South East Asia Colonial History V5 by Paul Kratoska

Author:Paul Kratoska [Kratoska, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000558258
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

I

Officials and politicians who had nailed their colours to the Malayan Union mast were 10th to accept that its replacement by the Federation was anything other than a deceleration in the speed by which the new route would be followed. Sir Edward Gent, previously Governor of the Malayan Union, set about managing its successor during the few months before his recall as if nothing had really changed. Secretary of State Creech Jones, justifying to Cabinet what elsewhere was regarded as a British volte face, argued that the essence of the Malayan Union—namely, a strong central government, financial stability and common citizenship—was preserved in the federal constitution.9 When Professor Silcock wrote to the Colonial Office criticizing the Federation and urging a return to Malayan Union progressivism, H. T. Bourdillon minuted, ‘we have it in mind to proceed in many ways on the lines which Mr Silcock advocates’.10

Indeed, after 1948 genuine efforts were made to attain the basic objectives of the Malayan Union. One of these was the further consolidation of British possessions. In May 1948, shortly after the Federation had been inaugurated, the Commissioner General of South East Asia, the High Commissioner of Malaya and the Governor of Singapore met to discuss ways in which to create ‘a climate of opinion in Malaya favourable to the inclusion of Singapore in some sort of constitutional union with the Federation’.11 The fusion of peninsula and island had been included in the original draft of the Malayan Union scheme in 1942 but, because of its implications for imperial defence and relations between the Malays and Chinese, it had been omitted from the final version. Painstaking work for merger went on throughout 1948–51 but it was recognized that real advance depended on communal harmony. Fostering multiracialism was the keynote of British Malayan policy from 1943 until 1955 at least. Through the unofficial Communities Liaison Committee (CLC), Malcolm MacDonald (Commissioner General, South East Asia) acted as a mediator between community leaders. Very largely as a result of his behind-the-scenes diplomacy, the CLC came out publicly in favour of self-government and a Malayan nationality for the long term and, for the short term, a broadening of the Federation’s restrictive citizenship provisions and moves towards elections. All these points Onn, who was a member of the CLC, and UMNO found difficult to swallow but the Secretary of State congratulated MacDonald on pursuing the multiracial course and was pleased to note ‘that the agreed views of the Committee ... are so closely in line with the fundamental aims of the policy which has been pursued by His Majesty’s Government in relation to Malaya ever since the Liberation (not excluding the Malayan Union phase)’.12 The CLC’s proposals were the basis for the citizenship legislation which Gurney so carefully prepared and introduced into the legislative council in 1951 and which was eventually enacted during Templer’s first year in office. This ordinance opened the door to citizenship considerably wider for non-Malays although no progress was made in solving the more fundamental problem of creating a Malayan nationality.

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