Hansard, 1955-11-24

asked the Chief Secretary what were the reasons for the refusal to register the Singapore Seletar Chinese Old Boys' Association.

The hon. Member is misinformed. The Registrar of Societies is awaiting a reply from the President of the proposed Association to a letter dated 19th September.

Is the Chief Secretary aware that the Registrar of Societies had, in fact, refused to register this Association unless some conditions were accepted?

As far as I am aware, the Registrar has not refused. He has requested the President to amend one of the rules of the proposed Association and he has had no reply to his suggestion.

Is the Chief Secretary aware that the proposed Association has refused to comply with this condition?

No, Sir.

asked the Minister for Communications and Works what action he has taken on the complaint by the Singapore Bus Workers' Union regarding a certain Bus Company employing excess workers for the purpose of strike-breaking.

I have informed the Singapore Bus Workers' Union that bus workers are licensed by the Registrar of Vehicles - a City Council employee.

Will the Minister consider asking the City Council to stop providing badges for the new recruitment because, to my knowledge, the recruitment of new hands is entirely for strike-breaking?

It is entirely a new question.

May I ask a supplementary question, Sir?

Yes, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

Will the Minister for Transport inform us what he considers is a just solution to this dispute?

That is asking for an opinion.

Has he made up his mind on what he proposes to do about this dispute?

If the hon. leader of the People's Action Party cannot inform himself of my title, he will continue to make mistakes as to my functions. I am not the Minister for Transport. He might have learnt that if he had studied his Estimates. If he had studied anything, he might have learnt that I am not the Minister for Transport, that I have no powers to deal with transport-strikes, disputes, issue of licences. They are all matters which are handled by other authorities.

asked the Minister for Labour and Welfare whether he will explain what policy he adopts towards employers of labour who refuse to negotiate with Unions which represent the majority of their employees and give recognition only to a Union representing a minority.

The recognition of trade unions by employers is a matter for employers themselves. I have no powers to compel an employer to negotiate with any union, whether the union can substantiate a claim to represent a majority of employees or not, to the exclusion of other unions. It is a policy of my Ministry, however, to encourage employers to negotiate with trade unions which clearly represent effectively a majority of their employees, or even clearly defined sections of their employees. The ultimate decision rests with the employer who may be faced with all the damaging results of inter-trade-union warfare if he comes to a wrong decision. I would mention, for the information of this Assembly, that the question of recasting the law affecting industrial relations is under consideration.

asked the Minister for Labour and Welfare whether he will reconsider his decision not to appoint a Court of Inquiry to investigate the causes of the dispute between the United Engineers Ltd. and its striking employees; and whether he will order such an immediate Inquiry, and cause the findings of this Inquiry to be published for public information.

In order to answer this question, Sir, I have reconsidered my decision not to appoint a Court of Inquiry to investigate the causes of the dispute between the United Engineers Ltd. and its striking employees. I consider that the facts of the dispute are generally sufficiently well-known not to require the appointment of a Court of Inquiry to establish them. I also consider that the dispute does not involve any matters of vital interest to Singapore, and that the circumstances do not merit the setting up of a Court of Inquiry.

Does the Minister for Labour consider that a peaceful strike is a matter which does not affect the vital interests of Singapore?

As I have said, Sir, the circumstances that led to this strike are well-known to the public of Singapore, and those circumstances do not merit the setting up of a Court of Inquiry.

Does the Minister for Labour propose to wait until there is a riot before he institutes a Court of Inquiry?

Sir, there is no existing issue of a vital character that affects the interests of the public.

asked the Minister for Labour and Welfare whether he is aware that from the workers' point of view the provisions relating to picketing in the local Trade Disputes Ordinance are susceptible of improvement; and whether he will consider introducing legislation to bring the provisions of the local Trade Disputes Ordinance into line with the Trade Disputes Act in force in the United Kingdom.

I would explain that the Trade Disputes Ordinance legalises strikes and other actions by trade unions and striking employees which, because they do damage to an employer's trade or business, might otherwise be criminal offences. Another aspect of this Ordinance is that it codifies the powers of picketing. In this connection, I note that certain pseudo trade unionists are repeatedly blaming the Police for interfering with what they call peaceful picketing. I should like to take this opportunity to stress that in their interpretation of the Trade Disputes Ordinance, which is a perfectly clear law, the Police are not depriving strikers of their lawful right to carry on picketing in a peaceful manner, and that they are solely concerned with the enforcement of the law on obstruction, intimidation, or behaviour calculated to lead to a breach of the peace. The Government will carefully consider not only any constructive suggestions for improvement of the Ordinance from the point of view of the workers, but will also be obliged to take into consideration the views of employers and also considerations of public safety. In regard to the second part of the question, I can assure the Member for Bukit Timah that the question of amending the Trade Disputes Ordinance has been occupying my mind for some time. But I must say that I am only prepared to introduce amending legislation if I consider the interests of Singapore require it, and not merely because the legislation has been enacted elsewhere.

Does the Minister for Labour realise that the legislation which is now in force in this Colony was enacted here because it was enacted elsewhere, copied therefrom?

Sir, two wrongs do not make one right!

Will the Minister for Labour tell us what he meant by a pseudo trade unionist?

Please look up the dictionary!

It does not answer the question.

asked the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing whether he will consider introducing legislation to obtain security of tenure for farmers who at present occupy Crown Land under temporary Occupation Licences, in order to put such land into more productive use.

Authority to issue leases for Crown land exists under the Crown Lands Ordinance and the rules made thereunder. The Master Plan for Singapore, which will be published on the 3rd of January next, will indicate what areas of the island are to be reserved for agriculture, and it is the intention to give security of tenure to all farmers occupying Crown land in these areas by issuing to them leases on such terms relating to development and proper cultivation as may be considered necessary.

Copies of Government's invitation to tender for the provision of a television service and tenders received in response to this have been laid before the Assembly for the information of Members as Sessional Paper Cmd. 32 of 1955. The Government will provide an opportunity for a debate on the question of the establishment of commercial television in Singapore on the 8th of February, 1956.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to move that the Assembly, at its rising today, do adjourn, if the business is uncompleted, to tomorrow, the 25th of November, and, if completed, to the 8th of February, 1956.

Sir, I second the motion. Question proposed.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I move that that motion be taken in two parts? The Chief Minister is suggesting that we give a vote on the wishes of the Government that, if the business is not completed, we will go on tomorrow, but that if it is, then the Chief Minister would not like to proceed to business, of which notice has already been given, for tomorrow. I would ask that the motion by the Chief Minister be put in two parts so that those Members of this House, who feel that in any case the Assembly should go on till tomorrow, could vote on that motion.

Sir, may I speak on that?

Yes, certainly.

It is not the intention on the part of the Government to try to avoid any business that was laid down. The business for this sitting, Sir, has been adumbrated a long time ago. Hon. Members have had opportunities to place such motions and questions as they wished for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. They wished to place it for Friday and took the risk that there is no business on Thursday. Surely they take their own risk, but I would like to add this: that if the leaders of the Parties on the Opposition Benches feel generally that they would, in spite of the fact that there is little business to be done tomorrow, nevertheless like to sit tomorrow to consider the little business that is set down for tomorrow, Government wishes to take no exception to that procedure. I would rather that there should be agreement on this than that we should take a vote on the subject. If the leaders of the Opposition Parties would indicate their wishes, I am quite prepared to fall in with them.

Sir, I can speak on behalf of the Opposition Members on this side of the House that they are of the opinion that, in any event, the business which is down for tomorrow should be proceeded with.

In that case, Sir, may I then withdraw my original motion which should now stand, That at its rising today the Assembly do stand adjourned till Friday, 25th November, 1955.

Have I the assent of the Assembly that the original motion be withdrawn? Hon. Members: Yes. Original motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Can I have a seconder to the substituted motion?

I second it.

Question put, and agreed to. Resolved, That at its rising today the Assembly do stand adjourned till Friday, 25th November, 1955.

Order for Committee of Supply read: [3rd Allotted Day]

Head 46 -

We were on Head 46 when the moment of interruption arrived. I will first propose the Question again. Question again proposed, "That the sum of $1,046,870 for Head 46 stand part of the Schedule."

Question put, and agreed to. The sum of $1,046,870 for Head 46 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 47 - The following amendments stood in the name of Mr Lim Koon Teck - To reduce by $3,600 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 2 (4), Transport and Travelling, on page 163 of the Estimates. To reduce by $2,000 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 3, Entertainment Expenses, on page 163 of the Estimates.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I withdraw the two amendments standing in my name under this head.

The hon. Member is not proposing the amendments?

No, Sir. The sum of $104,950 for Head 47 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 48 - The following amendment stood in the name of Mr Lee Kuan Yew - To reduce by $600 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (3), Chief Inspector of Schools, Grade E, on page 164 of the Estimates.

Mr Chairman, Sir, Standing Orders stand in the way of my amendment being proceeded with, and I do not propose to move.

Is this the one affected by Standing Order 31 (3) ?

Yes, Sir.

On a point of order, Sir.

Yes, Mr Chief Secretary?

I think there may have been some misapprehension yesterday as to under which of the Standing Orders your ruling in respect of some of these motions that were mentioned en-bloc by my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General (Mr Butterfield) is being taken. I think there was, in fact, only one motion mentioned yesterday taken under Standing Order 33 (1) (b) and one under 33 (1) (c), on the grounds that His Excellency the Governor's consent had not been obtained. The other motion under Head 32, which was to reduce by $600 the sum to be allotted in respect of Deputy Secretary to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was under Standing Order 31 (3), as in the case of the motion under Head 48. Standing Order 31 (3) does, of course, bar the Assembly from reconsidering any specific question upon which the Assembly has come to a conclusion during a current session except on a substantive motion for rescission; whereas Standing Order 33 (1) (b) is designed for the protection of the public service, not, I would emphasise, of the expatriate service, but of the public service from the humblest peon to the highest officer. Question proposed, "That the sum of $46,676,910 for Head 48 stand part of the Schedule."

Mr Chairman, Sir, when speaking in this House on the Second Reading, I made three main points when referring to education. Firstly, that the Government should find ways and means of reducing the cost of primary school buildings so that the money available can be made to stretch further. Secondly, that the absence of any new provision for the building of secondary schools was a glaring omission; and thirdly, that there was no indication in the Government's programme that there was to be any early reorientation in educational policy. As regards the first point, I do not think that there is any need to repeat myself or elaborate, except to make quite clear that we are against the cutting down of the primary school building programme as far as the number of schools is concerned. What we feel convinced about is that there can be a considerable reduction in building costs, but I cannot believe that plans are too far ahead, as far as the 1956 programme is concerned, to prevent the necessary action being taken. Let me repeat once more, that this problem should be the special concern of an Estimates Committee of this House, and for some reason or another, which needs explaining, the Government appears to have been extremely reluctant to set up this Committee.

That is not true.

