Page:British hansard (1963) Malaysia bill.djvu/5

 What he said about the rôle of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is worthy of emphasis. It is interesting that this is no longer a sort of United Kingdom dominated body. In fact, the C.P.A. in this connection was representing the Parliaments of that part of the world, and the capacity of the C.P.A. to produce relationships between members without their all passing through the United Kingdom is very important and significant for the character of the developing Commonwealth.

We support the Bill and we will facilitate its passage. Like the hon. Gentleman, I do not intend to go into details about the Measure which seems to me of the standard kind in this sort of situa- 930 tion. I shall take up in the course of my remarks most of the points that he made.

The Labour Party has always advocated the federation of smaller territories wherever that can be voluntarily achieved as being the only way in which very small territories can achieve the genuine and real independence which, of course, we want for them. A few years ago, the Labour Party advocated a federation very much along the present lines in a publication that it issued.

It is never easy to federate. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. No federation is easy to launch and get under way. We have had the example of the West Indies which started with a fair wind and which has come to temporary grief. It is, I believe, not widely enough known how difficult it was for the Canadians, the Australians and others to launch federations and get them going. They took a long time; there were a lot of boss shots. It is an extremely difficult thing to do.

Malaysia will, of course, meet the kind of problem that attends the launching of any Federation. It will be particularly difficult, for a number of special reasons, in this case.

The Federation of Malaysia, in which the rest is being fitted, is a very tight, centralised federation. There is a tremendous concentration of power at the centre. I think that the fitting in of the new States has been fairly and elegantly done. It has been a very good operation. In addition to the normal dissensions, disagreements and jealousies between the units that come together in any Federation, there are in this case racial problems, too.

There was inevitably very hard bargaining. we all knew that at one moment the; discussions here were in some double and we were very glad that they came through. I agree that very great statesmanship has been shown by all the leaders concerned. Singapore has made very many concessions to get this Federation going. It has achieved, on the other hand, a common market, autonomy to a considerable extent, and so on. Malaya has also agreed, in a very statesmanlike way, to overrepresentation of the other smaller units in the Federal Parliament.

The main difficulties arise out of the peculiar political and geographical situation of this Federation. It is happening in South-East Asia which is the most dangerous part of the world at the moment. It is an area of very delicate balance for world peace; a balance which if upset might involve the world in war. It is a point of intersection, too, of Soviet Union relationships both with the West and with China. It is a very difficult and delicate part of the world. China is pushing out the influence both of the Soviet Union and of India and is taking all the advantage it can to press forward. Therefore, this area is extremely delicately and possibly unstably balanced. It is because Malaysia can bring a factor of stability to this area that the formation of this Federation at this time is particularly to be welcomed.

Indeed, one must say that it is because of the dangerous part of the world in which this is happening that a good deal of the local support for federation has been generated and has come out of this very situation. But also, of course, the opposition to it has been generated by the same factors. One has here, I think, to distinguish between genuine, democratic elements in opposition to this, and others. There are genuine, reasonable, democratic elements of opposition to Malaysia—opposition based on legitimate, vested interests, both economic and racial, and the sort of opposition that arises to any federation. No federation has ever been launched without very considerable minority opposition. For these reasons one must consider the legitimate arguments.