THE LIMITS OF LATE-COLONIAL INTERVENTION

Abstract

The nurture of a ‘moderate’ trade union movement during the 1950s was a key element in British strategy for defeating communist insurgency in colonial Southeast Asia, and has often been taken as evidence of Britain's successfully ‘managed’ decolonisation of both the Federation of Malaya and Singapore. Supposedly, one of the lasting influences of the Emergency period has been weak labour organisations, subject to high levels of state scrutiny and control. This article takes a different tack, however. For one, divisions between business and government, and within the colonial administration, limited the effectiveness of late-colonial intervention in the labour field. Moreover, the tendencies for unions to be communally based in the Federation and politically affiliated in Singapore were not expected or welcomed by British officialdom. This new narrative might provide a Southeast Asian parallel to Frederick Cooper's ‘disengagement’ thesis for late-colonial Africa: the ‘new imperialism’ after the Second World War unwittingly led to the costs of managing labour becoming unbearable for the late-colonials. Yet, paradoxically, the more that British mandarins lost control of the trade union movement in Malaya, against the backdrop of decolonisation, the more they sought to maintain influence in post-colonial labour affairs.

Notes

¹The National Archives, Kew, London (hereafter TNA), CO 859/147/2, savingram from high commissioner to secretary of state for the colonies, 23 February 1949; savingram from governor of Singapore to secretary of state, 23 March 1949 enclosing memorandum by Brazier, 4 February 1949; minute by Morris for Cruchley, 19 April 1949.

²TNA, PREM 8/1406/2, DO (50) 94, ‘Political and economic background to the situation in Malaya’, memorandum for the Cabinet Defence Committee, 15 November 1950 reproduced in Stockwell (1995b: 268).

³TNA, CO 1022/120, E. Parry to L.H.N. Davis, member for industrial and social relations, Federation of Malaya, 30 March 1953.

⁴Ramasamy (1994: 80, 97–110). A more sympathetic account of the NUPW's early years can be found in Gamba (1962a).

⁶Ibid.

⁵TNA, CO 859/147/2, copy of telegram to secretary of state, 27 January 1950; Higham to Gurney, 4 February 1950.

⁷TNA, CO 859/185/3, Higham to Gurney, 22 May 1951.

⁸Guildhall Library, London, RGA council minutes, Ms. 24863/64, 15 April 1954, report of Malaya committee; Ms. 24863/68, 4 November 1957; interview with Straits Times, 4 February 1958.

⁹TNA, CO 1022/121, minutes by Webster and MacKintosh, 21 May 1953. ‘Everywhere’ union leaders ‘express the highest regard for H[is] E[xcellency] and they seem to expect that he should stand between them and their employers’ reported the CO's E. Parry on a visit to the Federation in March 1953. Parry was ‘sure’, however, that ‘H.E. would agree that this is not a healthy development’. CO 1022/120, letter to Davis, 30 March 1953.

¹⁰TNA, CO 859/346, extract from Straits Budgets, 23 July 1953 reporting Federation of Malaya Legislative Council debate, 16 July 1953.

¹¹TNA, CO 1022/121, minute by Barltrop for MacKintosh, 11 August 1953; White (1996: 127–28 n. 57).

¹²TNA, CO 859/769, MacGillivray to MacKintosh, 3 September 1955 enclosing notes on meeting between Lennox-Boyd and representatives of the MTUC, 1 September 1955.

¹³See material for 1960 in TNA, DO 35/9979.

¹⁴Arkib Negara Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, SP 95/B/11, secretary, UPAM to chairs of member state associations, 8 January 1965; minutes of the UPAM planting section, 19 February 1965.

¹⁵TNA, CO 859/769, Meredyth Hyde-Clarke, Overseas' Employers' Federation to O.H. Morris, 23 November 1955 enclosing extracts from notes of a meeting of representatives of the Malayan Mining Employers' Association with Mr E.W. Barltrop, Ipoh, 8 November 1955; minute by Morris, 28 November 1955; minute by Barltrop for Morris, 7 February 1956.

¹⁶Leong (1992: 73). This is a central argument too of Leong's monograph: ‘the colonial government was the major determinant in shaping the growth of a job-oriented labour movement that would be amenable to government dictates’ (1999: 311).