As far as secondary education is concerned, Sir, I am still not convinced that all is well. A fortnight ago the Minister stated categorically that six schools would be completed in 1956. On Monday last he was candid enough to say that only two would be completed, if I understood him, and later the Financial Secretary corrected him and made it four. Whatever the meaning of these apparent contradictions, we are faced already this year with about 2,000 students having to be failed in an examination for entry to secondary schools, not because of lack of skill, but because there is no accommodation for them. It is true, of course, that some of these rejected students will find their way into the new technical schools, the junior technical school, into aided schools, or Chinese schools. Some, of course, are not of a high enough intellectual standard to benefit from secondary education and will leave school to join family businesses and so on. But the balance of students remaining who need secondary education from January and will not get it is still formidable. I do not think that the Minister for Education will accuse me of exaggerating if I say that this balance would be enough to fill another two secondary schools, possibly three, but certainly not less than two. If the secondary school programme for 1955 had been completed, this shortage would not have arisen. Worse still, the shortage will increase next year with increasing numbers of students completing the primary stage, and once you start cutting down on the policy of one new secondary school for every four primary schools built, you are, in fact, following a policy of putting young students of 14 and 15 on to the streets. Quite apart from the dangers of this course, we are at a loss to understand the Government policy. A lack of secondary schools means a reduction in the number of students who can be trained as teachers to man more schools in the future; a reduction in those being sent for higher education in the University of Malaya and abroad, and hence a reduction of highly qualified local men to enter the civil service or commerce and industry. Malayanisation has no meaning as a policy if it is to be stifled at the outset by lack of adequate higher education facilities for the younger generation. In our view, therefore, the Minister's educational policy is not in the best interests of the country and needs radical changes. It is indeed a retrograde policy which could bring us into serious trouble in a few years, and a direct reversal of Progressive Party policy which fought for years with the previous official Government to get secondary education given its proper place. Before I leave secondary education, Sir, I would suggest to the Minister that he considers more seriously what he can do for the 2,000 students who will fail to get entry to secondary schools next year. He has stated that bright over-aged students will be given a chance to skip a year of secondary education and qualify for Std. VII, but he has given no solution for the average-aged students who are still virtually unemployable at the completion of the primary education stage, partly because of age and partly because of an insufficiently high educational attainment. Something must be done to make these young people employable, so that they can make their own way in life. They must not be left to drift into undesirable company and become loafers or worse. It has been suggested that just as the intake of primary schools has been doubled by having morning and afternoon schools, the same should be done in respect of secondary schools, but I believe there are practical difficulties in the way of this apparently simple solution, because secondary schools spill over into the afternoons, particularly science periods; in other words, there is no clear cessation of work at one p.m. But not all class-rooms are full in the afternoons, and therefore I hand the Minister this suggestion. Start a two- or three-year intensive course in a limited number of subjects and make them available to these otherwise unwanted students; in other words, bridge the gap between unemployability and employability and give them a chance in life, even if it is only in junior posts, but do not abandon them. Parents would rather have their children busy with this limited type of training than running wild. I hope that earnest consideration be given to setting up a scheme of this kind in motion early in the new year. My third charge against the Government was that no consideration had been given to a reorientation of the educational policy of this country. No doubt, my hon. Friend will say that he is waiting for the completion of the now long overdue Report of the All-Party Education Committee, but I would remind him that the terms of reference limited that Committee to consideration of the problems of Chinese education and Chinese schools. Although the suggestion has been made that the Government should build a Chinese secondary school, a Malay secondary school, or a Tamil secondary school on the basis of its policy of equal treatment in education for all, and although the Minister has indicated that a Chinese secondary school, I think it was, is to be built next year, it is by no means clear to me that the sum required has been budgeted for unless it is one of the two which he now says will be completed in 1956. Yet it is quite clear that speed in this matter is essential, and Government should have hastened the completion of the All-Party Committee's Report so that it could have been debated in this House this year instead of in February next year, or even later, or make a start with its policy where it cannot conflict with anything the Report may reveal. Just to set aside $20 millions for grants-in-aid to vernacular schools is not a policy, and we on this side of the House are not happy in approving a lump sum amounting to ten per cent of the country's revenue without Government coming to us for sanction as to how this amount should be spent. I am not against it being spent on education, or wholly on vernacular education. That is understood and agreed. But we may find that the whole of the money should not be spent on full grants-in-aid to individual schools, but that the promotion of sound vernacular education can best be promoted if part of it is spent in other ways. It may be best, for example, to allocate some of it to a special branch of the Teachers Training College for the training of teachers for Chinese, Malay and Indian schools. Some of it may be required for more suitable textbooks and so on. I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that this huge grant will be put to the best possible use for what I have called the reorientation of our educational policy. Speaking broadly, and more broadly than the All-Party Committee is empowered by its terms of reference to speak, I would suggest that education has three main purposes: firstly, to equip boys or girls to earn their living; secondly, to equip them to play their part as citizens of a democracy; and thirdly, to enable them to develop all the powers and faculties latent in their nature so as to enjoy life in all its fullness. These purposes are complementary to each other and a proper education will seek to secure all three, and all of them within the framework of a Malayan nationalism. It follows, therefore, that all the main languages and cultures which should make up that composite thing which can be called Malayan nationalism must be regarded as complementary to each other and not as existing separately in water-tight compartments. I believe that a way will have to be found, and found at once, to achieve the following three objectives. Firstly, the total eradication of the charge, erroneous but real, that there is a plot to exterminate the Malay and Chinese and Indian cultures. Secondly, the total eradication of the charge, for which there is some substance, that our young people in English schools are being brought up as imitation Westerners with no real cultural roots of their own. And, thirdly, the free and equal choice of parents to decide whether their children are to have a predominantly Chinese, or Malay, or Indian, or English education, and yet always within a Malayan framework. I was a teacher of English in an Indian college founded on English models for over ten years and perhaps I can claim to know something of the problems. If we are to live together in this small country in peace and goodwill, we have to found a Malayan nationalism which transcends individual nationalism. The more we understand each other's languages, the more we shall understand each other's minds and the less shall we be set within the rigid confines of our own particular community. While it is true that we see best through the eyes of our own community, or race, or nationalism, it is also true that we only see imperfectly. By learning each other's languages and about each other's cultures, we find that we can see more than we could before, because we see, to some extent, through each other's eyes also. In this way we can rise to the idea of a common synthesis, something which we can all see through learning many-sidedness; and we shall then see that a Malayan culture can transcend the Chinese, or Malay, or Indian, or European cultures without destroying or belittling any of them; and we shall then know that it is not merely possible but indeed the duty to begin by being a good Malay, or a good Chinese, or a good Indian or a good European, and then to make one further step without losing that quality - and become a good Malayan. I do not believe that you can talk about an educational policy in any other way. I do not believe that you can gain a happy and prosperous future for Singapore and Malaya in any other way, and it is our hope that the Government will take an early step forward in the promulgation of such a policy.

Mr Chairman, Sir, may I congratulate the substantive leader of the Progressive Party for putting forward a point of view which we, on this side of this side of the House, have been advocating for so long? It is a decided step forward when a right-wing Party understands that militant agitation for equality of treatment in education is not Communist propaganda. We fully endorse what has been said about the necessity of harmonising the various cultural and linguistic groups in the country. We endorse the hope that the Government will find it possible in the very near future to formulate a definite policy within either their four-year term of office, or their two-year term of office, to give a beginning to this re-orientated education policy. Mr Chairman, Sir, I wish to add to what the Member for Tanglin has said on primary and secondary education by commenting on University education. There is a vote, out of this 46 odd million dollars, of $2.38 millions, contribution to the University of Malaya. It is our earnest hope that the University of Malaya would not continue in its role of being an institution for purely English higher education. Either that role must be changed, or, in pursuance of this policy of equality of treatment for all languages and all cultural groups, other universities must be founded to meet the demands of the other linguistic and cultural groups. So far, the University of Malaya has not captured the imagination of the Chinese-speaking, Indian-speaking, or Malay-speaking groups. Indeed, even amongst the English-speaking group it has not succeeded in bringing home the fact that here is an institution which, if a Malayan civilisation is to flourish in Malaya, must foster the leaders, not necessarily the economic leaders, but the cultural and intellectual leaders of the Malaya of tomorrow. It is important that in this seat of learning the highest traditions of academic freedom should be observed. Mr Chairman, Sir, we all know that sometime last year an unfortunate blunder was made on somebody's part when academic freedom amongst the students was attacked, when a prosecution for sedition in a University publication was brought against the editorial board of a certain student magazine. I find it difficult to assess even now the damage that the prosecution has done. It was fortunate indeed that a district judge - and I am proud to say that it was an Asian (he was born and bred in this country) - decided to throw the prosecution out of hand. The Attorney-General (Mr C. H. Butterfield) rose -

Point of order?

Point of order, Sir. My point of order relates to Standing Order 15 (1) (g). It seems to me, Sir, that the speaker was going rather close in what he said to reflecting on a decision of a court of law.

The Standing Order in question reads: "Every question shall conform to the following rules: - A question shall not reflect on the decision of a court of law .." There is no question of this nature before the House at all. The word "question" refers to questions to Ministers. Can you enlarge on your point of order, Mr Attorney-General?

The question is not whether I wish to or not, but I think I should, Sir. My recollection of the Standing Order was not as clear as it might have been, and it is clear as you have already ruled, Sir, that my point was not well taken.

Mr Chairman, Sir, that was perhaps what might have happened when the decision to prosecute the students was made. It is essential for an institution for higher learning that there should be absolute academic freedom. This includes the freedom to discuss any political subject and to adopt any political attitude, within the confines of that academic institution. Since the salutary effect of the dismissal of that prosecution, the authorities have been more tolerant and more liberal in their attitude to the students' political activities. But I wish today to bring to the notice of this House the fact that the authorities have not shown that same academic tolerance to its teaching staff. The Hon. the Chief Minister, Sir, knows personally of the case where a teacher in the University was about to be dismissed because he held views which were not palatable or not acceptable to his head of department and to the University. The Chief Minister rose -

Point of order?

Will the hon. Member permit a point of explanation? In fairness to him, I should say that I am conscious of the person to whom the Member for Tanjong Pagar has referred, and in fairness to the University authorities with whom I have discussed the matter, there was no question of his political views being taken into consideration but only the question of his health and his standard of work, and that ultimately he was, in fact, engaged.

I am much obliged to the Chief Minister for his elaboration. Ultimately, after the personal intervention of the Chief Minister who knew the facts of the case, particularly from the point of view of the person who was to be victimised, he was re-engaged. Mr Chairman, Sir, we are only able to draw inferences from facts. We do not know the reasons behind the facts. We know that a certain state of facts exist and from those facts, certain inferences must inevitably be drawn. Since that intervention of the Chief Minister, a more healthy atmosphere has prevailed in the University. This has been apparent to a certain number of teachers in that institution who felt the oppression that had previously existed when one after another of their number, who had chosen not to conform, were either asked to resign or were made to resign. But, and this is a case which has not as yet reached the attention of the Chief Minister, attempts are still being made to penalise a teacher in the University because his political views do not coincide with those of the head of his department or those in charge of policy in the University. On November 9th this year, a certain appointment was made in which a local man, who had received the highest of recommendations from his fellow research workers with whom he had done research work in Britain, was appointed to a particular Readership. He was the man most eminently suited for that job and was so recommended by the Inter-University Council. The appointment was made. But on the following day objection was taken to it by the head of that department who had refused to recommend this particular individual. He had, in fact, the impudence to suggest that this man, born and bred in this country, should apply for promotion to a university outside Malaya. Sir, I cannot but share the anger with which this piece of unsavoury wire-pulling was received by those who are connected with this institution. I have been to that institution, Sir. I know the bitterness, the frustration, and the hostility with which the local man views any attempt to frustrate his legitimate political rights. Here is a case - and I hope to bring it to the attention of the Chief Minister in the near future - where a local man has proved that he is the best man in the field. The Inter- University Council has said that he is the man who should be appointed. Indeed, he was appointed. Yet attempts have been made, first, by clandestine methods, to get the University to reverse the appointment and substitute somebody else, thus avoiding the risk of having the whole thing being exposed. Then, when that failed, an attempt is now being made to send the matter back to the Inter-University Council. The Chief Minister rose -

Point of order?

Point of order, Sir. It seems to me unfortunate, Sir, that charges of this nature irrelevant to the discussion - and that is the point of order - should be made without giving an opportunity, by way of notice, to the officials to answer. This is a public charge, Sir. I do not quite know the case in question, but I have no doubt that he could pin-point it. But the point of order is merely this, that it is irrelevant to the motion before the House.

The impression I have gained is that the hon. Member is probably advocating a policy of complete freedom of speech and thought for education.

I am much obliged to you, Mr Chairman, Sir. The Hon. the Chief Minister quite naturally would not like to have a discussion on which he has had no previous knowledge or notice of the facts. But I am citing this example to show that, in spite of his intervention in one instance, and in spite of the fact that a better atmosphere has prevailed after his intervention, there are people in that institution of higher learning who persist in political persecution. Mr Chairman, Sir, I propose at a later date, if no satisfaction is obtained by friendly methods, to table this whole question of academic freedom, particularly political freedom, in the University for a fullscale debate. It is of the utmost importance, if we want this country to survive as a democracy, that this particular group of people - the English educated, and, the "elite" in the University of Malaya - should not be antagonised to the point where they say, "You are against me? I am against you! You fight me? I fight you! If you attempt to crush me, I will fight you with all allies, whoever they are, and wherever they are, so long as I will defeat you and break you!" That, Mr Chairman, Sir, is what has been happening for the last eight years of the Emergency. That is a fact which I think the Chief Minister now realises. That is the basic cause why today we have, to our regret and to the regret of every Party here, an Assembly which represents weak and effete political Parties. All the fierce men, all the men who are prepared to die for their political beliefs, have gone over to join fiercer men. I hold very strong -

All?

Mr Chairman, Sir, I do not know how fierce the Hon. the Chief Minister is

Or yourself?

I am not quite such a fierce man, Mr Chairman, Sir!

I am glad to know it!

There are moments, Sir, when I feel that perhaps years of indulgent living and contact with British civilisation have somewhat worn down the ruggedness of the Asian in me, but that is beside the point. What is important is that if we lose the battle for the hearts and minds of men in this institution for higher learning, then we can never hope to build an independent, democratic, non-Communist Malaya. There is your intellectual corps. There is your final battle, not for mass support. Masses can be swayed by emotions. But there is your group of workers, of brains, of intellect, of men who will do things out of conviction. If you convince them that the only way to fight the system is to fight it outright and break it, then I say you will create a situation in which they will have no alternative but to destroy the whole system. I hope I have been sufficiently careful to be fair to the people concerned, not to criticise them by name in this Assembly. But I sincerely hope that they will hear of this debate - to bring home to them the solemn reminder that if the faults of the past eight years are repeated, then the consequences will be bitter.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I am grateful to the Member for Tanglin for several of the points that he raised in his speech. I will take his points one by one. About a reduction in the cost of school buildings, I can assure this House that the Ministry of Education, in conjunction with the Ministry of Communications and Works, have set up a Committee to study this question, and we are continuously carrying out investigations to find out ways and means of reducing the cost of building schools, but it must be borne in mind that a stage will soon be reached when economy on capital expenditure is more than offset by increase in maintenance costs. It must be remembered that a very large number of schools will be built in this Colony during the present decade, and we do not want them to be so inferior in quality that they will be a permanent reproach to the legislators of this generation. I can assure the hon. Member in particular, and the House in general, that this question of reduction in the cost of building will be carried out effectively. On the second point raised by the hon. Member that there is an absence of provision for secondary schools, I think I have already replied to that - I think it was on Monday last. I said that it would be unrealistic for me to put in any provision for secondary schools when the provision for seven secondary schools carried forward from previous years has not been completely utilised. It would, in effect, -

Order, order. The time is up. The sum of $46,676,910 for Head 48 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 49 - The sum of $182,750 for Head 49 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 50 - The sum of $152,100 for Head 50 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 51 - The following amendment stood in the name of Mr Lee Kuan Yew - To reduce by $18,240 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (2), Deputy Secretary (Administration), Grade G, on page 179 of the Estimates.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew? There being no response, the Chairman proceeded to the next amendment.

