Malayan Federation

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25248, 29 July 1947, Page 6

Malayan Federation

Though last week’s brief report of the Colonial Office White Paper on proposals for Malaya’s Constitution left a goed deal unexplained, it said enough to suggest that some at least, if not all, of the Malays’ objections to the Malayan Union White Paper of last year are to be met. If, as is probable, the Sultans are to have their nominal sovereignty restored, as the British-Malay constitutional conference at Kuala Lumpur recommended in December, it would seem that the Mac Michael Treaties, under which they abandoned “full power “ and jurisdiction ” to the British Crown, will be abrogated. The Union Plan and the treaties were the first fruits of the British Government’s determined, though perhaps too hurried, attempt to reform Malayan administration, as a first step leading the country to self-government. Checks have not weakened the Government’s purpose; and if, as is probable, the latest proposals give due weight to the opinions not only of the Malays but of the Chinese and Indian communities, the federation which it hopes to establish. early next year will be a satisfactory first step. But no one will see it as more than that.

The need to begin preparing for self-government with far-reaching administrative reform was clear. Before the war, Malaya had 11 separate governments; and the British administrators found it hard to achieve common action on matters

affecting the country as a whole. Each of the nine Malayan states had its own government and, in addition, there were the Federal Gov-

emment of the Federated Malay States and the Crown Colony Govi ernment of the Straits Settlements. By its 1946 plan, the Colonial Office would have replaced this cumbersome system with two separate colonies, or rather with a Crown Colony (Singapore) and a colonial protectorate—the Malayan Union, a new, unitary state stretching down the whole of the peninsula. But the Malays opposed the plan perhaps less strongly because it struck at the autonomy of the nin6 states than because they disliked the terms under which Malayan Union citizenship could be acquired. In their view the proposals reversed the British pro-Malay policy and exposed their own status to the encroachment of the immigrant races, particularly the Chinese, already the most active and vigorous section of the population. And it was to meet these objections that the BritishMalay constitutional committee at Kuala Lumpur recojnmended a federation of the Malay States, nominal sovereignty being restored to the Sultans and the qualifications for citizenship tightened up. How far the latest White Paper has followed these recommendations in detail is not yet clear, though it is to be noted that “in a matter “ such as immigration, the High “ Commissioner will have the par- “ ticular duty of consulting the “Malayan rulers on policy, and the “ Malay members of the Legislative “ Council, in the last resort, will “have a decisive voice in accepting “ or rejecting any major change of “ policy But what is certain is that the constitutional changes, whatever the details might be, will not end all Malaya’s problems. A basis for a reasonable measure of unity and common sentiment among its mixed population will still have to be found; and recent developments in Asia will not have made the task of finding it any easier.