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By Root 4414 0

British Malaya. A Malay, Ismail Moh’d Ali, who had written to The Times to defend the Malay rulers, had invoked the spirit of the ‘late Sir Frank Swettenham’. ‘May I point out’, shot back the reply, ‘that, if late, I am still in time to be your obedient servant, Frank Swettenham’. Swettenham’s career was outstanding in British imperial history in that it lasted so long and was made in one place. He was involved in the initial British acquisition of rights in the peninsula in 1874; he presided over the creation of the Federated Malay States in 1895, and had largely created the term of art, ‘Malaya’. He died, aged ninety-six, in early June 1946, engaged in an impassioned defence of the Malay sovereignty he had done so much to undermine.67 As Malay protests escalated, Swettenham and other ‘old Malaya’ hands warned the Colonial Office that if there was delay in revoking the Union: ‘we would have Indonesia’.68 On 12 April a further ‘Proconsul’s letter’ was published in The Times, in which the surviving architects of ‘British Malaya’ spoke with a rare authority and unanimity. They deplored the lack of time for consultation and argued that some of the rulers had merely seen the document as an affirmation of loyalty after the occupation.69 They were preparing the ground for a visit of the sultans to London. The Colonial Office viewed the arrival of these colourful figures and their entourages with mounting trepidation. In the House of Commons, even Tom Driberg, while admitting that he cared little for sultans, announced that he could not support the Union.

The spectre of Indonesia loomed large in the mind of the British in Malaya. There were continual intelligence reports, not all of them accurate, of Indonesian-style militias crossing into the peninsula. Sir Edward Gent was now alarmed that Malay non-cooperation might paralyse the police, with its overwhelmingly Malay rank and file, at a time when the British regime was facing threats on every side. He was under no illusion about the scale of the protest: it was not orchestrated by the Malay elite, he concluded; the sultans were facing genuine popular pressure. On 4 May Gent sent a remarkable telegram to George Hall which urged the secretary of state to accept the federal proposals, in the face of ‘surprising but real’ Malay unity on the issue, and the threat proposed by Malay civil disobedience. Hall was astounded: ‘I confess that your sudden and fundamental change of attitude has come as a great shock to me.’ Gent was seeking to overturn a policy that been agreed by both cabinet and Parliament and sealed by binding treaties. Hall demanded further and fresh assessments of the situation. He asked two MPs who had been on a mission to Sarawak to divert to Malaya: David Rees-Williams, a former Penang lawyer, and the Conservative and unofficial ‘Member for Malaya’, Captain L. D. Gammans. Gammans journeyed up the west coast to Onn’s stronghold of Batu Pahat and along the way was met with several well-orchestrated demonstrations in which women played a prominent role. Both men attended a conference of UMNO and the rulers at Kuala Kangsar and were deeply impressed by its resolve. But more decisively, in May 1946 Attlee appointed another senior imperial statesman to try to knock British Southeast Asia into some kind of shape. Malcolm MacDonald, son of former Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald and previously High Commissioner of Canada, was, under the new constitutional arrangements, to be the first Governor General of British Southeast Asia. It was an unprecedented position. MacDonald was to co-ordinate policy across the region, but had the power to direct governors. Although he was reluctant to be seen to be superseding Gent’s authority, MacDonald was instructed to adjudicate the fate of the new constitution. Within five days of his arrival in Singapore on 21 May, MacDonald had come to the conclusion that it must be abandoned and quickly. Malay opinion was ‘solid’. He praised Gent’s ‘courage, honesty and capacity’. But what was perhaps most persuasive was MacDonald’s fear of the