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, To reduce by $2,400 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 2 (2), Transport, on page 179 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, we have no explanation of why this item of transport is included. I believe the salaries the employees get include their own transport, and if there is anything else, I would like to know what it is. Question proposed.

The item "Transport" under Head 51, sub-head 2, item (2), Sir, includes $1,800 for the transport allowance of the Minister. The remaining provision is required for meeting the travelling expenses of officers who are required to proceed in future out of Singapore, visiting various hospitals and institutions in the area. It also includes the transport expenses of the Minister to Kuala Lumpur or Penang, where he is required to go to attend conferences or have consultations with his colleague in the Federation.

Sir, we have been receiving $500 as an allowance as Legislative Councillors since 1948, and this has been continued in the present Government. Now this $500 - and I think I am correct in saying this - includes transport and incidental expenses. The Ministers get salaries which should include their own transport. If this $1,800 is a loan to the Minister, what about the other things like household servants, kebuns, and possibly a food allowance? I do not know where it will end. This is public money. The Ministers' salaries have been fixed and these are quite adequate to include their own transport. I would say that it should not be allowed.

May I remind the hon. Member, who was a Member of the Legislative Council, I believe, that he also received remuneration for being a Member of the Legislative Council? I would also remind him that a travelling allowance for attending meetings of the Executive Council for one day a week was paid at the rate of $90 a month to those who had the privilege of being Members of the Executive Council. In this instance, Sir, since there was no question of the Ministers receiving cars which were intended, or any other perquisites, it was decided to fix the travelling allowance of Ministers, who have to give their entire time to their duties as Ministers, at $150 a month. As I have already said, this was, to my mind at the time, an extremely low figure.

Sir, apart from being a Legislative Councillor in previous years, I was also on the Executive Council. There are Members here who were also on the Executive Council on the official side. Let me inform the Chief Minister that they never received $90 a month as transport allowance at all. I did not receive it myself. It was all included in the $500 that we got as Legislative Councillors. Our work on the Executive Council was honorary, nothing more than that.

I was a Member of the Executive Council, Sir, and I did, in fact, draw $90 a month. I can only assume that the Member for Telok Ayer (Mr R. Jumabhoy), being a man of substance, decided -

Public spirited!

- to forego his allowance!

It seems to me that, without my knowledge, the officials had been receiving a transport allowance. I do not think unofficial Members of the Executive Council received any transport allowance. Mr Lee Kuan Yew rose -

Yes, Mr Lee Kuan Yew?

Mr Chairman, Sir, on page 179 of the Estimates, in respect of sub-head 1 (2), Deputy Secretary (Administration) -

We have passed that, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. We are now on the Member for Telok Ayer's amendment. We have not yet disposed of his amendment, and you are too late with your amendment.

We are still at Head 51, Mr Chairman, Sir.

The hon. Member is too late for his amendment. He was first on the list.

As you will, Mr Chairman, Sir.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, To reduce by $2,000 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 4, Entertainment Expenses, on page 179 of the Estimates. Before I proceed with the subject, I would like to know what the entertainment expenses are for, and whom the Ministers (especially the Minister for Health) entertain. As far as I am concerned, and there are many on my side of the House who feel the same as I do, we have seen plenty of entertainment going on since the Government came into power. I was in the old Legislative and Executive Councils and they never spent so much money at all. Why is it that so much public money should be wasted on entertainment now? I would like to have an explanation. Question proposed.

I think I have dealt in detail with the reasons for the entertainment allowances generally, Sir. In connection with the Ministry of Health, it does fall upon the Minister to entertain eminent people who visit Singapore in connection with medical matters. For example, quite recently we had a conference of the World Health Organisation here. We have had eminent physicians visiting the country under the Colombo Plan, and there is, I think I am safe in saying, a considerable come and go of medical authorities through Singapore. In these circumstances, it is only right and proper that the Minister for Health should entertain them when they arrive.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived. Question proposed, That the sum of $84,340 for Head 51 stand part of the Schedule.

Mr Chairman, Sir, since you have ruled that I have lost my right to move the amendment under Head 51, will you permit me to make some remarks in general about the Ministry of Health? Mr Chairman, Sir, this is the only one of the new Ministries in which there is a Deputy Secretary (Administration). There is on the professional side, on page 180 of the Estimates, Head 52, sub-head 1 (4), an Administrative Officer to look after co-ordination and administration. It is interesting to note that there is no Deputy Secretary (Administration) in the Ministry of Communications and Works, in spite of the fact that the Minister (Mr Thomas) runs a number of subsidiary departments. Mr Thomas' Ministry is set out at page 231. It shows a Minister, a Permanent Secretary, an Assistant Secretary. Under this Ministry are the Departments of Civil Aviation, Meteorology, Postal, P.W.D. and Telecommunications - five large departments. It has about the thickest number of pages in the Estimates for any one Ministry. It is difficult to understand how, in spite of this oft-proclaimed desire to economise in respect of new appointments, it has been found necessary to have this redundant officer for administration on the Ministerial side.

Point of order, Mr Chairman.

Point of order.

Mr Chairman, you have already ruled out the motion standing in the name of the Member for Tanjong Pagar, stating that he was too late, so I do not think we can dwell upon that now.

I have ruled out the amendment as such, but I understand the hon. Member to be commenting on the Establishment.

Policy. [Interruption.] I am constantly being astonished at the -

Order, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

One cannot help but be astonished at the constant desire of Ministers on the other side of the House wishing to avoid a debate. I should have thought that the whole purpose of this -

Order, order. I think the statement is not quite fair, because any Minister or any Member can always rise on a point of order. Opinions always differ. My opinion may be wrong, but my opinion prevails in this Assembly. That is the difference.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I would hesitate to say that your opinion is wrong while in this Assembly. I would suggest that the fact that the Minister for Health put forward his objection in such a contentious manner showed that the intention was not to take a point of order, but to exclude discussion on the amendment which I am not proposing to proceed with. But the point which I hope to get a reply from him is: why is it necessary to have an Administrative Officer on the Ministerial side on a superscale salary when in no other Ministry has that been found necessary?

Timescale.

Timescale? Deputy Secretary, Grade G, is superscale. We are also being astonished, as we go along in this debate, and not without reason, that Ministers, in fact, do not know what is in the Budget. That is why it is so important to have this matter given the fullest ventilation. The Minister for Health sometimes does a world of good in the P.W.D. He cleans up all the grease and all the dirt! But we want an explanation on this. The only inference that one can draw, unless one is given more facts, is that the Ministry is damnably inefficient, either on the Ministerial side -

Order. The hon. Member cannot use words like "damnably" in this Assembly.

I withdraw it.

It is natural with the P.A.P.!

Order.

Either it is inefficient in the extreme on the Ministerial side, or it must be inefficient in the extreme on the professional side.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar is very fond of using these expressions of speech, but there was no question of trying to deprive him of a debate on any subject at all. I am quite prepared to meet him on any question that he wishes me to meet, but I was only trying to uphold the Standing Orders which you, Mr Chairman, had brought up. Though the Member has confined himself solely to the motion standing in his name which you, Mr Chairman, has ruled out of time, I am quite prepared to answer it. First, he is not quite correct in saying that that is the only Administrative Officer for whom provision has been made, because if you refer to the Education Ministry under Head 48, at page 164 of the Estimates, sub-head 1 (4), you will find there the same type of officer - "Deputy Secretary (Staff and Administration)". Now in the Ministry of Health, the head of the department, who is the Director of Medical Services, is also the Permanent Secretary, and the Deputy Director of the department is the Deputy Permanent Secretary. This means that with the new constitution and with the formation of the Ministry, the headquarters office receives only one extra officer, namely, an Administrative Assistant - an executive rather than an administrative post. Prior to the new constitution, the Director of Medical Services approached the Government and the Government approached the Director of Medical Services through the Secretariat. All memoranda to Government and all external correspondence in legislation, etc., are prepared in the Secretariat. Now all this work, which was previously done by the Secretariat, has to be covered in the Ministry. Circumstances are proving that the senior Administrative Officers of the Ministry cannot cover the responsible work involved in their dual role of senior departmental officers and Ministerial officers. The efficiency of the work is suffering. The Administrative Assistant post provided in 1955 is not a post for one who has to take responsibility for supplying the Minister with information and for carrying out the policy directed by the Minister. It is essential that a senior and experienced officer be provided, one who is able to take full administrative responsibility. A comparable Ministry that I have just pointed out is that of the Ministry of Education. The fact is that with the ever-increasing size of the medical services, the Permanent Secretary and the Deputy Permanent Secretary cannot physically cover Ministry duties as well as departmental duties -

Do not read!

The additional Ministerial work - [Interruption.] May I ask you, Mr Chairman -

Order, please. Carry on, Mr Braga. There have been interjections. There are interjections, but carry on, please.

The additional Ministerial work need not be done by a professional officer, and therefore a post for a senior administrative officer has been asked for. It should be stressed that whatever happened under the old constitution, it is no longer true that policy is framed in the Secretariat. After Government has sanctioned a policy, that policy is implemented in the Ministry and by the Ministry, and I repeat, not by the Secretariat.

Mr Chairman, Sir, it is a most wordy explanation which does not give an explanation! We have been referred to the Ministry of Education on page 164 and it has been brought to our attention that there is a Deputy Secretary (Staff and Administration), Grade F. Mr Chairman, Sir, that is exactly my point. In no Ministry is there on the Ministerial side (in the case of the Ministry of Education, turn over to page 163) a Deputy Secretary (Administration). In his Ministry, Medical and Health, he has on the professional side an Administrative Officer, as there is in the Education Ministry. He has not explained why it has been found necessary in his case, and it is certainly not the largest of the six Ministries which have been created. That he or his Permanent Secretary should have found it necessary to have an extra Administrative Officer on the Ministerial side on a superscale salary is just waste.

Order, order. The time has elapsed. The sum of $84,340 for Head 51 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 52 -

I beg to move, To reduce by $18,240 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 37 (4), Medical Officer-in- charge, Maternity and Child Welfare Services (Rural), Grade G, on page 190 of the Estimates. This is a fairly complicated Establishment matter and I hope the House will forgive me if I take my points a little slowly. At page 190 of the Estimates, you will find at the top of the Ministry (Health Branch), sub-head 37 (1), "Chief Health Officer, Grade E". Then you have following it "Senior Port Health Officer, Grade G"; then "Health Officer-in-charge Schools, Grade G"; then at sub-head 37 (4) you will find "Medical Officer-in-charge, Maternity and Child Welfare Services (Rural), Grade G". In the Remarks column against this item, you will find this: "New appointment". Now if you look at the Remarks column against item (2) "Senior Port Health Officer, Grade G", you will find "Title changed from Deputy Chief Health Officer. (687/55)". My first point is that the post of Senior Port Health Officer is not a change just of title from Deputy Chief Health Officer but a change of duty, because this man, who was Deputy Chief Health Officer, had under his charge "Maternity and Child Welfare Services (Rural)". If you compare this with the Singapore Establishment Staff List for 1955 at page 83, the position becomes fairly clear. There is a Chief Health Officer. At page 84, there is a Deputy Chief Health Officer and a Health Officer-in-charge of Schools. Sir, all these years the port of Singapore has been about three square miles long and it has not been necessary to have a Senior Port Health Officer. His work has been done by a junior administrative medical officer. Unlike the Port of London or Liverpool he has not such a wide area to cover, nor has he a large number of medical officers to supervise and control. The only inference one can reasonably draw from it is that, whilst there is a Deputy Chief Health Officer who also looks after maternity and child welfare services, it would be difficult to create another superscale post Grade G. So a favourite dodge in Establishment technique has been adopted. The title of the man who was Deputy Chief Health Officer is converted into Senior Port Health Officer, so there is now no Deputy. Then they slip in another superscale post and put it down as Medical Officer-in-charge, Maternity and Child Welfare Service. The appointment is completely unnecessary. It is wrong to come to this Assembly, after it has been told that the Government wants to economise, to ask it to boost up one more superscale post. Question proposed.

I would first like to remind the Member for Tanjong Pagar that it is our intention that a suitable local officer shall be chosen to proceed overseas for special training prior to appointment to this post. I would now like to inform the House that the Medical Department has more than 40 maternity and child health clinics scattered throughout the island today. There has been a remarkable increase in total attendances at these clinics in all categories and I would like to give some of the figures. The following statistics are relevant: Number of clinic sessions held 2,945 Ante-natal cases 11,505 Total attendances of antenatal cases in these clincis 39,000 Post-natal cases 3,552 Total attendances of postnatal cases in these clincis 5,496 Infants under one year 14,330 Total attendances of infants under one year 94,180 Pre-school children 6,173 Total attendances of preschool children 46,249 It is necessary for the efficiency of the service that there should be a responsible and specially trained medical officer in charge of it and responsible for it to the Chief Health Officer in the Ministry of Health. Now the three chief appointments that you see under sub-head 37 represented the three main sections of the Health Branch of the Ministry, each officer responsible to the Chief Health Officer for his section. Regarding the change of title, it is purely that the Senior Port Health Officer under Division I is in charge of Quarantine, and, as I have said, all these three Grade G posts are for officers responsible to the Chief Health Officer for their particular sections. It is the growing necessity of having a medical officer in charge of maternity and child welfare that necessitates the provision of this new appointment, and it is provided for the sole intention of having a suitable local officer to fill that post after he has had overseas training.

Sir, I am glad to note that the guilty conscience on the part of the Hon. the Minister for Health has made him categorically state -

I do object! Contemptible P.A.P.!

Order, order. It is certainly unparliamentary for the hon. Member to impute that any Minister has got a guilty conscience.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I must bow, of course, to your ruling but I must say that it would be an astonishing House indeed that did not have Members and Ministers with guilty consciences!

