Hansard, 1957-07-25

The following Member has, under the provisions of subsection (3) (i) of section 47 of the Singapore Colony Order in Council, 1955, obtained from the Speaker, permission to be or to remain absent from meetings of the Assembly: Mr Seah Peng Chuan - two days, 25th and 26th July, 1957.

Mr Stanley Toft Stewart, Chief Secretary (Acting), took and subscribed the Oath of Allegiance.

I have received a message from His Excellency the Governor dated 23rd July, 1957, informing me that His Excellency has, in accordance with the provisions of Section 62 (2) of the Singapore Colony Order in Council, 1955, assented to the following Bill: Architects (Amendment) Bill.

asked the Minister for Communications and Works what is the position of the new franchise to be granted to Malayan Airways Limited; when can the House expect that its terms and conditions will be communicated to it; and whether the Government will initiate a debate in the Assembly in respect thereof.

The position as to a new franchise is at present somewhat uncertain. We have been unable as yet to reach a conclusion regarding the new franchise and have already had to extend the old franchise up to 31st July, 1957 in order to continue negotiations about the future structure and services of Malayan Airways. It has now become clear that a further extension will be necessary. I might explain that early this year we had reached a point at which the signing of a new agreement and the holding of a debate in the Assembly in connection therewith appeared imminent. Since then, however, a situation has arisen which has made it necessary to review the action already taken and to study new factors, and new proposals made thereon, which affect the new agreement. Negotiations are still proceeding in the light of these new proposals. For this reason, and also because the matter involves five Governments as well as the airline operators, I am unable to go into detail. I can, however, properly say that the new factors and the new proposals to which I have referred have raised issues of sufficient importance to warrant the holding of personal discussions between the five Governments and the airline operators at a high level, and hon. Members will doubtless have read in the local Press that these took place in Singapore on 15th and 16th July. They have been adjourned till about 9th or 10th August. If by that date the negotiations can be successfully completed - and I most sincerely hope that they will be - certain other action will remain to be taken both by the Government and by the airline operators in connection with the structure of the new company. It is generally agreed that the whole operation will require a further three-and-a-half or four months to complete. Action is therefore being taken to extend the present agreement for a yet further period up to 30th November, 1957. I can assure the House that we are pressing on with the utmost urgency and as soon as possible the House will have an opportunity of debating matters connected with the new agreement before it is signed.

Order for Recommittal read.

10.07 a.m. Clause 1-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 13, line 5, to leave out "1956" and insert "1957". This is a correction. Amendment agreed to.

The consequential amendment - wherever the term "Local Government Elections Ordinance, 1956" occurs, to leave out "1956" and insert "1957" - will be made as a matter of course. Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 2- Amendment made: In page 14, line 10, to leave out "1956" and insert "1957". -[Inche Abdul Hamid].

