CO885-(11-12) — Page 563

483

CLIC

| ། ༄། [ !!

PECORD OFFICE

Reference -

C.O.882/12

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON|

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AF REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC -

(COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH~NOT 10|

despatch 26th of November." January† and 29th of January.

46

Please see also my Confidential despatches 2nd of I have nothing to add at present.

All these proposals are embodied in the estimates of Colony and Federated Malay States for 1932 and have been unanimously approved by both Federal and Legislative Councils. They are self-contained and are not affected by report of Committee on Financial decentralization. They effect retrenchment and economy in each case except Irrigation Department which is created on recommendation of Rice Committee to meet urgent Malayan economic necessity. Even in its case no increase of engineering establishment is involved but by its creation severity in retrenchment of engineers is mitigated. I and my principal advisers are convinced that these departmental rear- rangements are financially politically and administratively sound and that no adverse repercussions could result from them. They have worked out very satisfactorily in each department since 1st of January. be given to them.

I therefore beg that your approval may now

I shall refer to you in draft all legislation connected with decentralization before introducing Bills into Federal Council and I have forwarded first batch of such Bills in my despatch of 29th February No. 107.§

C. 92300/32 [No. 29].

No. 22.

MALAY STATES.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE HIGH COMMISSIONER.

(Paraphrase.)

(Sent 5.20 p.m., 9th March, 1932.)

TELEGRAM.

[Answered by No. 26.]

No. 44. YOUR unnumbered telegram of 7th March. I did.not overlook the despatches to which you refer. The despatches in question set out the appointments that you propose and the functions which the various officers would exercise assuming that policy of devolution is accepted in principle, but they do not put me in a position to arrive at conclusions on merits or otherwise of proposals from administrative point of view. You have not furnished me with any reasoned reports showing to what extent administrative efficiency of Departments in Federated Malay States will be affected by proposed changes. In the absence of such reports I am unable to reach any decision. With regard to Medical Department Colonial Advisory Medical Com- mittee have, on information at present before them, expressed adverse view of proposals on administrative grounds. A similar report is desirable with regard to Irrigation Department, see my despatch of 12th February, Confidential.¶ Approval of your proposals concerning Prisons Department, as submitted in your despatch of 27th October,** was conveyed to you in my despatch of 6th January, No. 3.tt

I do not understand your statement that Departmental proposals will not be When is report of affected by report of Committee on financial decentralization. Committee likely to be available?-CUNLIFFE-Lister.

* No. 50.

+ No. 13. ‡ No. 18. § No. 24.

11 No. 21. ¶ No. 51.

** No. 55. tt No. 56.

C. 92300/32 [No. 25].

SIR,

47

No. 23.

FEDERATED MALAY STATES.

THE HIGH COMMISSIONER to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 14th March, 1932.)

(Secret.)

Government House, Singapore, 18th February, 1932. AT the meeting of Federal Council held on the 18th November, 1931, the Honourable Mr. A. S. Bailey, in a speech on the adjournment concerning the policy of decentralization, asked:-

I

"Is there a real demand coming from the Rulers of the constituent States of the Federation and is that demand for autonomy in the form in which Government is willing to grant it? We have Your Excellency's assurances on this point; but I think that, if those assurances could be made in this Council, without qualification and unequivocally, it would have a very great effect upon the public mind.' replied that I had no hesitation whatever in giving that asurance, and added:- "It is a debt of honour upon British administrators in this country to insure that the federation of the Malay States should be a true federation. with that end in view, and it is only by inadvertence that the federation has de- It was originated veloped into something more like a bureaucratic amalgamation. The new policy is one which we are bound in honour to adopt. It is one which Their Highnesses the Rulers have repeatedly pressed upon me; and, in principle, they have already expressed warm approval of the outline of policy which I laid before them at Sri Menanti."

2. In your Confidential telegram to me, No. 25 of the 10th February,* you say that it appears to you to be most unfortunate that I should have stated publicly that the new policy was politically essential, was a debt of honour upon British administrators and was one which we are bound in honour to adopt. You also say that, if you are questioned in Parliament regarding my statement, you would be bound to reply that it was merely an expression of personal opinion on my part, which was not authorized by His Majesty's Government. You further say that no approval has been given for reconstituting the State Councils or for any proposals to devolve wide powers upon them in 1933 under the policy of decentralization.

3. I fear that the past history of the decentralization policy has been overlooked; and, in view of your telegram to me, it seems necessary that I should summarize briefly the story of decentralization in Malaya in past years, in order to show that the policy is not new, but has been authorized by your predecessors in office and declared by my predecessor Sir Laurence Guillemard to be one to which the Government was already committed in his day. I shall endeavour to tell the story as far as possible by quotations, so that my own opinions may not be intruded. Even where I have not employed quotation marks, it will be found that the words I have used transcribe or summarize paragraphs in printed papers, despatches, and other official documents.

4. It must always be remembered, as Mr. Ormsby Gore said in the report on his visit to Malaya in 1928, when he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Cmd. 3235, page 17), "that British influence became established in the Malay States-Federated as well as Unfederated-not as the result of conquest or aggression, but at the invitation of the Rulers of these several States who realized that the ancient system of administration that had sufficed the Malay people had broken down in the face of 19th and 20th century world conditions, and especially owing to the influx of large numbers of other races. treaty obligations, and, however great the changes may appear to have been since Our position in every State rests on solemn the dates when they were made, these changes have not in any way modified the fundamental status of these countries. They were, they are, and they must remain, Malay' States, and the primary object of our share in the administration of these countries must always be the progress of the indigenous Malay inhabitants at the invi- tation of whose forefathers we first assumed responsibilities. The States were, when our co-operation in government was invited, Mohammedan monarchies, and such they are. to-day. We have neither the right nor the desire to vary this system of govern- ment, or to alter the type of constitution or administration that now obtains. important that this should be made clear in regard to the Federated as well as the It is Unfederated States."

* No. 14.