Fong Swee Suan and four other union leaders were arrested by the government under the Emergency Regulations on 11 June 1955. Six thousand bus workers came out in protest against their detention. The next day, thanks to what the authorities described as “mob coercion” of the drivers, taxis also disappeared from the streets. But the government mounted free emergency lorry services to important parts of the city, and more than 100,000 labourers and 280,000 others went to work as usual without incident. Despite the paralysis of public transport, the strike failed to bring the city to a standstill. This time the people were out of sympathy with it – it was too political and not related to any of their economic grievances. After four days, Lim Chin Siong and Devan Nair suddenly called it off, and 13,300 workers, men and women in 90 commercial and industrial enterprises, returned to work. The government claimed victory. Fong was not released until 25 July.
I had decided to get away from this madhouse and go on my annual vacation. With Choo and Loong, age 3, I drove up to the Cameron Highlands on 1 June and stayed there for three weeks. We left 5-month-old Ling at home as she was too young.
I played golf at Tanah Rata every day, morning and afternoon. As I walked on the pleasant and cool nine- hole Cameron Highlands course, 5,000 feet above sea level, I soaked in the significance of the events of the previous few months. I felt in my bones that to continue on the course Lim Chin Siong and Fong had embarked upon would end in political disaster. The PAP and the Middle Road unions (named for the location of their headquarters, not their policies) would be banned. But if Marshall were to flinch from taking unpopular action, the whole economy and society of Singapore would be in such a chaotic mess that the British government would have to suspend the constitution.
On 21 June, I drove back to Singapore with the family. The press hinted that I had run away from these troubles, but I knew my presence would have made no difference. When the Straits Times asked why I did not return from my leave, I said my executive committee had not asked me to, and I had full confidence in them.
This had been my baptism of fire working with the CUF. I talked the problem over with Chin Chye, Raja and Kenny. (Keng Swee was in London doing his PhD.) We decided that I should read the riot act to Lim and Fong. I told them that if they carried on in this way, they would have to go it alone. That sobered them up, and on 26 September the governor, Sir Robert Black, would write in a report to Alan Lennox-Boyd:
“The collapse of this general strike did much to discredit the extremist elements in the PAP. Lee Kuan Yew was away from Singapore at the time and I am informed that he departed deliberately in order to have no part in the violence. … Since then there has been a change in tactics by the PAP. While continuing to foment strikes, in pursuit of their campaign for winning control of labour, they have been at pains to keep within the law.”
That did not last long. After a few months, the pro-communists drifted back to their old ways, but they did not provoke bloody clashes with the police or stage a general strike to paralyse the economy. I believed they still thought clashes with the police and the government were the way to arouse more hatred and heighten the revolutionary fervour of the people. There were times when Lim and Fong appeared to listen to my advice to keep to the methods of constitutional struggle with long negotiations and passive resistance to avoid bloodshed. But they came from a different tradition and background from mine and they had different models in mind.
I was in a most difficult position. While I could not and would not defend them, I could not condemn them without breaking up our united front. As I had explained to a correspondent of the Sydney Daily Mirror in an interview reported in the Straits Times, “Any man in Singapore who wants to carry the Chinese-speaking people with him cannot afford to be anti-communist. The Chinese are very proud of China. If I had to choose
between colonialism and communism, I would vote for communism and so would the great majority.” I was hoping that I could get enough Chinese to vote with us against the communists and for independence and democracy. But I was not at all sanguine that this could be easily achieved if a successful communist China continued to be their source of inspiration.
And I was under pressure. The chief minister had called for an emergency meeting of the Assembly for 16 May, to capitalise on the revulsion of public feeling against the unions, isolate and turn the heat on the PAP, and make the non-communists in the party split from the communists. This time the chief secretary, Bill Goode, led the attack. He made a powerful speech, recounting what had taken place factually and effectively.