¹⁷TNA, CO 859/147/2, Newboult, Kuala Lumpur to Higham, 14 March 1949.

¹⁸See, for example, TNA, CO 859/147/2, chief secretary, Federation of Malaya to the under secretary of state for the colonies, 26 February 1949 enclosing reports by Brazier, November and December 1948; CO 859/185/2, chief secretary, Federation to under secretary of state, 27 April 1950 enclosing Brazier's report for first quarter 1950.

¹⁹TNA, CO 1022/120, letter to Davis, 30 March 1953.

²⁰TNA, CO 859/185/3, Palmer to Sir Hilton Poynton, CO, 11 June 1951.

²¹Ibid. minute by Watson for Higham, 26 July 1951.

²²TNA, CO 717/195/1, minute by Higham for Gidden, 18 January 1950 reporting discussion with Gimson.

²³Interview with Charles Gamba, April 1957, Kuala Lumpur cited in Gamba (1962b: 359).

²⁴TNA, CO 859/185/3, confidential note by Watson for Paskin, 24 November 1951; minute by Watson for Higham, 28 November 1951; Higham to del Tufo, Federation of Malaya, 30 November 1951.

²⁵TNA, CO 1022/121, minute by Webster, 21 May 1953.

²⁶TNA, CO 1022/120, Parry to Barltrop, date obscured but c. May 1953.

²⁷See material in TNA, CO 859/770.

²⁸White (1996: 228–29); TNA, CO 1030/366, memorandums of 18 and 24 May 1955; CO 1030/367, letter to Barltrop, 30 September 1955. See also Low (2004).

²⁹TNA, CO 1030/365, letter to MacKintosh, 24 February 1956. See also Leong (1999: 284) on Singapore influences on the mainland.

³³TNA, CO 1030/761, minute by Wallace for Melville, Carstairs and Martin, 26 October 1959.

³⁰TNA, CO 1030/366, W.A. Goode, officer administering the government, Singapore to Alan Lennox-Boyd, 22 June 1955; savingram from the governor of Singapore to secretary of state, 2 September 1955; CO 859/1142, Registry of Trade Unions quarterly report, first quarter 1957 enclosed with chief secretary to under secretary of state, 10 May 1957.

³¹TNA, CO 1030/761, copy of S.A. Priddle to A.G. Wallis, Ministry of Labour and National Service, 15 June 1959 reporting a conversation with K.M. Byrne, PAP minister for labour and law.

³²Ibid.

³⁴TNA, CO 859/148/3, despatch to secretary of state, 25 April 1949. In obstructing the activities in the labour field of both the Indian National Trades Union Congress and the Malayan Chinese Association, the colonial administration in Kuala Lumpur showed itself consistently opposed to the creation of ‘racially exclusive’ unions. (Leong 1999: 244, 276).

³⁵Stockwell (1995a: lxviii, lxix, lxxi); TNA, CO 859/185/2, Gurney to Higham, 3 April 1950 enclosing confidential report by Brazier. Narayanan, president of the MTUC at the time of the IMP's formation, was appointed an executive member of the organising committee of the non-communal party in 1951. Leong (1999: 273).

³⁶TNA, CO 859/185/2, minutes by Foggon and Higham, 6 and 7 June 1950.

³⁷Ramasamy (1994: 113); Leong (1999: 286–87); TNA, CO 717/195/1, minutes by Morris and Foggon, 30 December 1949 and 2 January 1950. Between 1955 and 1956, Tan and like-minded colleagues had also attempted to form a miners' union in Perak, Selangor and the East coast states, as well as the Federation of Trade Union Congresses as a rival to the Indian-dominated MTUC – ‘a Chinese T. U. C.’ as the CO's labour adviser put it. CO 1030/365, Minute by Barltrop for Morris, 7 February 1956; Jomo and Todd (1994: 99–100); Leong (1999: 285).

³⁸TNA, CO 859/185/2, paper by Higham prepared for the Cabinet Malaya Committee, June 1950; CO 859/185/2, secret report by Brazier on ‘Malayan Trade Union Delegate Conference, 25th and 26th March 1950’, 29 March 1950 enclosed in Gurney to Higham, 3 April 1950; minute by Smallman for Foggon, 8 May 1950.

