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Twenty-One Years of Australian Diplomacy in Malaya*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Peter Boyce
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Extract

It is now almost sixteen years since R.G, Menzies, then leader of a resurgent parliamentary opposition, informed his colleagues that it would be “the very ecstasy of suicide” for Australians to assist in the elimination of European colonialism from Asia. For better or worse, the right honourable gentleman was unable to stem the tide of Asian nationalism, and with the political facts of life so patently irreversible, most imperial-minded Australians seem to have conditioned themselves, however reluctantly, to some kind of co-existence with Asia. Again and again Australians are informed by their historians, political scientists and poets alike that theirs is the task of reconciling the legacy of a Europocentric history with the immutable and oft-times unpleasant facts of geography.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , September 1963 , pp. 91 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1963

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References

1. Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, CXC, 19U7, pp. 176–177. Hereinafter cited as C.P.D.

2. The dearth of public or official interest in Australian-Malayan relations through the years 1945–1947 was graphically illustrated by the appropriation of only one small paragraph to the subject in a contemporary monograph prepared by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, entitled “Australian Interests and Responsibilities in the Pacific Region.” By contrast, several pages were devoted to the political future of Portuguese Timor;

3. C.P.D., Representatives, CXC, p. 527.

4. Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia. XXXVIII, Canberra 1951, p. 514.

5. C.P.D., Representives, CXCVI, 1948, P.514.

6. Singapore Free Press. June 2, 1948.

7. Ibid.

8. Straits Times. June 4, 1948.

9. The Australian press reported fully on the sojourn in Singapore, during which the British Commissioner General for South East Asia, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald was quoted ad admitting publicly that Australian deportation actions had done “irraparable harm.”

Sydney Morning Herald. June 11, 1948, See also editorials of the same newspaper for June 5 and June 9.

10. Punctuation added. See also Straits Times. July 7, 1949.

11. Singapore Free Press. 10 12, 1949.Google Scholar

12. March 4, 1961.

13. Federation of Malaya Government Printer, Estimates of the Federal Revenue & Expenditure for the Year 1960. Kuala Lumpur, 1960, pp. 109–110.

14. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Estimates of Receipts and Expenditure for the year ending 30th, June. 1963. Canberra, 1962.

15. Straits Times, November 25, 1952. Mr. Chritchley reiterated this view during interviews in March and April, 1961.

16. C.P.D., Representatives, XXXII, 1961, p.173.

17. Australian Gallup Polls. August–September, 1960.

18. See for example his statements to a press conference, Sunday Times. Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, March 19, 1961.

19. See Tregonning, K.G., “Australia's Imperialist Image in South-East Asia”, The Australian Quarterly. XXXIII, No. 3, 1961, pp. 43–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. SirGillan, Angus, “Australia's Mission in South-East Asia,” Royal Central Asiatic Journal. XXXIX, 1952, p. 213.Google Scholar

20. Federation of Malaya, Parliamentary Debates. House of Representatives, November 1959, pp.588–589. Hereinafter cited as M.P.D.

21. Straits Times. 01 1, 1960.Google Scholar

22. Dr. H.V. Evatt reverted to deputy leadership of the Opposition in December 1949 and assumed leadership of the Labour Party upon J.B. Chifley's death in 1951. The Secretary of the Department of External Affairs from 1947 to 1950 was Dr. J.W. Burton, a socialist economist who was for a time the most controversial figure in the higher civil service.

23. Singapore Free Press, 06 5, 1947.Google Scholar

24. Straits Times and Singapore Free Press. 09 3, 1948Google Scholar

25. Singapore Free Press. 05 19, 1950.Google Scholar

26. Nanyang Siang Pau. editorials, October 22, 1952; January 14, 1953; October 24, 1953; Sin Chew Jit Poh. editorial, November 16, 1953. Translated in Weekly Digest of the Non-English Press. Ministry of Culture, Singapore. All subsequent citations to the non-English press will refer to this translation service.