Especially the leader of the P.A.P.!

Order.

Sir, we have now a categorical assurance from the Minister that the post has been created in order that a local man can be sent abroad and that, in fact, this appointment has been created for him. I would, however, like to point out that the local Government doctors have asked me to remind the Minister for Health that no specialist appointment can be filled by any officer unless he has at least ten years' seniority after qualifying as a medical officer and at least five years' experience as a specialist. That is a departmental ruling which, in their opinion, is designed to exclude them. It is no use creating this post, sending the man overseas, letting him become a specialist, bringing him back and then letting him squat for five years before he becomes eligible to hold this appointment as a specialist officer in a superscale post. Mr Chairman, Sir, I would just like to point out to the Minister, in respect of the statistics with which he has showered us, that he never gave us the figures for 1951, 1952 and 1953 to show that there was, in fact, a definite increase in the number of attendances at these rural clinics. But on page 117 of the 1955 Estimates, one will find that there was exactly the same number of staff - Chief Health Officer, Grade E; Deputy Chief Health Officer, Grade G; Health Officer-in-charge Schools, Grade G; Health Officers, 27. Sir, one must assume, if one bothers to work it out, that any increased work cannot be covered by just appointing a man at the top and placing him at the disposal of this particular department. 27 Health Officers were sought in 1955 and 27 are still sought in 1956. That, in my submission, shows that whatever expansion there may be is adequately covered by the 27 Health Officers and that, in fact, the Medical Officer-in-charge, Maternity and Child Welfare Services, is completely unnecessary. First, one abolishes the Deputy Chief Health Officer. (What has he been doing all these years if he was not the Deputy Chief Health Officer?) Then one creates, since there is no Deputy now, three superscale posts - three different branches all being co-ordinated by the Chief Health Officer. Then in a year's time, if this sort of rigging still persists, one slips in a vote for a Deputy Chief Health Officer, another superscale post. One comes back and says, "Ah, but now the Chief Health Officer has so much to co-ordinate he must have an assistant to help him co-ordinate." This is just the sort of thing that has been going on for years and years, bedevilling the whole civil service and reducing it to utter contempt.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I object to the suggestions made by the last speaker. I do not need any reminder from him. I made a public pledge, when I assumed office as Minister for Health, that I would, in keeping with our Malayanisation policy and without reducing the standards of the Ministry of Health, see that the Malayanisation policy is carried through. I need no reminder from him at all. These posts and some other posts have been created so that there will be vacancies for our locally domiciled men whom I will see sent abroad for higher education to fill these posts. The question of time qualification that he has just mentioned is under consideration by me and by the Council of Ministers. There is no question of trying to sneak in extra posts because I think his main com- plaint is that the posts are made for expatriates. Let me tell him that it is not so.

Just one point in reply, Sir. It is really amazing that any one could put forward the proposition that we have created a post for a local officer in order to send him abroad. When I ask how that position can be filled if he needs at least five years' experience after qualification, I am informed that the matter of the five-year qualifying period is under consideration. Let me tell the Hon. the Minister for Health that his Government's and his own political future depend upon the confidence of the local medical officers. It is for him to convince them. [Interruption.]

Order. Hon. Members can speak afterwards.

The pity of it all is that Ministers in this House have neither the dignity nor the -

Order, order.

I am much obliged, Mr Chairman, Sir, for also wishing to help and sustain the Ministers in the dignity of their office. I would point out to the Minister for Health - and I will point out to him ad nauseam as we go item by item through my amendments - that if the local officers continue to lose faith in him and his Administration, then I say his Government will go down the slippery slope at the bottom of which lie the mangled remains of the Progressive Party.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $72,970 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (5), Radiologists, Grade G, on page 195 of the Estimates. First of all, I would like to point out that I do not understand one particular remark in the Estimates; it is that two new appointments are being sought. "Radiologists, Grade G, three: (Diagnostic), two (Therapy)" - Remarks column "Radiologist (Therapy) - new appointments. Provision for one - token of $10 only." In last year's Estimates, on page 122, I find "Senior Radiologist, Grade E; Radiologists, Grade G, three." And against that, in the Remarks column I find "Radiologists increase two, one subject to C.S. sanction." - that was the old Colonial Secretary - but I do not understand where the increase comes in, because there was already an increase last year and the same number of people were in. Sir, if we look at the Establishment List, page 84, we will find four Radiologists: Appointment filled Radiologist, General Hospital Vacant Radiologist, T.T.S.H. and T.B. Clinic Vacant Radiologist, General Hospital Vacant Radiologist, General Hospital There are already two vacancies in the existing number of appointments for Radiologists, apart from T.T.S.H. and T.B. Clinic. If this item means that two further appointments are being sought, then we on this side of the House cannot make sense out of it. Does it mean that they want to fill two vacancies and continue two vacancies which they hope to fill in the distant future? Then it has some meaning, but we want an explanation. Question proposed.

I am much obliged to the Member for Tanjong Pagar for pointing them out to me, but these are new appointments.

So there will be seven?

Well, I cannot reconcile that. I am dealing with the 1956 Estimates and these are two new appointments. I would like to point out the radiological service is expanding rapidly. In 1954 there were 104,605 diagnostic examinations, representing a 30 percent increase over those recorded in 1953. In the Therapy section the cases treated increased from 412 in 1953 to 565 in 1954, representing a 37 per cent increase. The Therapy department of the radiological service is of increasing importance as modern discoveries extend the scope of radio-active treatment of disease. Hitherto Radio-therapists have not been shown specifically, although one Radio-therapist has been employed. The provision of two extra posts is intended to enable the special training overseas of two locally domiciled officers who may show the ability to undertake further training in this speciality. A suggestion has been made by the Colombo Plan authorities that Singapore might apply for a cobalt bomb. So far it has not been possible to follow up this suggestion because a cobalt bomb will be of no assistance to Singapore unless one can be confident that there will be available at all times a specialist to use it. Now I wish to remind the Member for Tanjong Pagar that these two extra posts have been created specially for the purpose of enabling the Ministry to send two locally domiciled officers overseas for special training.

Mr Chairman, Sir, this is the difficulty that we constantly experience on this side of the House. Regardless of the point we make, we get an answer which has been prepared and written out beforehand, without relevance to the points made. First, if I may take the Minister's last point, that he wants to send two local officers overseas in order that they may become radiologists, and that therefore he has created the posts now which they cannot fill until five years after qualifying as specialists, unless he does something about what he says is under consideration - the removal of this prohibition of a man becoming a specialist unless he has five years of his speciality. May I inform him that the local officers are quite happy to be timescale officers, so that when they come back they can fill the job immediately? They do not want to be on superscale, because they feel that that is another of those nasty little dodges they play in the civil service, check and counter-check, a little game of chess. They are quite happy to go and train as radiologists, come back, not as superscale officers but as ordinary timescale radiologists, to do the job, and after five years, if there is a benevolent government still in power, they might be promoted to superscale and given more money. But they are quite happy to do the job without more money, and they prefer it that way, because they feel safer for they cannot be cheated. Sir, we have heard a mass of irrelevant information about a cobalt bomb being applied for from the Colombo Plan authorities, and therefore radiologists are required to manipulate it. All we want to know is why are there two vacancies in the Establishment List for radiologists which have not been filled? The Minister comes before this House and says, "I do not know how to explain that, but I am asking for two new ones." He is asking for something which is costing us something in the region of $70,000 odd without our knowing what it is all about. When it is put to the vote, we on this side of the House are expected to say, "Aye, we agree with that." I would ask the Government seriously to consider this point which is made with the authority of the local officers. They are quite happy -

Name them! Do you speak for them?

There is an association of the local medical -

You speak for the association?

Order, order. You can speak afterwards, Mr Chief Minister.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Chief Minister takes great umbrage when anybody speaks for any group of people for whom he would like to speak. I would like to remind him that the further he goes with his expatriate officials in creating all these appointments, the further away he goes from his own people on whom he ultimately must rely for support to run his Administration. I am not suggesting for one moment that this was done with the connivance or the consent of the Chief Minister or his Ministers. I said at the opening of the debate on the Second Reading of this Bill that there are faults in the Budget that I do not lay directly at the feet of the Ministers. They are new in their jobs. As the Minister for Health has given us reason to believe, they really do not understand what all this is about. Quite obviously they have to rely on the expatriates and the officials, and these gentlemen, like everybody else, are creatures of habit. They do what they have always been accustomed to do. They carry out their artful little dodges. They carry on in their good old ways for as long as they can. Sir, I would ask the elected Members of this Government to consider reducing the posts of Radiologists from superscale to ordinary timescale. The local officers, to whom the Minister for Health has made reference, have indicated that they would prefer much less pay on timescale. They would rather come back from their training overseas and fill that job than come back and find that they are not qualified to fill a superscale job. Then application is made for somebody who is qualified and that somebody is inevitably an expatriate.

Mr Chairman, Sir, on this question of Radiologists, we understand from the Minister for Health that locally domiciled people are being sent overseas for further studies. I would just like to know the number sent, how long they will take to have special training, and when they will return. If none are to return in 1956, as they are sent now, then there is no point in creating posts now. There is another point. I would like to refer to the post of Radiologist at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital and T.B. Clinic mentioned at page 203, Head 52, sub-head 55 (130). It occurs to me that they are just trying to complete the hospital and this will not be so until sometime in July. If you do not have a hospital to cope with patients, then you do not require such a large number of Radiologists. I would like to have an explanation.

Sir, I would like to ask one more question. It is this. Will these posts be left vacant till these people qualify, or will they be filled by somebody else in the meantime?

I can answer that, Mr Chairman. These posts are intended to be held vacant until the officers under training obtain the requisite experience to fill them.

That means for eight years.

Order.

That is under consideration.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, we now come to an even stranger item. I beg to move, To reduce by $22,080 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (27), Sister Tutors, on page 196 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, in the Remarks column, one sees "Increase six. Provision for seven for seven months." It is a lot of algebra the significance of which we, who are not accustomed to the slang of the Administration, cannot really appreciate. Now, if we turn first to the Establishment List -

On a point of order, Sir.

Point of order.

The Establishment List, I think, is irrelevant to the debate. We are considering the Estimates.

I understood the hon. Member to be making comparisons on the same subject. He is entitled to make comparisons.

This is the sort of -

I have ruled already, Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

I am much obliged for your assistance, Mr Chairman, Sir, but I feel that one should not allow this kind of conduct to pass without comment. However, since you feel that I should not comment, I will not, but nevertheless it does not mean that I do not want to comment in the strongest possible terms. Now, at page 92 of the Establishment List, for Sister Tutors, one finds that there are four Sister Tutors - four expatriates, one local. There are four appointments, but there are five Sister Tutors, and I am told the explanation for that is that there is one leave reserve - one is away on leave. Sir, we are now told that the Government wants six more. They want provision for seven for seven months. What that means is that for seven months in 1956, June to December, they propose to engage seven Sister Tutors. Of course, we can have an assurance from the Minister for Health that he is going to send six lucky local girls for training so that they may come back and enjoy the wonderful privilege of being Sister Tutors, because they can only become Sister Tutors by going to Britain for training. That training takes a period of more than six months. By June next year all seven appointments will have been filled. I do not understand it, but I do understand this, that this need was seen as long ago as February 1954. Sir Han Hoe Lim is a very conservative member of this community about whom, in his capacity as a Member of the Public Services Commission, little good has been said. In a Commission of which he was a Member, he, from such an indisputably pro-expatriate quarter, advised in his report that within the 18 months following the date of the report in 1954, five Sister Tutors should be chosen and sent for training in order that they could fill these posts. It is on page 40 of the Han Hoe Lim Report (Council Paper No. 40 of 1954) and you will see there: "Candidates for these must be chosen within the next 18 months, and the posts in the Departments concerned must not be occupied substantively until their return, qualified to fill them." And there, amongst the list of other things, are five Sister Tutors. Now we are told that they want six. They were told early in 1954 to choose five and send them away for training. Nothing was done. I do not hold the Minister for Health responsible for this because, after all, he did not know that he was going to be Minister for Health until sometime late in April this year. But I hold responsible the experts for whom we are paying special pay to attract and retain, the bunglers and the fumblers who allow this kind of tomfoolery to go on in the very serious business of Administration. Five were told to be chosen, yet nothing was done. We are now asked to approve seven for next year. The Chief Minister rose -

Point of order?

If I may, Sir.

Point of order.

I would ask, Sir, whether abuse of this character conduces either to intelligent debate, to the dignity of this House, or to the efficient functioning of government. Could I, Sir, at least plead with you, as we cannot, Mr Chairman, with hon. Members opposite, that they conduct themselves in a manner that is more consonant with their responsibilities and with the dignity of the House?

Hear, hear!

Order, order. I have pointed out time and time again that I am bound by Standing Orders and I can only intervene when Members of the Assembly are attacked, when offensive and insulting language about Members of the Assembly is used or when improper motives are imputed to any Member. It may be that Standing Orders are defective in that respect, but, as I say, I am bound by Standing Orders and I expect that the permanent officers who are attacked will be supported or upheld by the responsible Minister.

