Probably the biggest single effect that the Emergency in Malaya has visibly accomplished has been the resettlement or regrouping of nearly 650,000 “squatters” into more than 550 “new villages.” It is the purpose of this paper to examine the conditions that necessitate the resettlement and regrouping of these “squatters”, the positive law measures utilized, and the direct and indirect results that were accomplished.

In 1948, the Chinese alone of the three major communities of Malaya had no single political or quasi-political organisation concerned to foster and further their interests within that country. The United Malays National Organisation had evolved under the leadership of Dato' Onn bin Ja'afar to press Malay opposition to the Malayan Union scheme, with the enfeebling of the Sultans and the modification of the special position of the Malays that it involved. Having achieved this specific aim, it remained to work for the general welfare of Malays, air their felt grievances and assert their claimed rights. Fragmentation within the Indian community along religious and racial lines was reflected in the multiplication of organisations claiming to speak for it, though by 1948 the Malayan Indian Congress was beginning to emerge as the chief of these, and to draw others within its ambit. But, although many of the more important mainland Chinese political parties, including the Kuomintang and Communists, had their branches or counterparts within the Malayan Chinese community, the political strength of the community was dispersed and it spoke with no clear voice on matters concerning it as a whole. This is especially illustrated in its failure to organise any effective counter to U.M.N.O's crusade against the Malayan Union scheme, although the Chinese stood to gain much by its retention, and lost much when it was revoked. Tan Cheng Lock, and others aware of the long-term implications of the change, made efforts to arouse the Chinese to defend their newly gained rights, but the majority remained apathetic and politically disengaged. It would seem that many of the more conservative Chinese had serious reservations about their political future within Malaya, or felt that those predominantly Chinese organisations primarily concerned with local Malayan politics were dangerously tainted with left-wing bias: yet the organisations representative of the conservative group — the Chinese Chambers of Commerce and the Chinese Assembly Halls — appeared to have little access to, or influence upon Government.

One feature of the Malaysia Agreement of July 1963 was the provisions designed to restrict the political role of Singapore in the new Federation. To this end, in return for a fair measure of local autonomy, Singapore was to accept a reduced representation in the Federal legislature together with a minor disability through a dual Malaysian citizenship. While the government of Malaya, which was to assume the federal powers, was anxious to include Singapore in Malaysia so as to contain a subversive threat, it was concerned also to place limitations on a threat of a different order which seemed to be posed by the governing party in Singapore. The government in Singapore, which represented a predominantly Chinese electorate, was composed of men whose vision of a socialist society was not confined by the territorial bounds of the island-state. Indeed they had been long on record as to their ultimate objective. The government in Malaya — founded on a loose communal coalition which reflected Malay political dominance — was conservative in complexion and made little secret of its protection of traditional interests and of its advocacy of private enterprise. It could not but look with disfavour on the Administration in Singapore, while attitudes towards its Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, verged on the pathological.

Ever since its establishment Indonesia has been notorious for its disregard of international law and world opinion as expressed through the United Nations. The recent policy of confrontation to crush Malaysia is merely the culmination of a series of posturings by Asia's sawdust Caesar.

As long ago as early 1945, in the latter days of the Japanese occupation, Soekarno was outlining his views of the Indonesia to be. In February and May of that year he participated in a conference of Indonesian nationalists summoned by the Japanese to discuss the State to be created. Soekarno spoke in a way that is more expected of predatory imperialists than of anti-colonialists believing in selfdetermination. Like Mussolini, who was always harking back to ancient Rome, Soekarno referred to an ancient empire of the Middle Ages which he wished to see revived. Indonesia was to be a restoration of this, consisting not merely of the Dutch colonies which the Japanese occupied, but also of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Borneo, Brunei, the Philippines and southern Thailand. In those days at least, Soekarno paid lip service to both international law and the realities of a political situation, recognising that in so far as Malaya, Singapore and the Philippines were concerned there might be difficulties with the United Kingdom and the United States.

External affairs have exercised the minds and loyalties of a sizeable section of Singapore's politically articulate population ever since the first preparations towards self-government were taken in 1955. Even though questions of defence and foreign policy were until September 1963 the responsibility of Whitehall exclusively and thereupon transferred to the Malaysian central government, Singapore developed its own informal relationships with several foreign or Commonwealth states during those years and hotly debated international problems which seemed to impinge on the island's political future.

It is a commonplace that political development must be prepared for and planned for. Without adequate preparation and planning there will be chaos, perhaps approaching Congo-like proportions. The dangers are all the greater in multi-racial societies, such as Sarawak and North Borneo. A warning against the premature introduction of political parties in Sarawak was given by the Governor in 1959 only a few weeks before the Sarawak United Peoples' Party was founded. “It is … essential that party politics should not cause further divisions in our community but should have a unifying and binding effect. If a party tends to be dominated by one race or class … it may have a disintegrating effect on our community …… I frankly doubt if political parties at the present stage of development will spell faster progress in this small country …” These misgivings were echoed from North Borneo, by its Governor, some six months later. “People of like taste or like purpose are all too probably of like race, and nothing could promise greater disaster for this country than its division on communal lines.” The Governor knew of no multiracial society in the world “where as yet there has been evolved a satisfactory, stable or easy working form of fully representative Government”. Nearly four years later the next Governor of North Borneo warned of the danger of “mounting the tiger of political parties prematurely”. The formation of parties at this stage “carried the greatest danger of communal strife”.