Independent Malaya To Have Own Monarch

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 14

Independent Malaya To Have Own Monarch

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

LONDON, July 3,

The Queen will no longer be the sovereign of the Malayan Federation when the rich tin and rubber country becomes an independent Commonwealth nation on August 31. But the Federation, which will remain within the British Commonwealth after independence, will, like India and Pakistan, recognise the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth.

These facts are in the blueprint for the future Constitution of the Malayan Federation published today.

The blueprint is contained in a White Paper called “The Constitutional Proposals for the Federation of Malaya.”

This is the first time in Commonwealth constitutional history that a British territory becoming independent will immediately have its own Head of State. When India and Pakistan became independent in August, 1947, they had Governors-General. technically the Queen s representative. The White Paper said that it was proposed that the title of the supreme head of the Federation should be the “Yang Di-Per-tuan Agong,” and that his consort should be known as the “Raja Permaisuri Agong.”

The nine Malay hereditary State rulers will elect, for a period of five years, one of their sultans to be Malaya’s first constitutional monarch.

The new independent Malaya will have a Federal Parliament of two houses —the Lower House consisting of 100 members to be wholly elected for a maximum term of five years by singlemember constituencies on a territorial basis.

The White Paper said that all who are citizens of Malaya now will continue to be citizens after independence. Every citizen of the federation will enjoy the status of a Commonwealth citizen.

Islam will be the religion of the federation, but every person will have the right to profess and practise his own religion.

The Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conference will tomorrow take up the question of Malaya’s admission as a full member of the Commonwealth after she gets independence.

Both Britain and the Kuala Lumpur Government want Malaya to remain within the Commonwealth and the sterling area after August 31. The Queen will be represented at the independence day celebrations in the Federal capital by her unde, the Duke of Gloucester.