Sir, I have been scrupulously careful in this respect, that I have never named any officer. I am damning the Administration as such - a class of officers - and surely the Hon. the Chief Minister knows that one cannot libel a class. But if they should take personal umbrage, then let me assure them, if they feel that their Minister does not or cannot defend them to their satisfaction, that we are prepared to meet them at any suitable forum at any time and place convenient. I would like to point out to this Assembly that we are being asked now to give approval for six appointments - Sister Tutors - in order that six people can be sent overseas to be trained and come back at some indefinite date in the future. Meanwhile the posts having now been created, are going to be filled as from June next year before these people could possibly have been selected, sent and returned qualified. The whole thing does not make sense. Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Member for Tanjong Pagar referred to a White Paper, a report under the chairmanship of Sir Han Hoe Lim. The relevant sentence of that report, which was accepted by the Government then, was "that it is necessary to ensure that before officers are sent on Scholarships there shall be vacancies for promotion on their return." As I have explained earlier to this House, that is the reason why we are creating these posts. That recommendation was implemented by the Director of Medical Services and the Chief Secretary on the 5th of July, 1954, and further amplified in August 1955 with regard to scholarships, giving the basis for award of these scholarships. The Member for Tanjong Pagar also referred to my reading notes. I have received quite a number of motions and it is only necessary, of course, that answers to these, with the assistance of my officers, be dictated, and I must refer to them, but I can assure him that I do not type and read out any verbatim speeches such I have seen Members on the opposite side of the House do. Anyway, I wish to inform the House that the present Medical Department has an establishment of four Sister Tutors. In addition to these four, there are three World Health Organisation Sister Tutors working in Singapore at the Nurses Training School. Our agreement with the World Health Organisation commits this Government to replace these World Health Organisation experts with local officers when the period of loan of the World Health Organisation experts terminates. Therefore, although the proposed establishment for 1956 appears to involve an increase of six, the actual increase asked for, in fact, is only three. The Nurses Training School in the General Hospital is being expanded to enable the School to have an annual intake of 150 probationers. If efficient training is to be given by that Nursing School at the General Hospital, it is absolutely necessary that there should be an establishment of ten Sister Tutors. In this connection, I wish to say once again - and I make it clear - that these additional posts are intended by Government to provide for scholarships and fellowships which will enable locally domiciled officers to proceed overseas to take the Sister Tutor Certificate.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I must point out that it is significant that the Minister for Health has not chosen to meet my point. The only inference that one can draw from the remarks "Provision for seven for seven months" is that long before these Sister Tutors return in June next year, seven posts will be filled.

In amplification of what I said just now, Mr Chairman, Sir, if there were immediate needs by my Ministry for any posts, whether they be for Sister Tutors or otherwise, these could be filled on contract basis. Such posts will be filled when our own nurses return and are qualified to fill them.

And the need for these vacancies was seen as early as February 1954. Why was nothing done?

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $36,480 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (131), Chest Physicians, Grade G, on page 203 of the Estimates. "Sub-head 55 (131), Chest Physicians, Four; Grade G .... Increase three to include the appointment of T.B. Specialist previously shown under General Hospital." "Increase to include" - in other words, one can assume that the increase sought for is two. Here again, if I may just refer to a document to which the Hon. the Financial Secretary does not wish to have this House refer - page 83 of the Singapore Establishment Staff List - "One Chest Physician". That is all, and we are asked to approve another two. Mr Chairman, Sir, we are not against the creation of more posts for Chest Physicians, but we are against the creation of superscale posts for Chest Physicians. They can only be filled by men with ten years qualification, with five years qualification in a specialist capacity. The class of people from whom these people must be chosen for specialist training have indicated very strongly that they prefer timescale appointments. They are quite happy to go abroad, get their training and come back to time-scale appointments and do the jobs. I do not know if the Members of the Government understand that every time they say "no" to an amendment, they are not always saying "no" to motions which have been set down for political reasons, where we disagree with the politics and the policy of the Government. Under Head 52 are a number of amendments which have got nothing to do with politics or policy between Parties in this House. We are all committed absolutely to Malayanisation. We do not consider these amendments as motions of no confidence in the Government. We ask the Government seriously to consider the request which I am putting forward before this House on behalf of the people who will be affected by these new appointments. They have asked me to state that they are happier to have less money as timescale officers. But the Government says, "No, we will give them superscale appointments. Meanwhile, we will recruit Europeans if we need any because no local men are available." Question proposed.

Sir, we have repeatedly heard the hon. and learned Member for Tanjong Pagar suggest that he speaks on behalf of the medical profession of Singapore.

The Government service.

Order, please.

There is no iota of evidence to support - [Interruption.]

Order, please.

I would like to say this, Sir, that I have had the most cordial relations with the Alumni Association. In fact, one of them is the Chairman, as you know, of our most important Commission. If there was any suggestion of the medical profession, either in Government service or otherwise, having made any representations of this character, I find it a little difficult to digest the possibility that they would seek to make those representations, not to the appropriate quarters - to the Minister himself or even to the Chief Minister - but to this one-man band of the so-called People's Action Party -

Not so-called.

For this person, who, as is known by every observant person, is nothing but an umbrella - a one-man umbrella - for a group whose activities cannot bear the light of day, to suggest that Government officers would prefer to make their representations to him than to the proper Ministry and the proper Minister is to insult our local civil service. I reject the suggestion that the Member for Tanjong Pagar speaks for anyone but himself and his more dubious companions.

Mr Chairman, Sir, whenever I say that I speak for a group that the Hon. the Chief Minister does not like me to speak for, he inevitably comes to the conclusion that it cannot be so. I do not like to disillusion him but I would suggest to him that the reason why they have, in fact, not approached either the Minister or the Chief of the Ministers is because there has been gradual loss of confidence in his policy of Malayanisation. The person to whom the Hon. the Chief Minister referred to as being on the most cordial of terms has received a rude shock in his capacity as Chairman of the Malayanisation Commission. I might also indicate to the Hon. the Chief Minister that this person has considerable qualms as to whether he should write his report after his own heart because he might then find it difficult to make it acceptable to the Chief Minister. May I assure him that after this debate, I can give him full and satisfactory evidence, if he needs evidence, that I am not speaking just on my own behalf? Mr Chairman, Sir, although I may not be a great actor, I am not such an inept politician as publicly to make statements on behalf of a group of local men who are an important cog in the local administrative machinery when, in fact, I have no business to do so. For it will only lead to my antagonising them. I would commend to the Hon. the Chief Minister to reflect on the possibility that, in fact, they are losing confidence in the firmness with which and the uncompromising manner in which he was expected to pursue his policy of Malayanisation. His drift towards his expatriate officials and his keenness to defend them is causing this loss of confidence. It may be possible, and I would like to ask him to reflect on that -

And disloyalty.

Order, please.

Call it what you will.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Member for Tanjong Pagar has referred constantly to things of the past. This Government can in no way be held responsible for the Administration in 1954. I have said it once, and I say it again, that the question of time qualification is under consideration and everyone will be treated on his own merits. As regards the question of these Chest Physicians, the Government's plan for the Tan Tock Seng Hospital is to expand its accommodation to a total of 1,000 beds. It is under consideration at the present time. We expect to complete in the middle of 1956 two new ward blocks providing for 400 additional beds to the 550 already at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. This additional provision, together with the enormous out-patient work, demands an increase in the number of specialists to provide for the efficient supervision of the treatment of tuberculosis cases. In this connection, it is once again the intention of the Government that locally domiciled officers should proceed overseas for special training and if the two additional posts here provided are deleted from the Estimates, two locally domiciled officers scheduled to proceed overseas in 1956 will not be able to do so -

Come, come, that is another -

Order, please.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I beg to move, To reduce by $10,020 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (163), Medical Superintendent, Grade E on page 204 of the Estimates. The sum asked for is for the creation of a Grade E superscale appointment for Trafalgar Home. Mr Chairman, Sir, I do not know if the Minister for Health is aware that there is a Medical Superintendent at Kandang Kerbau Hospital, one at Woodbridge Hospital and one at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. At Kandang Kerbau Hospital, which is one of the biggest maternity hospitals in the world, with 20,000 deliveries a year, there is a Medical Superintendent who is only a Grade G man. There is another person in Tan Tock Seng Hospital - a much bigger hospital than Trafalgar Home - who is also in Grade G. In Woodbridge Hospital, however, where there is an expatriate, the officer is on Grade E, probably because there may be an increase in the near future in the number of lunatics there. Therefore the duties of that post may become more and more important. But we do not understand how the Government assess the value of the post at Trafalgar Home, a relatively small hospital compared to either Tan Tock Seng or Kandang Kerbau, as a Grade E post. Question proposed.

I do not know, Mr Chairman, Sir, whether the Member for Tanjong Pagar was confusing Trafalgar Home, which is a home for leprosy cases, with Woodbridge Hospital, which he mentioned as a small one. Now, Trafalgar Home has accommodation for 1,000 patients, which is no small hospital. At the end of 1954, there were 825 infectious cases isolated there. In addition to the cases accommodated at Trafalgar Home, there are over 1,000 non-infectious cases of leprosy under treatment and surveillance in out-patient clinics. Hitherto, specialist supervision of the treatment of these patients has been carried out by the tuberculosis specialist at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. The expansion of Tan Tock Seng Hospital will mean that the tuberculosis specialist will be able to give less and less supervision to the treatment of leprosy. Government are in sight of bringing leprosy under complete control within the Colony, and it will be a most serious step to endanger the efficiency of leprosy control by failing to provide expert supervision. It is considered essential that a full-time officer be appointed for this purpose. Such an officer must have specialised training and experience and, in this case, once again, as in all cases that I have mentioned, the Government wish to be in a position to send a locally domiciled officer overseas for further training for a higher specialist degree and specific training in leprosy.

In the meantime, Mr Chairman, Sir, is it the intention of the Government to put an expatriate there?

If it is necessary, he will be on contract.

If it please you, Mr Chairman, Sir, I should like to explain that the policy outlined in His Excellency's speech on behalf of the Government on the 22nd of April, 1955, has been stringently adhered to. There has been no question whatsoever of the employment of expatriate officers except where we have no means of getting local officers. There is also the matter of urgency of employment and even then, Sir, there is not a single expatriate officer, to my knowledge, who has been employed since the 22nd of April otherwise than on an all-inclusive contract which gives no right of abolition. In order to enable our men to succeed them at the end of the contract and in view of the very considerable, and at times very unreasonable, criticism that has been levelled at us and the slimy imputation of our weakening in our Malayanisation policy which the gentleman from Tanjong Pagar, who calls himself the Hon. Secretary of the P.A.P., has made, I think it is necessary -

Not quite really -

Order, please.

He must speak all the time. I think it is necessary that this Assembly and this country should be reminded that this Government is adhering to and maintaining in all its stringency the undertaking given as a matter of policy when we first took office.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $6,230 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (202), Sisters (Trained in Mental Diseases), on page 206 of the Estimates. -

Is the hon. Member not moving the previous amendment on Male Nurses?

I beg your pardon, Mr Chairman. I am much obliged to you for drawing my attention to this. So many mistakes are being made by the Government that I find it difficult to keep pace with the number that are being made -

Shall I send for your prompter?

Order, please.

I have got some jolly good prompters, Mr Chairman, Sir, and I do not have to make notes and read from them. I understand what it is all about -

Order, please. That remark has been made once too often. I am making it as a general rule that where important statements are made by the Government, they may be read.

I am glad, Mr Chairman, Sir, that you have ruled on how important statements are to be made, but I sometimes wonder if the Government understands how important they are. Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $18,780 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (198), Male Nurses, on page 206 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, it is only a very short point. If one turns to the 1955 Establishment List under "Male Nurses", one finds that there are "6 appointments and 1 Leave Reserve", and two vacancies unfilled for male nurses. Two vacancies unfilled, and we are being asked now to vote for more vacancies. Does it make sense? Question proposed.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar has not given any serious reason for moving this motion but, for the sake of information, I have to inform you that there are 1,936 equipped beds in the Woodbridge Hospital and the Woodbridge Hospital is not, as some people think, a hospital solely to imprison people who are mentally deranged. It is a curative hospital where persons are cured, discharged and then returned to normal life. If treatment is to be carried out properly, it is essential that there should be a supervisory nursing staff, experienced and expert in the treatment of mental diseases. The three additional posts here provided are specially intended for locally domiciled officers to obtain mental nurse training.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $6,230 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 55 (202), Sisters (Trained in Mental Diseases), on page 206 of the Estimates. We are being asked here for an increase of six - provision for one month. Mr Chairman, Sir, we have been told repeatedly this morning that every new appointment has been created for the purpose of furthering Malayanisation, by sending some local man or woman overseas in order that he or she can equip himself or herself for the necessary job. If one looks at the 1955 Singapore Establishment Staff List on page 97, one finds four vacancies: "Nursing Sisters (Trained in Mental Diseases), Woodbridge Hospital, 4 appointments. 4 Vacant". Why have not four local girls been sent abroad for training if that is the purpose of these appointments? Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the posts must first be created prior to employment, and without the creation of such posts there is no means of getting the staff. It would be putting the cart before the horse if that were not so. For the information of the House, however, I would like to say that the same reason as that indicated by me in the previous amendment to "Male Nurses" applies here for the new additional six posts. In a mental hospital of the size of Woodbridge Hospital, provision for a total of ten sisters trained in mental diseases is woefully insufficient. Here again, Government has taken a realistic view in providing only those posts which it can foresee filling in due course by locally domiciled officers who have received special training. During 1955, this Government opened a new training school in Woodbridge Hospital for mental nurses with the specific intention that locally domiciled nurses could obtain their training in mental diseases. If this training is to be provided for and if this Mental Nurses Training School is to be expanded, the additional provision here proposed is essential, as also that, if I might draw your attention to it, for the appointment of a Sister Tutor under item 204 under the same Head.

The point on which we would all be grateful to receive information is why have not four local women been sent if the four vacancies made last year were for the purpose of sending local women overseas for training?