³⁹TNA, CO 859/273, Victor Purcell to Sir John Martin, 21 June 1952; copy of CLAC (53) 55 minutes, 18 June 1953. Cambridge don Purcell was a member of the Colonial Labour Advisory Committee; CO 859/185/2, Higham paper.

⁴⁰TNA, CO 859/769, enclosure in Hyde-Clarke to Morris, 23 November 1955.

⁴¹TNA, CO 859/1143, minute, 24 May 1957 (author unclear).

⁴²TNA, CO 859/1146, Goode to Hennings, 27 April 1959.

⁴³TNA, CO 859/183/4, extract from Federation of Malaya political report for April 1950.

⁴⁴TNA, CO 1030/367, Black to MacKintosh, 28 February 1956 enclosing secret note by acting permanent secretary, Ministry of Labour and Welfare.

⁴⁵TNA, CO 859/185/2, chief secretary, Federation of Malaya to under secretary of state, 20 October 1950 enclosing Brazier's report for the third quarter of 1950.

⁴⁶TNA, CO 1022/121, Sir Thomas Lloyd to Templer, 23 December 1953. Templer had denounced Bavin's ‘near communist attitude’ which might encourage the MCP to enter the dispute. See Leong (1999: 271).

⁴⁷TNA, CO 859/1143, report for second quarter 1957. Caddick, formerly of Britain's National Union of Printing, had been Brazier's deputy to 1955 responsible for northern Malaya and based in Penang.

⁴⁸TNA, DO 35/9979, Cowan to G.W. Tory, High Commissioner, Federation of Malaya, 6 September 1957.

⁴⁹Ibid., Priddle to A. J. Brown, UK High Commission, Kuala Lumpur, 4 March 1960. Priddle had earlier warned that ‘If the moderate MTUC does not gain their [i.e. Chinese tin-mining, engineering, road transport and factory employees] support, others will … [T]he emergence of a Chinese and left-wing dominated trade union movement, in opposition to the MTUC, cannot be entirely ruled out.’ Ibid., confidential note, November 1959.

⁵⁰TNA, CO 1030/728, telegram from the governor of Singapore to secretary of state, 15 November 1958; minute by Hennings, 20 November 1958.

⁵¹TNA CO 1030/761, copy of letter to West, 17 December 1959.

⁵²Stockwell (1995a: lxxiv, lxxix-lxxx); Stockwell (1986); White (2003: 222–27). In a critique of Cooper's ‘disengagement’ thesis, Bill Freund has pointed out that for many parts of Africa ‘the 1950s witnessed new prosperity in the expansion of base-metals mining … as well as in the increasing realisation of the possibilities of capitalist forms of agricultural exploitation … in Nigeria, and more dramatically Algeria, decolonization was accompanied by dramatic oil discoveries of strategic and economic significance’ (1997: 517).

⁵³TNA, CO 859/1146, minute of 27 March 1957; see also CO 1030/365, MacGillivray to J.B. Johnston, 16 November 1956 and CO 1030/367, copy of Barltrop to Black, 20 September 1955.

⁵⁴TNA, CO 859/1143, office of the trade union adviser, Federation of Malaya, report for first quarter 1957.

⁵⁵TNA, CO 859/1144, MacGillivray to Johnston, 2 April 1957 and attached letter from Sambanthan, 30 March 1957; Gibbs, CO to Newsam, CRO, 11 June 1957 and reply of 2 July. For Singapore see CO 859/1146, minutes by Gibbs and Foggon, 27 October 1958 and 4 February 1959; J.D. Hennings, CO to Sir William Goode, governor of Singapore, 31 March 1959 and reply of 27 April.

⁵⁶TNA, CO 859/1144, Gibbs to Newsam, 11 June 1957.

⁵⁷TNA, CO 859/769, enclosure in Hyde-Clarke to Morris, 23 November 1955; minute by Morris, 28 November 1955; Cambridge University Library, Barlow papers, 63/855, Sir John to Tom Barlow, 29 September 1966.