It seems fitting that, on the occasion of the commemoration of the founding of modern Singapore 150 years ago, we should look further back than the year 1819 and see whether another examination of ancient documents can bring to light new data on the early history of Singapore. Accordingly it is here submitted that a previously unrecognised reference to Singapore, under another name of course, is to be found in a well-known Indian document written nearly 950 years ago. Such a discovery gives immediate rise to further speculation regarding the possibility that this island was also known to Chinese and Arab geographers and merchants as an important trading centre and possibly known as such as early as the second century of the Christian era.

In continental India the East India Company subjected European immigration to tight restrictions. Private Europeans had to obtain a licence to live in India and were forbidden to buy land. When the trade of India was thrown open to private merchants in 1813, the restriction on settlement was retained. The same licensing system applied in theory to European immigrants in the Straits Settlements, but in practice it was not enforced. In 1797 when Calcutta first enquired by what authority the European inhabitants had settled in Penang, few of them could produce licences, but no steps were taken to evict them, and in 1823 the Recorder ruled that the possession of land entitled them legally to remain in Penang.

The records of Singapore abound in population censuses which have been quoted by demographers, historians and other writers. These censuses can be broadly divided into those taken before 1871 and those conducted since that year. In the first period census counts were undertaken rather haphazardly, mainly by the police at fairly regular and short intervals, viz. annually from 1824 to 1830 and from 1832 to 1834, and then in 1836, 1840, 1849 and 1860. The original publications pertaining to these census counts are no longer available and the figures can only be obtained from secondary sources. In the second period proper and systematic censuses, as understood in the modern sense, were conducted by trained enumerators at regular but longer intervals and the results published in their original form are still available. The first census of this kind was held on 2 April 1871, and thereafter censuses were conducted every ten years up to 1931. Owing to the Second World War the 1941 census was postponed until 1947, followed by one held in 1957. By and large, it can be said that the census records gradually improved in comprehensiveness and accuracy.

The shipping conference system in Singapore was under severe and sustained criticism three times in the last 60 odd years. In 1910 the colonial Straits Settlements legislative council in Singapore passed the Freight and Steamship Bill whose lengthy preamble contained the indictment that the conference system was ‘injurious to the trade of the colony and inconsistent with the public welfare’. In 1930, during the annual general meeting of the Singapore Branch of the Straits Settlements Association, a leading lawyer, Roland Braddell, launched a bitter attack on the conference. Subsequently a public meeting was held which called on the colonial government to see ‘if we cannot rid ourselves of this octopus which is strangling this Colony’.

The transfer of the former Royal Navy dockyard to the Government of Singapore, at a ceremony on 8 December 1968, went almost unnoticed in the press of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Yet twenty-seven years earlier, to the very day, the Japanese landings at Kota Bahru, followed immediately by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, inspired alarming headlines. In Australia and New Zealand, where for twenty years the Singapore naval base had been given the central place in all defence planning, the Japanese attack gave rise to the first real fears of invasion. As they faced this possibility they regarded the ‘impregnable fortress’ of Singapore as their first line of defence.

From the time modern Singapore was founded its Chinese population comprised Malacca-born (later Singapore-born) “Straits Chinese and China-born immigrants who came from various districts of South China. While the latter belonged to various speech groups and in the early days were clannish in outlook, they regarded themselves as hua-ch'iao (overseas Chinese) and remained Chinese citizens. They were either China-oriented in their political loyalty, or else were apolitical. In contrast the Straits Chinese were local citizens with no second homeland. The earlier residents were Babas who had emigrated from Malacca. Their remote ancestors had come mainly from the province of Fukien, but had settled in Malacca and married local Malay women. After Singapore, Penang and Malacca became the Straits Settlements in 1826, the Babas and their descendants came also to be known as the Straits Chinese.

Singapore became a distinct crown colony in 1946. Two years later the British Government began to introduce constitutional reforms in the island in accordance with its pledge in 1943 to foster the growth of “(Malaya's) capacity for self-government within the British Empire”. This colonial tutelage assumed two forms. Firstly, the government started to prepare for a fully elected legislature through which to transfer power to the people in the future. Secondly, the people were trained to work a system of democratic elections based on universal suffrage for all British and (after 1948) British Protected Subjects. The process, however, was fairly slow with the result that the governmental system of a normal crown colony remained basically intact in Singapore until 1955. Assisted by an advisory executive council and a legislative council, the governor continued to rule the colony with almost unlimited powers, subject only to the control of the Secretary of State for the Colonies at Whitehall. The legislature did not even have an elected majority until the Rendel Constitution was introduced in April 1955. Under this new constitution, the Labour Front-Alliance coalition government became the first elected government to assume office with a considerable degree of power in its hands.

The People's Action Party, or the PAP as it is more commonly known, carries the unique distinction of being the first Southeast Asian political party to control all the seats of the legislature through free elections. Since the general elections of April 1968, when the PAP won all the 58 seats (51 of which were uncontested) Singapore has had a one-party Parliament. Yet when the Party was inaugurated in 1954 its policies were criticised by a local paper as being “nicely calculated to attract the unthinking, a feast of promise with little regard to facts”.

Ever since the Separation on 9th August 1965, the principal leaders of Malaysia and Singapore have expressed the view that their separated states would be compelled by the forces of historical, geographical, economic and social ties to reunite some day. When this would be accomplished has not been clearly defined nor has the manner of their reunification been suggested. Tengku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, merely stated that Singapore would be welcomed back sometime in the future, while Lee Kuan Yew, the Singapore Prime Minister, admitted that it could be a task for the next generation to seek reunification. However, both were hopeful that at some future date circumstances would be more conducive than they were prior to 1965, for another attempt at merger. It is generally agreed that the Separation was a political separation arising from the incompatibility of the political views of the Alliance-controlled central government and the state government of Singapore in the hands of the People's Action Party (PAP). It has also been implied that the fact of their interdependency in several basic fields even after Separation could well provide a strong basis for some form of reunification.

Singapore became an independent sovereign state on August 9, 1965 It may be alleged that to attempt an analysis of a country's foreign policy only three years after its independence is premature. Yet there are certain basic facts about Singapore which no political leader can ignore, and these become the determinants or roots of Singapore's foreign policy. To that extent, Singapore's foreign policy is predictable because the range for manoeuvre is limited.