That point will be met as well.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived. The sum of $28,813,910 for Head 52 ordered to stand part of the Schedule.

I propose to suspend the sitting till half-past two. Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the Assembly. Sitting accordingly suspended at 12.21 until 2.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m. Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.

Head 53 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, may I be allowed to speak on both my motions at the same time?

Are they connected, Mr Goh Tong Liang?

They concern the same thing.

The hon. Member may then do so.

In that case, with regard to the two amendments standing in my name, firstly, To reduce by $5,140 the sum to be allotted in respect of Item 2 (3), Transport and Travelling, on page 213 of the Estimates, and, secondly, To reduce by $2,000 the sum to be allotted in respect of Item 4, Entertainment Expenses, on page 213 of the Estimates, I think, after what has been said, it is no use for me to speak on them. It is going to be the same old story and I propose to withdraw the two amendments.

Is the hon Member not proposing the amendments?

No, Sir. The sum of $130,380 for Head 53 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 54 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Hon. the Chief Secretary yesterday doubted if there were enough rabbits in the colonial hat to make a rabbit pie. I have great pleasure now in pulling one of the fattest rabbits out of this colonial hat. Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $1,200 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (2), Deputy Controller of Immigration, Grade G, on page 214 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, in the Remarks column of this First Schedule, there is this legend against the post: "Salary scale revised from $1,300-40A-1,420". The post is to be changed from an upper timescale post to a superscale Grade G post at $1,520 - Deputy Controller of immigration. Mr Chairman, Sir, last year's Estimates showed the same number of people in this department in Division 1 - Controller of Immigration, Grade E Deputy Controller of Immigration (not Grade G) Assistant Controllers of Immigration, seven. Now, it is going to become: Deputy Controller of Immigration (upgraded to superscale) Senior Assistant Controller of Immigration (upgraded from Assistant Controller to upper timescale) - with the same number of officers in charge. Mr Chairman, Sir, the Hon. the Chief Minister may not like what I said in this House yesterday, and he will not like what I have to say on this today. But I would remind him that it is the duty of this Assembly to see not only that his Malayanisation policy is being pursued vigorously but also that there is no rigging in the service. At page 75 of the 1955 Establishment List - this is a copy, Mr Chairman, Sir, which is in the Library of this Assembly, and I do not see why the Hon. the Financial Secretary would not wish the House to have the advantage of information which has been placed at the disposal of this Assembly in its Library - one will see that the inevitable result of the creation of these two posts means the upgrading of two expatriate officers. There is a Deputy Controller of Immigration (substantive holder), who is an expatriate, and this appointment has always been a timescale post. Now, it is proposed - not that there is any expansion in the staff of the department, not that there is any rise in the status of that particular office - that the scale for that particular office be upgraded to Grade G. As there is already a substantive holder of that position, there is no doubt that the person who is going to get the rise is the person in occupation of that office. There is no doubt that it is a simple and clear case where, in spite of the good intentions of the Hon. the Chief Minister and his Ministerial colleagues who have been elected into office, the intention of the expatriate civil service is quite clear - that they are pushing and jockeying all their friends up into all the superscale posts in every possible way. Mr Higham rose -

Yes, Mr Chief Secretary?

On a point of order, Mr Chairman, Sir. The Member for Tanjong Pagar has imputed improper action by the civil service. The civil service in this Colony this day and age is controlled by Ministers. That is imputing improper motives to Ministers.

I have not heard the hon. Member imputing an improper motive to any specific Member of the Assembly. As I see it, he is now at- tacking a class of public officers. It is unfortunate that he should see fit to do so. I am sorry that my hands are tied by Standing Orders and I must leave the standard of the debate to the conscience of individual Members.

Mr Chairman, Sir, my conscience is clear -

If any.

If any? We may not, Mr Chairman, Sir, be quite so super-sensitive in our reaction to attack, or criticism, or objection, or interruption, but that does not mean that we do not have a conscience to keep faith with our electors, with the people who have sent us here for a specific purpose. Mr Chairman, Sir, in other parts of the world, the civil service is not a political issue and it is not customary to have to attack particular appointments in the administrative service of a country. But we have got an expatriate civil service which is a political issue in this country. It is a live political issue and I am attacking it purely on the grounds that it is an expatriate and a foreign service. We are fighting to abolish it, not to give it more pay for no reason other than that the Hon. the Chief Minister did not know better than to take the advice of those who are bound to benefit by all this upgrading. Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, it is not my Ministry but as a Member of the Finance Committee, I am one of the Ministers personally responsible for this particular item.

Shame!

I can speak therefore on the reason why we permitted it. I would like to say to the Assembly - other than those who are so blinded by their hate that they will not see - that we called in the Controller of Immigration and said that we were not happy to upgrade any particular post until we had the full Report of the Sreenivasan (Malayanisation) Commission. In this instance, Sir, it was pointed out to us that this officer has reached the upper limit of his timescale for some time now, and that there has been, since the advent of the Coalition Government, considerably increased activity in the Immigration Department, particularly as a result of representations which came through me and other Ministers, and particularly due to the pressure that I was putting on and other Ministers were putting on the Department to expedite its dealings with applications for entry permits which in the past had taken two or three years to go through. To our minds, Sir, it is a ghastly thing to keep a family waiting in suspense and anxiety for such a considerable period of time, and although it is true that the senior officers in that Department remain the same in number, the House surely has not forgotten that only recently it approved the appointment of four more junior officers to that Department in order to expedite the increased volume of work as well as to give greater rapidity to the decisions to be taken in respect of those applications. As a result of that expansion, Sir, there has been a great deal more work thrown upon the officer in question whom I do not remember ever having met. I learned his name only last night, and that from the hon. Member opposite, but the name does not matter. I think it is correct to say that he is an expatriate officer, but the position is this, Sir. It is the intention of this Government to deal with scrupulous fairness with all its employees, and if in the normal course of events it is proper that a certain civil servant, whether he be a Malayan or whether he be an expatriate, should be promoted and receive a hundred dollars extra per month, then he should be promoted, Sir. He should also, if there are abolition terms, properly get those abolition terms in respect of that extra hundred dollars. I do not, nor do my colleagues, intend to permit the expatriates to be treated unjustly nor, I think, does the country want it. We want abolition and we want Malayanisation, but we do admit that there must be fair compensation and there cannot be fair compensation, Sir, if we are holding back the proper promotions at proper times. I know I find myself in the extraordinary position - it may seem to be so to certain Members of the House - of defending the expatriate civil service, but I have all my life, Sir, sought fairness for all human beings. That is why I am in this Assembly and I hope that is why we are all in this Assembly. I say that it is unfair to an expatriate officer to stop his normal promotion - and this was not a normal but a pressing promotion - just because we want to give him less when abolition terms come. That is cheating in the true sense of the word and it is not the intention of the Government to cheat the expatriate civil servants, nor do I think the people of Singapore want to cheat the expatriate civil servant when it comes to giving him abolition terms. I have every reason to believe, and so have the Ministers who are my colleagues on the Finance Committee and who saw and heard the Controller of Immigration, after the representations made, that this was, in fact, a proper and well-earned promotion. It is true that when abolition comes he will get a few dollars more because he is now getting a hundred dollars more a month. For the honour of this country, Sir, we should not seek to save those few dollars.

For the honour of this country, Sir, let us be honest whether we want to Malayanise at every possible speed. Let us be honest whether we propose to get rid of expatriate officers and supplant them by local officers, or quibble and wobble, be frightened of sabotage in the civil service by Europeans in strategic positions, and come here and defend them. I have not come here to this Assembly to represent their interests. I said before the elections that I did not seek one European vote. I have come here to represent the Asians of Singapore and they do not want this. Furthermore, I am ashamed to hear that the officer in question cannot discharge his duties unless he receives a hundred dollars more -

There was no such suggestion.

The man is already in that position and has always been in that position. Because there are four more Deputy Assistant Controllers of Immigration to look after, a slightly increased number of Deputy Assistant Controllers - four out of 27 - because of the increase of the four, the officer in question is unable to discharge his duties with proficiency and honesty if he does not get the hundred dollars more! That, Sir, I think is the most damning admission that any Minister can make about the expatriate civil service -

There was no such suggestion or admission.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Member for Tanjong Pagar is on a witch-hunt against expatriates. He sees red when anything is suggested to improve the lot of expatriate officers, not because they are expatriate officers but because of the rate for the job.

Come, come!

It is because of the new constitution that this Deputy Controller of Immigration has to take on additional responsibilities. It is as a result of the spate of appeals that have been sent to the Department through the various Ministries, and particularly through the Chief Minister, that the Controller of Immigration has found it necessary to give additional responsibilities to the Deputy Controller of Immigration. To suggest that I, as the Minister responsible for that Department, would allow a recommendation to go through just because the holder of the post is an expatriate officer is a most unfair and baseless -

Order, please. The time has elapsed. Question on the amendment put.

Division, Sir.

Clear the lobbies.

Mr Chairman, Sir, may I say, before a division is taken, that I do not consider this in any way to be an attack on the Government nor a motion of no confidence in the Government? The House divided: Ayes, 6; Noes, 23; Abstentions, 3. Ayes Noes Ahmad Bin Ibrahim. Abdul Hamid Bin Goh Chew Chua. Haji Jumat Jumabhoy, R. Braga, A. J. Lee Kuan Yew. Butterfield, C. H. Lim Cher Kheng. Chew Swee Kee. Lim Ching Siong. Ede, John. Goh Tong Liang. Hart, T. M. Higham, J. D. Jumabhoy, J. M. Lim Choon Mong. Lim, R. C. H. Lim Koon Teck. Lim Yew Hock. Mak Pak Shee. Marshall, D. S. Mohd. Sidik Bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Nair, M. P. D. Ong Piah Teng. Seah Peng Chuan. Sutherland, G. A. P. Tan Theng Chiang. Thomas, Francis. Wong Foo Nam. Abstentions. Lazarous, A. R. Lee Choon Eng. Tan, William. Question on the amendment accordingly negatived. The sum of $997,650 for Head 54 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 55 - The sum of $1,009,790 for Head 55 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 56 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $10 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 9, Assistance to Youth Organisations, on page 226 of the Estimates. Let me, Sir, at the beginning make my stand very clear. I am not moving a reduction of $10 because I feel that the sum is too much but I am moving a reduction of $10 because I think the sum is too small. I am bound by Standing Orders and so I cannot move anything above what has been put in this Budget. Sir, "Assistance to Youth Organisations" in this instance means assistance to boys' clubs and mixed clubs and girls' clubs. The institution of boys' and girls' clubs was mooted in the year 1946 and I think the Nominated Member, Mr R. C. H. Lim, was for a very long time on the Committee of one of the clubs. The purpose and aim of such clubs and institutions are to assist underprivileged children. In Singapore today, Sir, we all realise, and it has been repeated very often indeed, that over 50 per cent of the population is under 21. It is even more important, Sir, to realise that out of that 50 per cent of young people in Singapore, a very large number of them come from underprivileged homes, homes that cannot afford the little amenities of life. The parents of these youngsters are probably hawkers and labourers. They cannot afford to buy them anything to assist them to pass their time usefully. These youngsters have no playing facilities. Many of them have no opportunity to go to school. Many more have to help their families. It is because of this group of youngsters that boys' clubs and girls' clubs are set up to assist them. Assistance to such people must take in a lot of voluntary workers, and I would say that in many clubs many people are willing to help this group of people. They are doing really good work, instead of theorising in air-conditioned rooms, as some people do, as to what we should do for the underprivileged. However, not all people who want to help can help because they are not equipped to help. I believe that whenever we spend money we must always get value for our money. If any scheme to help these under-privileged young people is to attain greater success, then we must train a group of people so that they may be able to help these young people. We must train them along special lines. We must train them in art and in handicrafts so that they can go back to the clubs and assist the youths, but such schemes cost money and very little money has been provided. Again, Sir, doing such work is full-time work. The whole band of voluntary people who are helping in these schemes have to earn their own livelihood. They have to look after their own affairs and in order to make leadership in boys' clubs more effective, we have club leaders who work for a period of six hours and more a day. Some work for eight hours, and holidays are included, but they are very happy to serve. I personally feel that although the Department of Social Welfare would like to say that they are part-time workers, they are, in fact, full-time workers. They work on holidays when they should be having their rest; and yet how much do we pay them? We pay them round about $80, $90 or $100 a month, and that is really a pitiful sum. We are now faced with the position whereby if we do not assist these young people to spend their excess energy in the proper manner, there is a very real danger of their running into bad company or being led to become gangsters; and of their being taught to be anti-social in the years to come. Boys' club work is positive work and it is only by the work of such people that Singapore may be a happier place to live in. The sum allocated, $40,000, for the whole movement is indeed very small. During the Second Reading stage, I said that in 1954 the sum allocated was $28,000. That was for ten clubs. In 1955 the sum allocated went up to $40,000. That sum represents a 50 per cent rise and we have about 13 clubs. This year we have 40 clubs, and the sum allocated remains the same for 1956. You will see, Sir, that the activities of this movement have increased almost three times since last year, but the grant remains the same, at $40,000. I regret that that should be so. I believe that it should be increased and all people who have any love and care for those who are really under-privileged and need assistance should see to it that that sum is increased at once. Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I have been connected with boys' clubs since 1946 and have helped in the establishment of many of the boys' clubs, but there are some boys' clubs existing today which cater not for poor boys or working boys, but school boys and boys of parents who are able to contribute a fair share to the expense of running such clubs. I feel that until we could prove to the Social Welfare Department that a boys' or a girls' club caters only for poor boys and working boys and not for boys and girls whose parents could contribute to the expenses of the club, we are not justified in asking Government to spend public money for the purposes of such clubs. One other thing which the Member for Serangoon has forgotten is this. A request has been made to the Social Welfare Department to supply several club leaders one of whom should be in charge of a number of clubs to assist in their running, instead of each club employing a half-baked leader to look after its welfare.