27. Reported in Straits Times. November 18 and 19, 1954.

28. Ibid., December 9, 1954.

29. C.P.D., Representatives, IV, New Series, 1954, p.129. For Malayan reporting see Straits Times. 12 15, and 01 26, 1955.Google Scholar

30. Herald, , 02 4, 1955Google Scholar; Argus, , 02 3, 1955.Google Scholar

31. Sydney Morning Herald, 05 7, 1955; Age, May 4, 1955.Google Scholar

32. Australian Public Opinion Polls, February 1955, 1070–1080; November–December 1955, 1127–1142.

33. Singapore Free Press. 02 7, 1955.Google Scholar

34. Straits Times. 03 2, 1955.Google Scholar

35. Straits Times. 03 28, 1955Google Scholar; Singapore Free Press. 03 29, 1955.Google Scholar

36. Chung Shing Jit Poh. 04 22, 1955.Google Scholar

37. Malaya Nanban. 06 18, 1955.Google Scholar

38. Singapore, Legislative Assembly, Debates. I, 1955, pp.108–109.

39. Malay Mail. 10 17, 1955.Google Scholar

40. Straits Times. 11 14, 1955.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., September 10, 1955.

42. Reported in Malay Mail, 11 10, 1955.Google Scholar

43. Argus. June 8, 1955.

44. Straits Times, editorial, 06 17, 1955.Google Scholar

45. Straits Times, editorials, 09 15, 10 20, 1955.Google Scholar

46. MP.D., Representatives, 1957, p.3282.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid., p.3298.

49. United Nationc. Treaty Series, 1958, CCL XXXV, No. 4149.

50. This official exchange toak place on 24 March & 21 April, 1959.

51. Article VIII.

52. Article VI.

53. Far East Land Forces and Far East Air Force.

54. For the Deptty Prime-Minister's swift reaction see Straits Times, 03 28, 1961.Google Scholar

55. West Australian. Perth, August 13, 1957.

56. c. July 8, 1959.

57. Editorial July 20, 1959. For official Australian response see Department of External Affairs, Current notes on International Affairs XXXI. July 1960, pp. 301–304. Hereinafter cited as CNIA.

58. Editorial, July 1, 1959. See constitution of State of Singapore, Part VIII, sections 72–74.

59. See editorials, West Australian. July 20, 1959; Ottober 14, 1959; July 24, 1961.

60. Sydney Morning Herald, c. August 8, 1960.

61. Editorial, West Australian, August 4, 1960.

62. For a student comment, see Lian Hock Lian in Fajar. May 1960. This journal is banned from the Federation.

63. Political commentary in Australian Quarterly. XXXIII, June 1961, p. 98.

64. Burns, Creighton, “The Colombo Plan in Australian Foreign Policy”, Australian Outlook XII, 1958, PP. 37–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65. Department of External Affairs, Canberra, “Colombo Plan – Progress Report on Australia's Part to 30th June, 1960”, and “Experts Supplied by Australia under the Colombo Plan, at 31st December, 1960.” Most of the following statistical data were extrapolated from these two unpublished reports.

66. For exgmple through, grants, loans, credits and release of Malayan sterling balances.

67. For a critical comment by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, see Singapore, Legislative Assembly, Debates, II, 1956–57. p. 63.

68. See United Nations, Statistical Papers, Series D, X No. 3, Parts I and II, Commodity Trade Statistics, New York, 1961; and Ian Shannon, Australian Trade with Asia. Study No.3 of the Committee for Economic Development, Melbourne, 1962.

69. Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, oversea Trade 1959–60. Canberra, Bulletin 57, pp. 576–577, 609–610.

70. Department of External Affairs, Canberra, Treaty Series 1958, No. 24, Trade Agreement between Australia and the Federation of Malaya with Exchanges of Notes and Agreed Minutes.

71. Published sources include Lyall and Evatt & Co. (ed.), Handbook of Malayan and Singapore Stocks and Shares, Singapore, 1960; and G.C. Allen and A.G. Donnithorne, Western Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya, London, 1957. The full extent of Australian capital investment in Malaya was not ascertainable from thsse sources, but correspondence was entered into with capanies suspected of sponsoring Australian capital. An investigation, of Australian investment since the passage of the Pioneer Industries (Relief from Income Tax) Acts has been undertaken by Mr. E.L. Wheelwright of the University of Sydney, who kindly furnished the writer with helpful statistics.

72. Gilmore, R.J. and Warner, D. (eds.) Near North: Australia and a Thousand Million Neighbours. Sydney, 1948, p.156.Google Scholar

73. Smuts Memorial Lecture, University of Cambridge, in C.N.I.A. XXI, 1960, p.260.Google Scholar

74. Press Interview, Keesing's Contemporary Archives. April 8–15, 1961, pp.18025–18026.

75. Ibid.

76. Reported in Straits Times. June 3, 1961.

77. Statistics collated from Chronicle of United, Nations Activities, an unofficial weekly publication from New york, III, 1957 to VII, 1961.

78. “Problems of Australian Foreign Policy, June, 1956 to June 1957”, Australian Journal of Politics and History. III, 1957, pp. 9–10.

79. See report in Malayan press, Straits Times, April 6, 1961.