Press. They are Mr S. Woodhull, Mr Fong Swee Suan, Mr Lim Ching Siong, Mr Devan Nair, and Mr Chan Chiaw Thor. The Member for Hong Lim should bear with me and listen to this document with more care, because they gave 2½ years of sober and somewhat enforced reflection on the problems of the revolution in Malaya. It is entitled The Ends and Means of Malayan Socialism" - a statement of our stand on the aims and methods of the P.A.P. by the five signatories. It begins, Sir:

`In this article we hope to Set out, clearly and briefly, what we consider to be the primary problems which confront democratic socialists in Malaya, the ends we should keep in view, and the means we should adopt in order to secure those ends. We do this because we consider it essential, in the interests of the socialist solidarity of the P.A.P. and the united and efficient implementation of the P.A.P.'s programme, to establish, beyond possibility of misinterpretation or doubt, our considered stand on these important issues of principle and practice.

The Basic Political Standpoint

We must, at the outset, affirm our unqualified endorsement of the P.A.P.'s objective - "The creation of an independent, democratic, non-communist and socialist Malaya".

With regard to immediate tasks, particularly in the new phase since the achievement of political independence by the Federation of Malaya, -'

that is the key, the turning point, which the Member for Hong Lim still does not see. He goes back to the 1954 slogans. The situation has altered since then. This is what these five gentlemen, who spent 2½ years thinking about it, are saying and they have a thinking apparatus of some considerable dimension put together (five of them) as against the Member for Hong Lim's.

`- we endorse the stand taken by the P.A.P. in the document "The New Phase After Merdeka - Our Tasks and Policy" published in the 1958 annual souvenir issue of the Party.'

That is basic and fundamental, Sir.

`The rigid text-book approach to Malayan problems is not only unrewarding but positively harmful. For the problems that face Malayan socialists are unique. In most other countries, socialist programmes rest on an already given historical foundation of an unitary national consciousness and solidarity. Indian, British or Indonesian socialists, for instance, do not have the task of creating an Indian, British or Indonesian national consciousness as a pre-condition for the achievement of socialist societies in their respective countries.

We have to struggle not only for socialism, but for the nationalist basis of socialism. Thus, our most pressing initial problem today is that of nation-building in a multiracial society.'

Not slogan-shouting, back to 1954.

`The real struggle for socialism in Malaya can only begin when our people, Malays, Chinese and Indians are able to transcend the communal cultural and linguistic barriers and loyalties which at present divide them, and embrace a common Malayan loyalty and cultivate a common national consciousness.'

Sir, I propose to table this* also in this House, and I only wish to read two short extracts. It is cogent, coherent and completely in accord with the aims, objectives and analysis of the P.A.P.

• Copy placed in the Assembly Library.

`"Once the problem of linguistic and cultural unity is on the way to being resolved, fears and suspicions will fade away."'

The five gentlemen read the Anniversary Souvenir and quoted it with their approval. Upon this Anniversary Souvenir, the working basis for any political co-operation between Left-wingers must rest. And they stated this, quoting from our P.A.P. document.

`"Once the problem of linguistic and cultural unity is on the way to being resolved, fears and suspicions will fade away. We must face the facts. So long as the fight was against British colonialism, the differences between the peoples of Malaya were muted and dulled in the desire to achieve the common goal of freedom by common effort. Now that this freedom has been won in the Federation all the differences come back into their own. They can and must be resolved. And we in Singapore can set the way to the solution of these important differences in language and culture. That is what we can and must do in this next phase of our struggle for freedom, the struggle for merger."'

And they went on to say in their own words, Sir:

It was not the might of British arms which defeated the armed revolt led by the M.C.P., but the failure of the M.C.P. to establish itself as a nationally based movement. And thereby hangs a lesson which Malayan socialists will ignore at their own peril.' And I want to add here, Left-wing adventurers, please watch out.' And it ends up:

`For us, democratic socialism is a dynamic philosophy of positive social and political action directed towards revolutionary social and economic goals.'

Genuine democratic socialists'. You see, there is this problem of language which I think the Member for Farrer Park does not quite appreciate, because he does not spend time listening to what others are saying. They call themselves "democratic socialists" also. So you have to specify, Yes, genuine democratic socialists'.

`Genuine democratic socialists have no time to be negatively and hysterically anti-anybody or anything.'

That is a question of emphasis, Sir.

`They will have their hands full being positively pro-socialist. But they will oppose-'

This is the operative word, Sir, -

`they will oppose, positively and on the basis of principle, all those who attempt to negate and destroy either the ends or the means of democratic socialism in Malaya.