He deplored the loss of life, praised the police and condemned the evil men who had exploited the workers and the students, and the failure of the manipulated Chinese newspapers to give any support to the side of law and order. All efforts to promote a settlement were frustrated by people who, Goode said, “clearly do not want grievances to be removed but are out to maintain unrest and are out to exploit the genuine grievances of decent workers for their own evil ends”.
He then rounded on me.
“In their lust for power … the People’s Action Party and their covert communist supporters and backseat drivers wanted violence and bloodshed and industrial unrest. … If the honourable Member believes in orderly progress to democratic self-government, then he must be against communism; and if he is, let him say so loud and clear, with no quibble and no clever sophistry. He has deplored violence after hell was let loose and men were killed. … I ask him: What did he do to prevent violence before it happened? Is his conscience clear? Or did he lose control to the Member for Bukit Timah (Lim Chin Siong) who sits behind him and drives the party?”
He was followed by John Ede, the expatriate who had won Tanglin for the Progressives. This made my task easier. I rose immediately after Ede to say I was glad it was to two Englishmen that I had to reply. Had it been Marshall,
“he would have weighed his words with more care, with more circumspection, and with more understanding of the difficulties and the dangers of the situation; with more understanding of the hopes, fears and aspirations of people. …
“We have not come here as prisoners to be accused, or as prisoners who must discharge the burden of their guilt. We have come here as representatives of the people, and we shall speak as such.”
(I reiterated the stand of the PAP.) “To destroy the colonial system by methods of non-violence.
We abjure violence. … We are not prepared to fight, perpetuate or prolong the colonial system. But give us our rights and we will fight the communists or any others who threaten the existence of an independent and democratic non-communist Malaya.”
Because I had praised him, Marshall again wobbled when he replied, confusing his followers, and saved the PAP from total discredit by saying:
“If the PAP, which consists of responsible, decent, honest men many of them, if they would purge themselves of the communists and fellow travellers that they know they have – if they would face their own responsibility, they could be the organisation that they hope to be that would one day lead this country to win its independence.”
Marshall did not know that by his speeches and, worse, by his eagerness to settle and avoid conflict, he had opened Pandora’s box. Every worker in Singapore, every leader and every communist cadre knew they had a government they could use for their own purposes, to corner the employers, win benefits, and take over management’s prerogatives.
Already their successes were paying off. By August 1955, membership of the Singapore Factory and Shop Workers’ Union (SFSWU) had swollen to 23,000, most of them young Chinese. Meanwhile, its English-educated associates, including Nair, Woodhull and James Puthucheary, were helping the Chinese- educated to demolish the British colonial system. Their tactics were both to infiltrate existing unions and to form new ones. They had the Singapore Chinese Middle School Students’ Union as a de facto affiliate, and their weapon was the sympathy strike. For any single issue in any single company, they would threaten to stop the whole works.
As the communists had done in China, this was to be a united front of workers, students and peasants (such as there were in Singapore) to foment unrest and convert labour disputes into political issues, increase class and racial hatred (of the white man) and breed contempt for authority. Once the SFSWU had become an octopus-like conglomerate trade union, with its membership of Chinese-speaking workers, Lim Chin Siong and Fong targeted the Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association, the Naval Base Labour Union and the City Council Labour Union – non-communist organisations whose Indian, Malay and English-speaking Chinese were prepared to go along with the SFSWU. They realised they could make use of the militancy of the Chinese unions and the threat of sympathy strikes to further their own demands.
Sir Robert Black also recognised that the situation had changed for the worse. On 26 September he wrote to Lennox-Boyd:
“During the elections, … extravagant speeches were made attacking the government. … PAP meetings were also packed with organised labour and Chinese students; mass feelings were skilfully roused. All this led to a loss of respect for constituted authority, and increased the prestige of those who … were openly challenging the government.”
Singapore was in the grip of a strike fest – in the nine months between 7 April and December 1955, there were 260 stoppages. This militancy, however, was to work to my advantage.
