§ 3.34 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, perhaps I may intervene for a few moments in order to make a statement similar to that being made in another place by the Colonial Secretary. My right honourable friend greatly regrets to have to report that the Singapore Constitutional Conference ended yesterday without reaching agreement. Her Majesty's Government have been trying in the Conference to find a Constitution for Singapore which would satisfy the aspirations of its people: and which would at the same time take proper account both of Singapore's importance in the defence system of the free world, and of the vulnerability of her mercantile and political life.
Her Majesty's Government offered such a Constitution to the delegation. It gave them the widest possible measure of internal self-government, the conduct of their own external affairs in trade and commerce, and an agreed solution to their citizenship problem which would have created a citizenship for Singapore equivalent to that enjoyed by the fully self-governing members of the Commonwealth. Her Majesty's Government considered it necessary to retain, as a safeguard, the power to make Orders in Council for Singapore: but were willing to limit this power to matters affecting United Kingdom responsibilities for external defence and external affairs. This Constitution was refused by the majority of the delegation.
Both sides agreed that the control of external affairs (other than trade and 472 commerce), and the control of external defence, should remain with the United Kingdom Government. But the majority of the delegation would not agree that any powers to act in Singapore (except within demarcated Defence establishments) should remain in the discretion of the United Kingdom Government, other than the right in the last resort to take the repugnant step of suspending the Constitution and assuming direct responsibility for the whole machinery of government in the Island. This was not a position Her Majesty's Government could accept.
It would not be possible in the space of this statement to do justice to the details and complexities of the constitutional arrangements discussed. My right honourable friend has therefore decided to set out the constitutional proposals and counter-proposals which were considered by the Conference in a White Paper, so that they may receive the careful study they deserve. I will only say now that I am certain many people in Singapore will regret that the majority of the delegation would not accept the imaginative and constructive proposals that were made to them. But no doors are closed, and my right honourable friend hopes that moderation and good sense will recognise in these proposals a basis on which fruitful negotiations can yet take place.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for having made this statement to your Lordships. I am sure that the expression of regret in the first paragraph at the breakdown of this Conference will be shared by every quarter of your Lordships' House. I welcome the sentiment in the last part of the noble Earl's statement, that the doors are not closed, and the hope expressed that there will yet be opportunity for negotiations. I trust not merely that people in this country will take note of that, but also that those who have been over here on the delegation from Singapore will keep it very well in mind, because otherwise the consequences appear to us, at first sight at any rate, to be likely to give rise to possible great dangers.
There is only one other thing I would mention at the moment before saying that 473 I should like to see the White Paper as soon as possible—I hope the issue of it will not be long delayed, because the matter is urgent—and that is the point to which the noble Earl referred and which, to my mind, seems to be the main cause of the breakdown of the Conference: that it was not possible for Her Majesty's Government to accept a compromise with regard to the maintenance of internal security. Insistence was placed upon the power to issue directly from the Government Orders in Council and the like with regard to certain internal questions. The compromise offered them—that of suspending the Constitution—was not accepted. In the light of what was the constitutional position and the actual action taken in the case of British Guiana, perhaps the noble Earl could tell us whether I am right in suggesting that this was the main point on which the Conference broke down. That compromise, apparently, was offered from the delegation side, and we do not quite understand yet why it could not be accepted.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERMy Lords, may I reply to the noble Viscount's last question first? What the delegation proposed at the last minute was that they would agree to the retention by the United Kingdom Government of powers to make Orders in Council provided that they were used only on the recommendation of this Council and that Her Majesty's Government in this country should have no say in the appointment of a chairman, who, they suggested, should be nominated by the Government of the Federation of Malaya. The effect of that proposal, if it had been accepted, would have been that the exercise of the United Kingdom Government's powers, restricted though they were to the specific responsibilities of the Government at home, would have been completely divorced from the United Kingdom Government's own judgment of the situation. That was something which Her Majesty's Government in this country felt they could not possibly accept.
§ EARL ATTLEEMy Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether there is not in this matter a danger of losing the substance for a shadow by insisting on putting into the Constitution safeguards which run against the very strong feelings of nationalists, and particularly Asian 474 nationalists? The Government are putting in something which may jeopardise the chances of getting a Government in Ceylon working wholeheartedly with Britain. The danger seems to me that, by insisting on military safeguards, they are losing the ideological battle in South East Asia. Victory in that battle depends far more on keeping popular feeling on our side, which we can do, than on merely some safeguard which I suggest would prove illusory in the long run because it would lead to the suspension of the Constitution if we could not work with them; and then interim safeguards are really not much use.
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERI do not think I would agree by any means with the observations which have fallen from the noble Earl. It will be remembered that the statement I have just made says that it was agreed that Her Majesty's Government should control external affairs and external defence, and the safeguards which it was intended to insert within the Agreement, if one had been drawn up, were entirely to cover those two specific points.
§ VISCOUNT STANSGATEIf Mr. Marshall resigns when he returns to Singapore, who well be called upon to take his place?
§ THE EARL OF MUNSTERThat is a matter of machinery already in operation under the normal Constitution which is governing Singapore at the present time.