Mr Chairman, Sir, youth welfare is, of course, in the forefront in the Government's social welfare programme, and I can assure the Member for Serangoon that the points he has raised will be looked into by me personally. The $40,000 vote in the Estimates, Sir, is to be regarded as a standstill vote, pending the creation of standard formulae for grants which are now under consideration, largely as the result of a visit of an expert on youth service. The amount necessary will, of course, depend on the number of new clubs formed. Government has no control over this. The formation of clubs is spontaneous and should be so. As has been pointed out by Mr R.C. H. Lim, the Social Welfare Department provides youth or club leaders in the form of five Youth Service Officers and four Assistant Youth Service Officers to assist in the running of the boys' clubs. In addition, Sir, under the Head: Contributions and Charitable Allowances, the Government gives financial assistance to the Girls' Life Brigade, the Boy Scouts Association, the Girl Guides Association and the Singapore Youth Council. The amount has been increased from $11,775 in 1951 to $22,680 in 1956. In addition, Sir, the Education Board gives grants to Boy Scouts and Girl Guides to the amount of $11,000, as can be seen in Appendix C, page 267, sub-head 3 of the Draft Estimates.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I confirm what the Hon. the Minister for Labour and Welfare has just said, that the question of assisting boys' clubs is in the forefront in the minds of the Ministers, but I am sorry that the Member for Serangoon made a reference to the hawkers because I do not think they can be considered as under-privileged since they have just built a market costing nearly $1 million for the hawkers in Killiney Road.

Mr Chairman, Sir, if Mr R. C. H. Lim refers to all boys from schools as being privileged, then I think we must differ a little on that. If you refer to those boys who ride in big cars and whose parents have salaries of $500 and above, yes, I agree that they are, but I can assure you that such boys form a fraction of one per cent of the strength of such clubs. If you say that there are a few school boys in such clubs, then I, as the President of the Federation of Boys' Clubs, welcome them. I welcome them because they are material which can be made to lead other boys who are not as good when compared to them educationally or otherwise. A few educated boys coming into boys' clubs and mixing with the other boys is certainly a good way of promoting understanding between their different stations in life. The next point I would like to make is that the Hon. the Minister for Labour and Welfare has stated that he has increased the number of Youth Service Officers. This should be the case and the number should be further increased. It is not just because you have increased your Youth Service Officers that you have discharged your duties towards the under-privileged people, the people whom you say you will take care of; but I think you will have rendered them a direct service if you work among them, lead them, help them with money and create for them a contented feeling that, after all, the Government is trying to do something for them. They do get a little kick out of it. Then you can afford to be somewhat complacent. But if, with the present lot of youths all looking enviously at everyone else, and you do not do something about it and quickly enough, you are going to run into great danger. The danger will not be faced by you. It will be faced by probably your successors because these are the people who will be the citizens of tomorrow.

Mr Chairman, Sir, there has been no suggestion in my speech that, because of the presence of the nine Youth Service Officers, the Government will not increase the grant to the youth organisations. I have already explained that the $40,000 in the Estimates is a standstill vote pending the creation of standard formulae, and as soon as these are ready, Government will then give consideration to additional grants if these are necessary.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I would like to assure the Member for Serangoon that he has my sympathy and support whenever he is able to prove to Government that the clubs which are now requiring financial support from the Government do not have boys or girls whose parents could contribute towards the expenses of such clubs, and with the assurance and the attitude of the Minister as expressed today, I am sure that if the Member for Serangoon could produce sufficient evidence, the grants might be increased.

On a matter of guidance, Mr Chairman, Sir. If the circumstances indicated by the Member for Serangoon as a motive for his motion is by way of a protest against the inadequacy of the provision, and there is not the appropriate procedure for such a motion, then it should be withdrawn at the end of the debate rather than put to the House.

That depends, of course, entirely on the hon. Member whether he is satisfied.

I register this dissatisfaction and will not withdraw it, not because we want to have a vote taken on it but because I want to put on record that such a protest has been launched. That is all.

Perhaps I did not explain myself very clearly. The protest has been launched. The hon. Member's motion will appear in the Votes and Proceedings and in the Official Report but if he wants a vote taken, then, of course, a vote can be taken.

I would not want to take a vote. I want to move this motion.

Mr Chairman. Sir, it is a revelation to me how some of the Government Ministers have lost touch with the common people. For the Hon. the Minister for Health to say that hawkers are no longer an underprivileged class because of the building of a hawkers' shed costing $1� million in Killiney Road is a very astounding statement for me to hear. I think he has now lost touch with the poor people since he has been elevated to his position. This market was not built by the hawkers. The hawkers got people to come and help finance them to build it.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I wish to mention to the Hon. the Minister for Labour and Welfare one important point regarding the youth organisations - the so-called boys' clubs and the Youth Council. We have noted that most members of these two organisations are English-speaking school boys. I think that is a very serious matter which needs consideration and I hope we can change that in the Youth Council and the boys' clubs. If I am not mistaken, many Chinese school boys and girls, according to my personal experience, are taking very little interest in these youth organisations. Sir, I wish the President of the Federation of Boys' Clubs would give me an actual number of how many of the members of these organisations are Chinese-speaking, how many English-speaking, how many Malay, how many Tamil -

Order, order. The time has elapsed.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived. The sum of $9,282,580 for Head 56 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 57 - The following amendment stood in the name of Mr Lazarous - To reduce by $2,750 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 2 (4), Transport and Travelling, on page 231 of the Estimates.

Mr Chairman, Sir, when I gave notice of my amendment, I was under the impression that the money allotted under this Head was to be used during the current year, but after having listened to the Hon. the Financial Secretary, I am satisfied that this amount will be properly controlled. So I propose -

The hon. Member is not proposing the amendment?

No, Sir. The sum of $132,960 for Head 57 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 58 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $10 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 15, Telecommunications Services, on page 234 of the Estimates. Sir, I move this motion mainly because I do not know for what purpose that large sum of $903,520 is to be used. I believe, Sir, that quite a number of motions like the next motion that will come up will also be for the same reasons. This is because, Sir, we do not have an Estimates Committee. In the Standing Orders Committee of which I am a Member, I remember that we submitted a Report to this House recommending the setting up of an Estimates Committee and if a Minister had taken this matter up with the House and an Estimates Committee had been set up, there would not have been this necessity of moving a motion in order to find out the reason why large sums of money with no breakdown figures are being voted, or why such expenditures are being allocated apparently for no reason. Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I do sympathise very much with the hon. Member because it is a confusing thing. I wished to get up just now but you would not allow me to tell him that. In fact, the two amendments which he is moving do concern precisely the same thing although it cannot be shown in the Estimates in the present form. I do not know myself how it could be shown at all but, anyhow, I will start now to try and explain the situation. It is rather a complex one in a sort of arithmetical way, and if you cannot understand my explanation, then I will leave it to the Hon. the Financial Secretary who can, no doubt, give it to you still more clearly. The situation, broadly, is that telecommunication services are an essential part of the Regional Air Traffic Control Centre, which is necessary for an international airport, and the problem which particularly puzzles the hon. Member is that the costs under the Regional Air Traffic Control Centre are apportionable amongst the Governments of the Federation, the Bornean territories, and Singapore. The total expenditure on telecommunications for the Airport is broken down into two-thirds for the Regional Air Traffic Control Centre and one-third for the Singapore Airport. The one-third for the Singapore Airport is payable by Singapore. The two-thirds for the Regional Air Traffic Control Centre is apportionable. The basis of apportionment is one of those terribly confusing formulae which are arrived at when you have Committees meeting on these things, and each Government is trying to find some means of sorting out what is an acceptable way of charging the costs amongst one another. They are on the basis of landing and housing fees in each territory. Singapore's share comes to approximately 45 per cent of the total cost. Now, I am not sure if that solves your difficulty or whether you want me to go into the details of what services are provided and that kind of thing. Would you like me -

A little, please.

Order, please.

- to continue?

Is the hon. Member addressing the Chair?

I beg your pardon, Mr Chairman. Well, let us see. I think this will do quite well. I think this is what you want. You have a good many aeroplanes coming into the international Airport. You have, in fact, three aerodromes parallel with one another, and aeroplanes coming into all of them. A large part of the air traffic is military, which must fly in a military type of way. In fact, if you have got to make an air strike in Johore, the Airport authorities cannot say, "We are going to delay the air strike because we expect an airliner to arrive at about the same time as you want to make the air strike." Military aircraft therefore have to be able to take off and come down whenever they want to. You need to have special navigational aids which can assist a civil aircraft as it approaches the aerodrome and bring it straight on its own proper safety line with beacons and that sort of thing. Briefly, the items provided for the safety of aircraft in flight are five long-range radio circuits to other airports in South-East Asia and Australia-Sydney, Ceylon, Bangkok, Djakarta, and Borneo. Then we have the long-distance radio and a telephone service to aircraft in flight up to 500 miles or more from Singapore. Then there are short-range radio services operating from the Singapore Airport Control Tower which controls the local flying of aircraft as they come on to the airstrip. There is also the maintenance of air radio beacons which are the equivalent, from the air navigator's point of view, of a lighthouse on an island when a ship is coming over the sea. These beacons are picked up by an aeroplane which follows the beacons till it touches down on the ground. Then there is a miscellaneous local link in radio communication which is necessary to ensure effective ground liaison between the airports. I hope that is a sufficient picture of the network. The costs are fairly high, but if you want an international airport, you have to have the equipment which international operators expect and which is necessary by international civil aviation standards.

Mr Chairman, Sir, references have been made to the absence of an Estimates Committee by you and also by other Members on the other side -

Is the hon. Member talking on this question?

On this question, Sir, because I have to reply to that point, Sir.

Carry on, Mr Lim Yew Hock.

Thank you. The Member for Serangoon has mentioned that the Standing Orders Committee has recommended the appointment of an Estimates Committee. I would like to inform this House that the Committee's recommendations have been accepted by the Government but it was felt that we should only move a motion to adopt the recommendation at the next session of the Assembly because the proposal is to appoint an Estimates Committee at the beginning of each session. That is why I did not table a motion and I am waiting until the next session to do so.

Mr Chairman, Sir, just on a point of information. May we know at what particular hour today this decision was reached to have the Estimates Committee?

Mr Chairman, Sir, although I have listened to a most interesting discourse, I view it as a waste of time, the reason being that had there been an Estimates Committee we would not have been wasting our time here. I feel that there is no point in going on with my two motions and I ask leave to withdraw them.

Have I the assent of the Assembly that the amendment moved by the Member for Serangoon be withdrawn? Hon. Members indicated assent. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. The following amendment stood in the name of Mr Lim Choon Mong - To reduce by $10 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 21, Telecommunications, on page 237 of the Estimates.

The hon. Member's next amendment is not being proceeded with?

No, Sir. The sum of $2,986,220 for Head 58 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 59 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, I beg to move an amendment, To reduce by $10 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 7, Upper Air Observatory, on page 238 of the Estimates. Sir, I do not wish to make a long flight into the stratosphere, and, in moving this amendment, I wish to enquire whether it is fully necessary to embark on this project during the coming year. There are so many pressing priorities requiring larger and larger sums of money in the social services, and I wish to be assured whether "Upper Air Observatory" is a priority and not a secondary requirement, seeing that it involves expenditure amounting to something like $70,000. Fair weather for this island is what we all want, but after sitting in this House for the last few days, I wonder whether we shall not find it by keeping our feet on the ground rather than having our heads in the clouds. I shall be grateful for enlightenment from the Hon. Minister as to whether this is an absolutely essential provision. Question proposed.

Here again, it is highly technical in its way but the basic principle is extremely simple. This is not a new project. It started in 1951 and we are coming to the end of the Colonial Development and Welfare grant which has provided an Upper Air Investigation Programme - I think you can call it that - and the programme, having exhausted the Colonial Development grant, now has to come down to public funds if we want to continue it. If you do not want a flight into the stratosphere - I am afraid you will get it if you ask for it - I need only say that it does provide essential information about the winds at high altitudes, about temperature, humidity, the probability of precipitation of rain and so forth, which factors are of extreme importance if you are going to have high-flying international aircraft coming into Singapore. They are also of considerable relevance for forecasting weather on the ground as well and are aspects of the meteorological service which we are anxious to extend and improve.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I am sure the hon. Member has done his homework and, in view of his explanation, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Have I the leave of the Assembly that this amendment be withdrawn? Hon. Members indicated assent. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. The sum of $999,480 for Head 59 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 60 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $16,560 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (2), Controller of Posts, on page 241 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, this increase is the result of an intention to double the number of Controller of Posts. I would, with your indulgence, Mr Chairman, touch upon the other item to which I shall be moving an amendment relating to Assistant Controllers of Posts where there is an increase of two, one approved in 1955. Mr Chairman, I have broken down -

Order, please. That is one of the items which have been marked as objectionable under the Standing Orders. Can the hon. Member explain fully?

Mr Chairman, Sir, the explanation for that is this. In respect of that amendment, I am entitled to attack the increase of one, as one was approved in 1955, and I am entitled to take the point in this session.

I see. Carry on, please.

