MALAYAN REQUEST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27383, 8 May 1950, Page 5

MALAYAN REQUEST

Volunteer Specialist Force APPROACH TO BRITAIN NZPA —Reuter—Copyright SINGAPORE, Rec. 0.15 a.m. May 7. It Ls understood .that Federation of Malaya authorities have asked the British Government to consider urgently the possibility of raising a volunteer specialist force of about 1000 men for action in Malaya, says the Singapore newspaper, Sunday Times. Men wanted are those with war-time experience of jungle fighting, such as the veterans of the Burma campaign. The paper says it is proposed that the men should be offered attractive pay and conditions for short-term service—probably one year. It is believed that the director of anti-bandit operations, Sir Harold Briggs, who is himself a Burma veteran, strongly favours raising this force, and that representatives of the planting, mining and other commercial interests are expected to urge the scheme when they meet the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr James Griffiths, and the War Minister, Mr John Strachey, at the end of the month. The Sunday Times also says that Sir Harold Briggs has set in motion a long-term plan for bringing closer the end of the emergency over terrorism. One of its most important provisions, according to the paper, will bring under active administration many areas of Malaya which have never before experienced it. The plan is believed to call for a large expansion in the police force as well as a considerable increase of administrators of dis-trict-officer level.