54
THE POLITICS OF ADMINISTRATION
the other branches of the public service, excluding Police, which other branches have, as I have said, long been open to Asians of all races, there are today 235 non-Malay Asians as compared with only 91 Malays. I therefore propose that, as one of the safeguards, the number of non-Malay Federal citizens who are admitted into the Malayan Civil Service shall be limited to one for every four Malays admitted into that service in the future.3
The quota system restricting the entry of non-Malays into the MCS guaranteed that at least 80 per cent of the service would be filled by Malays. As Malayanization took place, British dominance in the MCS was rapidly replaced by Malay dominance as seen in Table 5.2.
sessing that others even
Even wi
in selected civil service
TABLE 5.2
ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF THE MCS, 1950-1970
Ethnic Gro
Ethnic Group
1950
1957
1963
1970
Malays
31
124
250
603
Malays
Non-Malays
13
31
93
Chinese
British
114
221
9
Indians
Others
Total
145
358
290
696
Total
% of Malays
to the total
21.4
34.6
86.2
86.6
Source:
(a) I
Source: Figures calculated from the Federation of Malaya Staff Lists.
The special privileges given to Malays in employment in the public service has been the subject of heated political debate. One of UMNO's earliest tasks was to ensure that this privilege continued and was fully implemented. For example, General Orders clearly stated that: 'It is the policy of Government to give qualified Malays preference over other applicants for employment. Should there be no satisfactory Malay candidate, selection should be made from Malaya-born candidates of other races.'1
This matter was taken up by UMNO in 1948 when the Secretary- General wrote to the colonial government requesting clarification re- garding the interpretation of this clause. According to him the policy of selecting personnel entirely on merit was unfair as this gave the urban non-Malay an advantage over the Malay. Therefore selection should be based on the minimum qualification for entry and not on the maximum qualification possessed by the candidates. In his letter he stressed that:
... the correct interpretation is that where a qualified Malay can be found to fill a certain post, he has a better claim to it than anyone else however high that other's qualification may be. In other words, if a post requires to be filled by an applicant possessing a certain standard of qualification and a Malay pos-
sia, Kuala Lum
(b) (
The diffic in the profo higher civil and semi-p in the profe
E
Ethnic Grou
Malays
Chinese
Indians
Others
Total
Source: M. E Press, 1974, pp.
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