495
PUBLIC
PECORD OFFICE
Reference -
C.O.882/12
COFTRIGHI PHOTOGRAPH-NOI 10
Bf
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON]
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
70
to send Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Wilson, Permanent Under-Secretary proposes of State for the Colonies, to Malaya for the purpose of discussing with the High Commissioner, the Rulers, and other representative opinion the proposals to decentralize certain Public Services in order that His Majesty's Government may have the fullest information at first hand of all aspects of the matter.-Ends.- CUNLIFFE-LISTER.
C. 92300/32 [No. 49].
No. 32.
FEDERATED MALAY STATES.
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Secret.)
SIR,
(Received 18th May, 1932.)
[Answered by No. 33.]
Government House, Singapore, 3rd May, 1932. On the 23rd April the statement made by you, when introducing the Colonial Estimates in the House of Commons, on the subject of decentralization in Malaya was published by the local newspapers in the form of a Reuter telegram as follows:-
"It would be unwise to give judgment on the High Commissioner's proposals for decentralization in Malaya without the most careful consideration and the fullest information. It would be unwise to prejudge. It might well be unwise, unsound, and unfair to decentralize services which regulate and conduct conditions in the same industry where uniformity is clearly essential, but I decline to express an opinion without the fullest information. The proposals would receive the full and unprejudiced consideration which their importance demanded." Next day I received the decypher of your Secret telegram to me No. 65 of the 22nd April.* I was at that time on tour in Pahang making for Pekan, where a durbar of the Rulers of the Federated Malay States was due to be held on the 28th April. I reached Pekan in the afternoon of the 26th April, and found the Sultan of Perak already arrived there as guest of the Sultan of Pahang. The Sultan of Selangor and the Yam Tuan of Negri Sembilan were due on the following day.
2. The Sultans of Pahang and Perak both met me when I landed at Pekan from a launch, and the latter came to tea with me on the same afternoon at the Residency. He had several weeks before announced his intention of addressing the Durbar at Pekan on the subject of decentralization, and I was not, therefore, surprised when after tea in a tête-à-tête conversation with me he speaks and reads English fluently-he said that he had read the Reuter telegram above quoted with much disappointment; that he had also noticed with regret that your approval had not yet been given to the appointments of Dr. Wilson, Mr. Sturrock, and Mr. Finch as Advisers to the Malay States on health, public works, and irrigation, and that he further regretted that, although many months had passed since the Sri Menanti Durbar, no legislation had so far been initiated to give effect to decentralization. I did not think it advisable to inform him of the contents of your telegram to me, dated the 22nd April, for to have done so would, I feared, unduly alarm him and create in his mind suspicions concerning the attitude of His Majesty's Government towards the Rulers of the Malay States which, I am sure, are not warranted by the facts, so far as they are known to me. I, there- fore, replied to the Sultan of Perak that I would at once forward to you any repre- sentations concerning decentralization which he and the other Rulers of the Federated Malay States might wish to make.
3. On the 27th April, the day before the Durbar, the Honourable Mr. A. Caldecott, acting Chief Secretary to Government, arrived at Pekan. I showed him your telegram and discussed it with him. He fully agreed with my view that it would be unwise to inform the Rulers in Durbar of the contents of your telegram to me. Their Highnesses' views on the decentralization policy had been sought at Sri Menanti; they had accepted the policy, and the reconstitution of the State Councils had since become an accomplished fact. To inform them baldly seven months later that His Majesty's Government was entirely uncommitted to decentralization would have created a most unfortunate impression. There is, I believe, a genuine fear among the Malay Rulers
* No. 28.
71
both in the Federated and in the Unfederated States that His Majesty's Government aims at treating these States as if they were Crown Colonies and at running them from Downing Street. The scheme for unification of the Colonial services seems to them an indication of such an intention, and the Sultan of Perak spoke strongly next day at the Pekan Durbar against such unification. I will report on this point in a separate despatch.
4. At the Durbar in the forenoon of the 28th April, after an opening address by myself, of which I attach a copy, and in which I made no reference to decentralization, the Sultan of Perak made a speech in Malay, of which the translation is as follows:- We, the Rulers of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang, assembled to-day in Durbar at Pekan, repeat, after mature consideration, our emphatic approval of the policy of decentralization outlined by Your Excellency in your address to us at the Durbar held in Sri Menanti on the 18th August, 1931. We also express our full concurrence in the address on decentralization delivered by Your Excellency to the Federal Council in our presence on the 16th November, 1931. We claim that having been much longer under British Protection than our friends, the Rulers of the Unfederated Malay States, we are better, not less, able than they to administer satisfactorily the Government of our States. Nevertheless, as an unexpected result of the federation of our four States, we and our State Councils have now far less authority than they in purely State affairs. We therefore urge most strongly that without undue delay the relations between our four States be converted into a true federation and that full authority be restored to ourselves and our State Councils in all matters that are not agreed to be truly federal."
I then asked each of the other three Rulers in turn whether they agreed with what the Sultan of Perak had said. All three unhesitatingly expressed full concurrence, the Yam Tuan adding (what I have so strongly impressed on Their Highnesses from the beginning) that progress along the lines of the policy must be cautious and unhurried. I conclude that they must before the Durbar have discussed the subject between them- selves and agreed upon what should be said. The Sultan of Perak, the other Rulers concurring, asked that I should forward to you the translation of his speech, and I undertook to do so.
5. On the afternoon of the day on which the Durbar was held I presided over a Resident's Conference at Pekan, attended by Mr. Caldecott (acting Chief Secretary to Government), Mr. Leonard (British Resident of Pahang), Mr. Hughes (acting British Resident of Negri Sembilan), Mr. Cator (acting British Resident of Perak), and Mr. Adams (acting British Resident of Selangor). I laid your telegram of the 22nd April before them and they unanimously agreed that the right thing had been done in not communicating its contents to the Rulers at the Durbar. They were much disappointed by the telegram, for (like myself) they all believe decentralization to be a political necessity in the Federated Malay States as well as a debt of honour owed to its Rulers by British administration. The urge for technical and professional departmental efficiency must, we consider, be subordinated to this dominant political necessity. We all believe, moreover, that, unless this fact is admitted by His Majesty's Government there will before long be serious political discontent. Malay Chiefs are very loyal and racial animosities, though latent, seldom come to the At present the Rulers and the surface. But this happy state of things cannot long continue if Malay political aspira- tions are denied, and if the hopes of decentralization held out for ten years past are frustrated. Education has wrought a great change in the Malays during the last decade. A Malay vernacular Press has come into being, in which a sober but definite nationalism is given expression. The agreement of the Rulers with the Sri Menanti scheme and the reconstitution of the State Councils have been applauded in these newspapers; and it is unthinkable to me that Their Highnesses and their British Advisers should now be stultified by any official disclaimer of the principle of decentralization.
6. I am much disappointed that I have not so far been able by means of despatches to satisfy you concerning the pressing need for decentralization; but I warmly welcome your proposal that Sir Samuel Wilson should visit Malaya to study local conditions at first hand on your behalf. I trust that this visit may be arranged with the least possible delay, and, in order that it may have as cordial a welcome from the Rulers as from myself, I have in a telegram, dated the 29th April,* requested your authority to inform the Rulers of this intended visit before it is announced in the English newspapers.
* No. 29.
I