On 19 June 1955, the City Council Labour Union threatened to walk out over demands for back pay they had made the previous year. The City Council threatened to serve lock-out notices, and to hire contractors to take over essential services if union workers stayed away. Talks failed to settle the dispute and the strike began on 17 August.
Three days later, however, the union asked me to be their legal adviser. The members were mainly Indian daily-rated workers, the majority engaged in city cleansing and garbage collection. It was a big union of several thousands, the leader a shrewd, squint-eyed, uneducated Indian called Suppiah. There had already been some ugly incidents in which they had resorted to violence. I replied that I would be proud to act for them, but stipulated that the strike must be carried out in a peaceful way. They agreed, and the talks became constructive.
The governor reported on 8 September to Lennox-Boyd:
“At one time there were disquieting instances of rowdyism on a familiar pattern, but they ceased suddenly after a few days. Whether Lee Kuan Yew should be given any credit for this is not certain, but it is probably the case.” (We had reached agreement on 7 September.) “Contrary to expectations
… the strike did not break down and the union has won substantial concessions. … There are two main reasons for this outcome. One is the weakness of the City Council … and the other is the intervention of Lee Kuan Yew, the secretary of People’s Action Party, as legal adviser to the union.
His intervention was in fact useful to both sides and he has probably improved his personal position as a result of the settlement.”
My way of constitutional opposition, working within the law, was in marked contrast to that of the communists, and I got results. But without the communists going beyond the law and using violence, my methods would not have been effective. It was the less unpleasant option I offered that made them acceptable to the British. Just as in Malaya, had there been no terrorism to present the British with the humiliating prospect of surrendering to the communists, the Tunku would never have won independence simply by addressing larger and larger gatherings of Malays in the villages. It was the disagreeable alternative the
communists posed that made constitutional methods of gentle erosion of colonial authority effective for the nationalists and acceptable to the colonialists. In pre-war India, where there was no communist threat, constitutional methods of passive resistance took decades to work.
While the trade unions continued to simmer away and grow in strength, Marshall stirred up one political crisis after another. He had a knack for creating them. In the midst of all the industrial unrest and agitation, he clashed with Sir Robert Black over his demand for the creation of four junior ministers, and when the governor offered only two, decided to make the dispute public. He claimed that the governor had no right to ignore the chief minister’s advice, and threatened to resign if he refused to consult him before taking any action. He also wanted Singapore to be given complete self-government. Emergency Regulations had expired on 21 July, but the governor had extended them for a further three months, subject to adoption by the Assembly at its next meeting: Marshall’s price for the extension was that the British grant Singapore self- government “at the earliest possible moment”.
The proceedings of that Assembly meeting on 22 July were typical of the silly and irresponsible manner in which the political parties manoeuvred. In putting the motion for self-government, Marshall explained that this was a constitutional matter of principle. At the end of his diatribe against the governor and colonialism, he turned to me – the Member for Tanjong Pagar who “has plagued me so consistently and so vociferously in the past” but is “virtually the leader of the opposition in the eyes of the public” – and asked me to second his motion. He thus negated the charge made barely two months before, on 26 April, by Goode, who had often called the PAP a vehicle for the communists and their willing tool. I certainly could not refuse the honour of seconding the motion!
The Assembly adjourned on 22 July. When it reassembled three days later, a Progressive Party member, Lim Koon Teck, tried to outflank both Marshall and me. “Let us … ask for a full transfer of power so that we, and we alone, shall be responsible for our own affairs and destiny and the British government need no longer be answerable to us,” he proposed, and thereupon moved an amendment to substitute “independence”
for “self-government”. In other words, he wanted “independence” immediately. The Progressives had always represented moderation, the step-by-step approach to sovereignty. By this sudden manoeuvre, they appeared more radical than the Labour Front and the PAP. I remarked that “Today, we are entertained by the unique spectacle of a mouse turned lion.”