With the achievement of political independence by the Federation of Malaya, a new phase has begun. And the most important task of socialists in this new phase is to achieve complete identification with the ideal of a united Malayan nation, and to struggle by peaceful, democratic and constitutional means for the enduring objective of an united, independent, democratic, non-communist and socialist Malaya.'

Sir, this was a declaration of political faith and principles, in complete accord with the policies and programmes of the P.A.P. which they made when they were released. On this political stand we appointed four of them as Political Secretaries, Needless to say, Sir, if any deviation is made from this stand, then the working basis is gone. We are going to harbour no one who is not sincerely with us.

One of them, Mr Devan Nair, has resigned his position some time in March this year. My colleagues and I are sure that he is completely sincere to the aims and objectives of the P.A.P. and has not deviated from his stand. He had personal reasons for his decision.

Post-mortems are valuable in so far as we can draw lessons from them Does the former Chief Minister now know how he was out-manoeuvred and out-propagandaed by the. C.P. in October 1956? He held himself out as the defender of the democratic system in Singapore. In the defence of democracy, he had to purge the Chinese High School and the Chung Cheng High School. The fatal thing was the interpretation in the minds of the Chinese that he was purging not a few Communist students in the high schools but was purging Chinese culture, education and civilisation, and, of course, the accompanying working up of popular sentiment led by C.P. activists broke up in riots. When rioting took place, it was not the former Chief Minister who restored law and order. It was the supreme authority and the ultimate source of power, namely, the British army, which quashed the riots and re-established order. In the minds of the people during those few days of rioting, the Chief Minister, far from being the defender of democracy, appeared a tool of the British, whose General took over command of the Operations Room, and whose troops were out on every bridge and every important, intersection in town. Hence he lost out in the hearts and minds of the Chinese population. He lost out in the propaganda battle. He went in hoping to pick the leaders. The leaders wrapped themselves up in Chinese culture, language and education, and he lost them.

Sir, the Member for Farrer Park is dead right. We are the source of power now - the open authority - and therefore the challenge, if made, would apparently at first be made against us. But ultimately it is a challenge against the supreme authority here - the British army. The question which the Left-wing adventurers have to face, if such a similar situation were to arise, is this: how to find a reason for saying that the present Government are stooges? They found a multitude of reasons to say why the last Government were stooges, and some of them unfortunately were true. The former Minister for Education let his side down, and all kinds of other foolish things were done. These things stuck. But this is a different proposition for them to deal with. Nobody - even the Member for Hong Lim - even in a mo ment of madness, can accuse this Government of being corrupt. That is basic and fundamental, because once that forte is gone, then you drift with the winds. Sir, I do not want to be immodest. But as a statement of fact, the $3,050 that I get for my duties - I think the Member for Farrer Park will bear me out - is what I could earn, as any reasonably proficient lawyer could earn, in a long working week-end in the Federation or in Borneo, and not altogether an unpleasant working weekend either. Therefore, they must find a motive for our being stooges. I will tell them why they will fail if they cannot find this motive. Because if you embark on a smear, you can create what the C.I.D. call a "miasma of dubiety", such as befogged the Member for Farrer Park. He was not quite sure which side was telling the truth, he said. But if at the end of it all you have not got one salient and cogent fact upon which you can rest and say that, that is the truth, then the whole smear floats down-stream and is washed up. I say to them that at the end of it, in this battle which, if they are foolhardy enough to start before they are prepared for it, I am pretty sure they will find what we shall prove to the people, that we are stooges of our own convictions, our belief that the salvation of our people and Malaya depends upon the creation of a united people, based on one common language and one common loyalty, despite its divergent races, and on the creation of a socialist society. I am not afraid to stand here or anywhere else to say that this is what my colleagues and I stand for.

Sir, the Member for Cairnhill alleged yesterday that the P.A.P. is playing a double game, one game with the British and one game with the Communists. The Member for Tanglin said that the PAP, intends to do something dishonourable, for we have said that if there is a collision between these two opposing forces, then the P.A.P. would duck. The Member for Cairnhill, in one of his brighter moments of punning and clowning, said that when these two forces clash, the P.A.P. might well turn into a dead duck. Speaking from personal experience, I give him full marks for confirming that that was what happened when the collision took place and he was in between. Sir, he never saw the inter-play of the different contending forces fighting for supremacy, and he died politically, not in May 1959, when the election took place, but in October 1956, when the stooge image was built up in the minds of the people. He saw himself on one side of the ring - this was his exposition - fighting for democracy, and on the other side, the Communists fighting for totalitarianism and Communism. And he still believes that that is the correct analysis, and that we, now that we are the Government, do our duty in that corner of the ring which is fighting for democracy. Sir, he does not understand that there are three main contending forces in a three-cornered fight. There are three boxers in the ring. We are neither fighting the Communists alone nor the British alone. That is the point. The Member for Tanglin will remember that I quoted him something from 1957, that there was a three-cornered fight, and how one corner got the two other corners to weaken and then he triumphed. But not to be in between, or he would have been squashed.

