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By Root 2734 0

play a more active part in it. ‘You’ll be lending us a hand, won’t you, Major?’ he asked with a winning smile, and he went on to emphasize the great importance which the Governor himself was placing on this event, as he happened to know for a fact, just having come this moment from Government House. To cut a long story short Sir Shenton was absolutely relying on this parade to keep up the morale of the Straits Settlements at this dire turning-point in their history … ‘And he expects every one of us, Major, to put his shoulder to the wheel,’ he was obliged to add, seeing that the Major was still showing signs of reluctance. Although work on the floats was well in hand there was still a great deal to be done in the way of organization. As soon as Matthew Webb had come to his senses again, every pressure must be exerted on him in order to persuade him to take the place that his father would have occupied had he lived: that is to say, he would have to sit on the throne as the symbol of Continuity and, no less essential, deliver a keynote speech on Prosperity as it affected workers of all races in the Colony.

Since the Major still hesitated and hung back, murmuring that he had a great deal to do in organizing his AFS unit and carrying the burden of his Committee for Civil Defence, Walter launched into an enthusiastic description of the way in which their plans for a parade had evolved into something more impressive: Blackett and Webb’s jubilee parade would not only be a patriotic cavalcade of a magnificence rarely seen, it would also be a living diagram, as it were, of the Colony’s economy in miniature, since the company was involved at least to some extent in every one of Malaya’s principle trading and productive activities (though only indirectly in tin-mining and no longer to a great extent in the entrepôt business) … ‘With the exception of palm-oil,’ he muttered as an afterthought, looking uneasy. The Major was surprised to notice the look of uncertainty which passed fleetingly over Walter’s commanding features. Walter coughed in a harassed sort of way and scratched the back of his head … but the next moment he was off again, brimming with confidence as he explained his ‘grand design’ to the Major.

The old idea, as the Major might remember, had been to have a series of floats depicting Blackett and Webb’s commercial ventures, plus a few of the dragons that are de rigueur in any Chinese festival, a brass band or two and the usual fireworks. But, one of his brighter young executives had suggested, since the idea of the parade was partly to instruct, should they not broaden their scope in order to include some of the hazards which these commercial ventures had had to overcome, and still were having to overcome? A brilliant notion! In this way the idea of a counter-parade to accompany the parade had been born. And so what was now projected was to have Chinese acrobats, schoolboys, and volunteers of all races dress up in appropriate costumes as devils and imps accompanying the main procession, tumbling and turning cartwheels and playing pranks on the crowd, squirting water over them and so forth. Did the Major not think that was an idea of genius? These imps and devils would carry pitchforks to prod maliciously at the characters of Continuity and Prosperity, throwing banana skins in front of them and so on. And, of course, they would wear placards identifying them as the particular enemies of Continuity and Prosperity. Thus there would be imps and devils representing: ‘Labour Unrest’, ‘Rice Hoarding’, ‘Japanese Aggression’, ‘Wage Demands’ (what a fearful lot of banana skins this devil would scatter in front of Blackett and Webb’s proud floats!), ‘Foolish Talk’, ‘International Communism’, ‘Fraudulent Accountancy’ (a great trick of the Chinese businessman who habitually keeps two sets of books), ‘Racial Enmity’, ‘Corruption and Squeeze’, ‘Slander Against Government and British Empire’, ‘Slander Against Private Enterprise’, ‘Irresponsible Strikes’ and many, many more: indeed, there were so many possibilities that they must be careful