I have here a simple table of the figures for Division I appointments as compared to the Divisions II, III and IV appointments ranging over the years 1947 to 1955. This table shows an increase of 66 per cent on the 1947 figures in Division I appointments and 20 per cent increase in Divisions II, III and IV appointments: Year Division I Division II, III Posts and IV Posts 1947 6 as against 703 1948 8 as against 736 1949 8 as against 731 1950 8 as against 731 1951 8 as against 731 1952 8 as against 751 1953 8 as against 769 1954 8 as against 776 1955 10 as against 848 The figures show an increase in Division I posts of 66.6 per cent as against an increase of 20.6 per cent in Divisions II, III and IV appointments. According to these figures, unless, of course, there is a subtle explanation of which this House is unaware, the Establishment shows a definite tendency for the Department to become top-heavy with Division I officers. Question proposed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the hon. Member has produced some very good figures but I am sure they do not tally with the ones that I have got. My figures are: Year Division I Division II, III Posts and IV Posts 1947 7 703 1948 9 776 1949 9 731 1950 9 731 1951 9 731 1952 9 751 1953 9 769 1954 9 776 1955 10 848

Let us have the 1947 figures

1947 is 7 to 703 by which, of course, you meant one is a leave reserve filled at that time in Kuala Lumpur. I think the difficulty is that you have probably overlooked the leave reserve and thus got a rather discrepant figure -

The hon. Member is still addressing the Chair, is he not?

I do apologise, Mr Chairman. We are so informal sometimes that I get a little confused -

That is the trouble with some -

Order, please.

Now, I apologise again, Mr Chairman, but in the process of checking these figures with great interest, I missed the main point of what the Member had to say, and he will have to repeat it if he wants an answer.

Mr Chairman, Sir, that is the tendency of those who come here in informal clothes and informal shoes!

Oh, stop sneering!

Order, please.

We know you are -

Order, order.

I find it very difficult to understand -

I find it impossible!

Order, order.

- how one can carry on a very serious debate when one loses one's temper, which I think is always a bad thing under any circumstances. What I wanted to point out to the Minister for Communications and Works is that the increase in Division I appointments is roughly 66 per cent as against the increase of 20.6 per cent in Divisions II, III and IV appointments. In other words, what it means is that compared with the 1947 figure - assuming that 1947 was a year in which there was an efficient working unit in the Postmaster-General's Department - it shows that the Department is now getting top-heavy with Division I appointments.

I do sympathise with the difficulties of the Member for Tanjong Pagar. It is a complicated thing to understand the workings of a very large organisation like the Post Office -

Please explain.

I am going to, and I shall explain all the quicker if the Member for Tanjong Pagar can control both ends of his tongue which does rather take up the time of the Assembly without getting us much forrader! Now, the point which, in fact, we are discussing, if I take it correctly, is the appointment of an extra Controller of Posts. It is an upper timescale post, not a superscale post -

I never said it was.

No, I know the Member did not, Mr Chairman, but you probably looked it, I do not know. Now, the relevant fact to this is the existing situation and the situation which we expect to come. In the beginning of this marathon debating contest, I did point out to the Opposition that their motto might very appropriately be: "Those who pay no heed to existing conditions and formulate their criticisms blindly." Now let us take one point. In the period during the last five years, there have been over 20,000 houses and flats built in Singapore and, averaging at five residents per house or flat, which is rather low, it gives you a figure of somewhere over a hundred thousand persons who have been rehoused in new areas in one way or another. This, in itself, is a very large problem of reorganisation. When you get population shifts of that size, you do need continual planning and readjustment in order to secure that your letters do arrive without undue delay and that your postmen have an adequate weight to carry on their beat - not too many letters and not too few, but just what is reasonable and correct by agreement. In addition to this movement of population (which is continually going on) there are also some statistical figures. The hon. Member has expressed his repugnance at being showered with statistics - they are too much like facts and too little like oratory for him. I would point out, however, that the total mail handled has risen from 47 million items in 1947 to 89,300,000 in 1955, constituting an increase of over 80 per cent. The savings bank transactions have gone up from 167,000 to 305,000, another over 80 per cent increase; Money Orders issued and paid from 202,000 to 440,000, which is about 117 per cent increase; Postal Orders issued and paid from 101,000 to 553,000, a 449 per cent increase. If the hon. Member wishes to note them down, Mr Chairman, I will go slowly for him if he wants to discuss them later.

Let us have a copy of it.

Expenditure has gone up from $1,700,000 in 1947 to $8,850,000 in 1955. Revenue has gone up from $4,600,000 to $11,550,000 during the same period. Profit has been steady the whole way at an average of $2� millions a year; sometimes it is up and sometimes it is down, according mainly to how much development goes on. Then, of course, the population of Singapore as a whole has increased by perhaps 200,000 during this period, perhaps by a bit more. It is not a figure that is precisely available. The staff increases on the whole are not in relation to the total expansion of post office business. Whereas I have given you figures of anything from nearly 450 per cent increase down to 82 per cent increase in postal business, the actual total staff increase is in the nature of 32 or 33 per cent, and hon. Members will appreciate that this does represent a very marked achievement on the managerial level. That you could have this enormous expansion of business with a very moderate expansion of staff is an achievement which is very greatly to the credit of the senior officials - locally domiciled and expatriate - who are running our very efficient postal services, and if it is necessary to maintain that efficiency, then you should have a thoroughly adequate and competent managerial level staff. There is one other point which I think perhaps I ought to take and that is, as the hon. Member, I know for sure, is very well aware, that the Post Office makes a very thorough business of its employer/employee relationship which is necessarily a matter that occupies the time of people at the very top level of the postal services. If you are to have competent and responsible officials dealing with the rather lengthy discussions and examinations that go on, and if you are going to ensure good employer/employee relationships, then they cannot have adequate time for dealing with the postal traffic, and this is another new factor which does reasonably put up a case for the expansion of the top-level staff. In my view, if a case is to be made out, it should be made out for a larger staff, because the set-up is expanding and will continue to expand and the staff at the top level are very heavily worked. We have development plans in hand, but they are not yet ready to come before the House, Mr Chairman. I hope they will be ready fairly soon and we will then see whether they do call for an urgent increase in staff.

Mr Chairman, Sir, we are indebted to the Hon. Minister for his exhaustive explanation of how the volume of work has increased in the Postal Department on account of the increase in the population and the general increase in the postal matter and people who use the mails, but we should be obliged if he could explain why he has found it necessary to have one more Controller of Posts and one more Assistant Controller of Posts just to look after the little bit of work which is involved in employer and employee relations. Is he suggesting that these two appointments are going to be filled because of the commendably progressive trend of having good relations with the employees? Are these two just to deal with employees?

Could the hon. Member reveal whether he is commenting on the first amendment or on the second, or whether he wishes to take them together?

He has commented on both. The Hon. Minister may comment on both.

My comment, Mr Chairman, Sir, is that the hon. Member, as he very often does, puts up a thing that he has invented himself and then proposes to shoot it down. I have just given very lengthy reasons why further managerial level staff is required and he passes it all by, as far as I can understand him, saying, "Are these people being appointed solely for the employer and employee relationship?" Of course, they are not. They are employed for the purpose which I have already outlined at considerable length. I can outline them again if it is the wish of the House. I do not think it is very necessary -

Carry on, carry on.

I must say that I feel a sort of pleasant home-sickness as a schoolmaster for my classroom. As I look at the Opposition and see the Member for Tanjong Pagar in the front row, he reminds me so much of what you always get in a classroom. That is the bright little boy in the front row, who is always putting up his hand and saying: "Sir, Sir, I know!" He is always bounding on to his toes longing to give and pour out the information he has inside him, and a student of that kind is an awful nuisance in the classroom. I feel that the hon. Member has taken up rather more time than necessary with his extraordinarily lengthy irruptions into the debate because -

Order. Is the hon. Member talking on the amendment?

I am just arriving at this point. He wishes me to comment on the Assistant Controller of Posts

Order, order. The time has elapsed.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived. The sum of $9,570,380 for Head 60 ordered to stand part of the Schedule. Head 61 -

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $1,200 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (2), Deputy Director of Public Works, Grade D, on page 244 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, one notices in the Remarks column that the salary is being revised from $1,670 to $1,770. We were informed, when we were talking about the Commissioner-General's Office, that the reason for that increase was because of the Ritson revision which should have taken place much earlier. In this particular case, the Ritson revision has taken place recently and we would like to know why, so very shortly after the Ritson revision, it is thought proper to come to this House to ask for a further upgrading. Question proposed.

We can judge, Mr Chairman, the sincerity of feeling of the hon. Member when dealing with these staffing matters by the fact that he is anxious now to object to every possible post that he can. He was very much chagrined and disturbed and perturbed when he discovered, to his dismay, that he had actually approved quite a number of the posts which he now sought to attack; and it was one of the most unpleasant shocks that he had ever had -

There are a few more.

- when he discovered that, here and there, scattered through the amendments standing in his name where he proposed to attack the Government, they were the things to which he had himself assented in earlier Command Papers. It was also noticeable that, even during today when one of his amendments was due to come up, he had left the room, perhaps to gargle his exhausted throat. Anyhow, he was not there when he had to discuss the appointment of a Deputy Secretary to help in the administration of a very important and essential public service - Mr Lee Kuan Yew rose -

On a point of order?

On a point of order. Mr Chairman, Sir, I do not really wish to deny the Hon. Minister the right to speak at great length if there were time, but I would be obliged if he would come to the point because the number of minutes allotted for this is limited. On a point of order I would ask that he be made to speak on the subject.

Did you give way on Monday?

Order, please. I was just wondering when the hon. Member was coming to the amendment. I expect he is working up to it.

I am indeed, Mr Chairman, indulging in what we call a flight of rhetoric, but I will do my best to come to the point. We all recognise that the Member for Tanjong Pagar does arrogate to himself the position of an efficiency expert who is fully confident of assessing the need for any job and the emoluments which should be attached to the job, and I would like to satisfy him in respect of this Deputy Director post. The first thing I would point out is that this is a simple upgrading which was proposed way back in July, 1954, and it simply brings into line the Deputy Director of Public Works with two other comparable Deputy Directors. I would ask the hon. Member to look at item (2) of sub-head 1 under Head 48 on page 164 - "Deputy Secretary (Schools and Colleges) and Deputy Director of Education." Similarly under Medical and Health, Head 52, on page 180, under "Personal Emoluments - Headquarters - Division I, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Health and Deputy Director of Medical Services." These are two Deputy Director posts comparable to the Deputy Director of Public Works, and it does seem very reasonable and proper that such Deputy Directors should get the same Grade D. That may, however, not satisfy him. It is a simple matter of equity in which he takes not a great deal of interest. The other points which might be noted are that, in fact, the top-level appointments in the Public Works Department are decreasing. If I can refer the hon. Member again to the Estimates he will observe that the appointment of the Chief Drainage Engineer - item 5, sub-head 1 on page 244 - is vanishing after three months and the appointment of the Superintending Engineer, Grade F, is also vanishing after six months. The appointment of the Chief Engineer at the Airport has already gone - a reduction of three superscale posts. Finally, the hon. Member has accepted the principle that an increase in work, and consequently an increase in responsibility, does justify an upgrading. He accepted that earlier this morning and I would point out to him that there has been something in the nature of a 300 per cent increase in the work of the P.W.D. in the last five years and therefore this very moderate upgrading is related to a very large expansion.

Is this expansion since the Ritson revision?

I really think the hon. Member knows the answer to that. I have just pointed out that expansion has gone on over a series of years and you can pick out what point you wish for it. Expansion continues and is probably going to continue into the future.

Mr Chairman, Sir, are we to imply that the upgrading is going to go up and up into the future?

This is another example of the habitual practice of the leader of the People's Action Party of putting up a preposterous absurdity and pretending that I have said it. He has said it, nobody else has said it, and he proposes, Mr Chairman, that I should somehow be made to stand as father to his brainchild - so he is welcome to it! I propose nothing more than a simple practical operation, the upgrading of a man to put him on equality with other similar Deputy Directors, and that is related to a very large expansion in the work. Why any further preposterous suggestions should be attached to it, I leave it to the Members of the House to judge.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the explanation we have received is to this effect - that the work in the Department has increased and the Deputy Director of Public Works has been brought into line with two other Deputy Directors in two other Departments. May I enquire from the Minister why, when the Ritson revision took place, it was not found necessary to upgrade this Deputy Director of Public Works? Why is it, in spite of his admission that the expansion of the P.W.D. took place before the Ritson revision, that it is only now found necessary to upgrade him?

Mr Chairman, Sir, I am afraid I am not very clever about Ritsonisation and that kind of thing, but the fact is that there is no connection between the two. Ritsonisation was done for consolidation, if I understand it rightly. This is a simple matter of a man being given a lift up in relation to an expansion of work and expansion of responsibility.

Question on the amendment put, and negatived.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I move, To reduce by $18,240 the sum to be allotted in respect of sub-head 1 (8), Senior Executive Engineers, Grade G, on page 244 of the Estimates. Mr Chairman, Sir, we have here in the Remarks column "Title changed from Electrical Engineer and salary revised from $1,100-40A-1,420" - [Interruption.]

Order, please.

I beg your pardon - "Increase one to include the appointment..." - [Interruption.] I beg your pardon, Mr Chairman?

Your brief is wrong!

No, my brief is very seldom wrong, Mr Chairman. I am an advocate and it is my duty to put across a point of view -

Order. Moment of interruption.

How much were you paid?

Order, please. Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the Assembly.

Sir, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply have made progress in the Appropriation Bill and ask leave to sit again tomorrow.

Tomorrow it will be.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to move, That this Assembly do now adjourn.

I rise to second the motion.

Question put, and agreed to. Resolved, That this Assembly do now adjourn. Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Four o'clock p.m.