I put this question to the Member for Cairnhill, and if he looks back over the years, he will confirm that this is true. He will remember that the Tunku, when he fought the Communists, took an anti-Communist line only after he was sure that he was given Merdeka. Once Merdeka was obtained and the British forces were out of the: political ring, then it became a straight fight between the Tunku, on behalf of those who want a democratic system, and the M.C.P., on behalf of the Communists. The point is that this is not the position in Singapore. We are not an independent State and are not likely to be one until we get merger. And there are still three forces contending in the political arena.

I was intrigued by the Member for Cairnhill's reference to the role of the Internal Security Council. After quoting the relevant provisions of the Report of the Constitution Commission, paragraph 32, he said:

`The Internal Security Council is there to be a referee in a game between the Communists and the Singapore Government, and that they (the referee) would only exert their authority in two situations. First, if either the Government turns out to be weak and vacillating, or, second, if it refuses to discharge its responsibilities and protect the interest of the people and is a bad Government.'

Sir, I do not know who thought out this political profundity for him. But he is propounding, wittingly or unwittingly, a false piece of political analysis. If he wants to compare the I.S.C. to a referee, may I say that it is more the kind of referee one finds in all-in wrestling matches where, far from being just a referee between two contestants, very often the referee goes and wallops one contender to the floor and beats him up? Let us never forget this. Ultimate power rests not on section 65 or 66 of the Singapore (Constitution) Order in Council, but in the reality of the forces whose will can prevail. Any challenge made to ultimate authority will be made, in fact, not to the Singapore Government, whose force is not the supreme one in Singapore, but to the British Government, whose dictum is final. Therefore, to go and stand in front of the British armed forces when a collision is going to take place between them and the forces of violent revolution on the other side is, in my submission, political foolhardiness. But let me add that that is not to say that the Singapore Government intends to abdicate and abjure authority under the Constitution. Within the limits of our jurisdiction, we accept our responsibility; and within the constitutional framework where a challenge is made to our authority, it is the business and the intention of the Government to assert its authority. But it is idle to believe that there may not again be a challenge by unconstitutional and violent methods to overawe and overthrow authority. The only answer to these methods of violent revolution is force. In the three-cornered fight which still continues in Singapore, it is the business of a non-Communist socialist Government to make use of the time between now and ultimate merger and independence in consolidating the democratic system, in consolidating the strength of the democratic forces, and to see that we are not used as somebody else's pawns.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I just mention that my friend and colleague, the Minister for Labour and Law, has taken a great deal of care to investigate the various allegations made by the Member for Farrer Park. They are found not to be so simple as he made them out to be, but I think we could issue this as a statement at a subsequent date.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move.

Mr Speaker: It could be a Ministerial statement.

Question put.

The Prime Minister: Division, Sir. The House divided: Ayes, 35; Noes, 5; Abstentions, Nil; Absent, 11. Ayes. Noes. Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Abdul Hamid bin Baharuddin bin Haji Jumat. Mohamed Ariff. Lim Yew Hock. Bani, S. T. Mohd. Ali bin Buang bin Omar Alwi. Junid. Rajab, A. P. Byrne, K. M, Thio Chan Bee. Chan Chee Seng. Chan Choy Siong, Abstentions. Miss. Nil. Chan Sun Wing. Chor Yeok Eng. Absent. Goh Chew Chua. Hoe Puay Choo, Ahmad Jabri bin Madam. Mohammad Akib. Kandasamy, G. Fung Yin Ching. Lee Khoon Choy. Miss. Lee Kuan Yew. Goh Keng Swee. Lee Siew Choh. Koh, C. H. Leong Keng Seng. Lee Teck Him. Lin You Eng. Lim Cheng Lock. Lingam, S. V. Ng Teng Kian. Low Por Tuck. Seow Peck Leng, Maminen, John. Mrs. Mohd. Ariff bin Tan Kia Gan. Suradi. Toh Chin Chye. M. Ismail Rahim. Yong Nyuk Lin. Ong Chang Sam. Ong Eng Guan. Ong Pang Boon. Rajaratnam, S. Ramaswamy, S. Ayes. Sahorah binte Ahmat, Madam. Sheng Nam Chin. Tan Cheng Tong. Tee Kim Leng. Teo Hock Guan. Wee Toon Boon. Wong Soon Fong. Yaacoh bin Mohamed.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

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

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