The amendment was rejected and the original motion for immediate self-government was passed, well- timed to put the heat on Lennox-Boyd, who was due to arrive just a week later. By their move, however, the Progressive Party had destroyed themselves as a consistent, dependable party. Now there was no longer a coherent right wing or middle-of-the-road political force in Singapore.
Lennox-Boyd arrived in Singapore, met Marshall and went off to Malaya. On 2 August, the Speaker read to the Assembly a letter from the governor, saying that the secretary of state for the colonies had discussed matters with the chief minister, and that the discussion would continue when he returned to Singapore from Malaya on 15 August. Marshall, mollified by a Lennox-Boyd looking and sounding sympathetic, said, “For the time being, perhaps we should rest there and proceed with normal business.” I disagreed, pointing out that there was nothing in the governor’s letter that materially altered the position since our last meeting “except that on that day, we had a much fiercer chief minister”. I then moved to block Marshall’s resolution thanking the governor, and the Assembly supported me. Marshall was livid.
But on 18 August, the Speaker read another letter from the governor, which stated that he would act in accordance with the chief minister’s advice except on the prorogation and the dissolution of the Assembly.
The letter also said that the British government would be glad to welcome to London at a suitable date a representative delegation from Singapore to consider constitutional matters. Marshall declared, “This is indeed a happy day for Singapore. It marks the end of the first phase of our struggle for freedom. It marks the beginning of a new era … an exhilarating victory.” Marshall thrived on adrenaline. He again moved that the Speaker “… request the governor on their behalf to thank the secretary of state for his sympathetic approach to our aspirations”. I would have none of this and threatened to walk out – I wanted time to think about the implications of such a thank-you message. Marshall was outraged. My motion against the proposal was
defeated.
I was having fun with Marshall, but there was more serious business on hand. The future of Chinese language, culture and education remained a grave problem, although the seething unrest in the Chinese middle schools had temporarily subsided when the All-Party Committee on Chinese Schools “appealed” to the government not to proceed with the expulsion of the students, or with the notices served on the schools to show cause why they should not be closed down. The committee had provided a neat way out of an acute problem of face. By accident, the government had stumbled on a process of quiet consultations that enabled a formula to be worked out without the glare of publicity. Otherwise every defect in any solution would have been reported in the Chinese press and made the subject of contention, lobbying and the scoring of propaganda points.
The recommendations of the committee had long-term consequences that were good for Chinese education and good also for harmony in a multiracial society. But they threatened the future of the communists.
About 90 per cent of all adult Chinese were Chinese-educated – if educated at all. But the number of Chinese children going to English schools had been growing dramatically since 1948, when the Emergency was declared. In 1950, there were 25,000 more students in Chinese schools than there were in English schools, but by 1955 the ratio had changed, and there were 5,000 more students in English schools than in Chinese schools. Although the communists did not know the exact figures, they were aware of the trend, and since it would dry up their breeding grounds, they had to halt it. So the battle for the preservation of Chinese education became even more crucial for the MCP.
The problem for the government and for the non-communists in the PAP was complicated by the fact that Chinese culture was also dear to the hearts of many parents, who were therefore not enthusiastic about the introduction of English into Chinese schools. All their administrative costs would be paid by the government, but in return the schools would have to comply with government regulations on syllabuses and discipline. And anyway, they wanted the teaching to be completely in Chinese.
True, about half of them wanted to have it both ways. Many clan leaders on the management committees of Chinese schools placed their own children in English schools and gave them Chinese lessons in the afternoons, to make them bilingual. At the same time they exhorted other parents to send their offspring to Chinese schools in order to carry on the tradition of classical Chinese scholarship. There was no way of satisfying everyone. The government therefore needed a report from the committee, on which I represented the PAP, that would commit all parties to its findings, so that we would all be obliged to undertake the task of persuading the Chinese-speaking ground to accept it. This gave me the opportunity to shape it, but it also exposed me to the grave danger of having to fight the MCP over a matter vital to its survival.