Sir, I move, In page 14, line 17, to leave out "Proclamation" and insert "Notification". This is to bring it in line with the wording in clause 8. Amendment agreed to. Clause 2, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 8-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move an amendment, In page 17, line 14, after "Ordinance", to insert- ": Provided that no alteration shall be made in the boundaries of the electoral divisions of any local government area unless and until the proposed alteration has been notified in four successive Gazettes and contemporaneously advertised once every week for four consecutive weeks in one English, one Chinese, one Malay and one Tamil newspaper circulating in the Colony with an invitation to all persons affected, by such alteration and who object thereto to make their objections known in writing to the Minister in order that the same may be duly considered by him: And provided also that the provisions of this section shall apply in respect of the alterations in the electoral divisions of the City from those existing under the Municipal Elections Ordinance, 1948: Ord. 26 And provided also that the provisions of 1948. of this section shall apply in respect of the new electoral divisions of the District Councils.". Mr Chairman, there are three parts to the amendment which I have just read out. The original clause as it stands states quite clearly that as far as the boundaries of electoral divisions in local government areas are concerned the Minister has complete and unfettered authority to fix them as he thinks fit, and subsequently to alter them as he thinks fit. The clause as it stands at the moment reads: "The Minister may, from time to time, by notification published in the Gazette specify the names and boundaries of the electoral divisions of any local government area for purposes of elections under this Ordinance." Now the first part of our amendment is exactly parallel to the proviso to clauses 5 and 15 of the Local Government Bill in respect of the limits of the City and District Council boundaries. It requires that when any alterations are made in future to the electoral division boundaries, notification must be made in the Gazette for four consecutive weeks and in newspapers in the four main languages. In countering our arguments on this point last week, the Hon. the Chief Secretary was not in his most thoughtful frame of mind. He said - and I hope I do not misrepresent him in his absence - that this matter was not raised in the Select Committee as being one of importance and why therefore should it be raised now? The answer is simple. We had formed the impression that as an All-Party Committee was to be set up to work out Legislative Assembly electoral boundaries, the same principle would be applied by the Government in respect of local government boundaries. As we are now faced with a virtual fait accompli by the strict application of this clause 8, it is only right and proper that at this stage we should move an amendment to draw attention to, and if possible prevent, a fait accompli. Secondly, the whole point of recommitting clauses or whole Bills to a Committee of this Assembly is that there should be second thoughts on important legislation. The Hon. the Minister is still bringing in fresh amendments to the Local Government Bill, matters which have been overlooked or left out. Is he to be criticised for introducing amendments at the eleventh hour? Or is he to be commended for noticing them in time? We have had second thoughts on this particular clause, as we are entitled to have them, and we find these amendments to be most vital. The Hon. the Chief Secretary went on to say that electoral division boundaries were not important to the man-in-the-street and that so long as he got a vote he did not mind where he voted. I am surprised at my Hon. Friend taking such a light-hearted attitude in this matter which strikes at the root of all democratic principles. Political Parties and Independent Members and individual responsible citizens and the Press are there to see that electoral division boundaries are delineated on a completely impartial basis, and they represent the man-in-the-street who may not always himself be articulate. In the United Kingdom an independent commission was set up four or five years ago to delineate new constituencies required by shifting populations and the growth of new towns for the last general elections in that country. This was done so that neither Conservatives nor Labour nor Liberal could say that the boundaries had been rigged. When the Hon. the Chief Secretary tried to make light of the whole problem we on this side have been forced to the conclusion that the Government has a guilty conscience in this matter. The louder they cry, "We never even thought of fixing the boundaries to suit our political convenience!", the less convincing their protestations are. That may be unfortunate but it is inevitable. As I said last week, if the Government does not accept the principle that the delineation of electoral divisions should be subject to public scrutiny and objections if necessary, then it lays itself open to the charge of political manipulation even if it is innocent, and that goes for any other government of the future. Let me go back to the first proviso in which lies the principle that alterations in future must be gazetted and advertised in four languages. The Government, if it is wise, will accept this principle with no difficulty whatever because it affects the future. The second and third provisos follow from the first. If the principle is accepted then it follows that it must be applied in respect of the alterations which are now being made, which are most extensive because this great new local government machinery is coming into operation for the first time. A huge new electorate of largely non-English-speaking people is now to be made interested in playing its part in local government administration through its elected representatives. The present six wards of the City Council are to be changed to at least 32. The District Council areas are to have between them eventually at least 48 divisions or wards. Are these great democratic changes to be thrust on the people in an undemocratic way, or are the people to be invited to comment on these changes through their Chinese, Tamil, Malay or English newspapers? We must begin, as we mean to go on, following proper principles. Government must not only be democratic but to be seen to be democratic. Now the Government, if it accepts the principle in the first proviso, need have no difficulty whatever in accepting the third proviso in respect of the District Councils because, as the Minister has told us, these elections cannot be held until March 1958 and therefore there is plenty of time to publish the boundaries and call for objections. The only doubt arising is the second proviso and whether gazetting and advertising the proposed boundaries of the City Council for objections will have caused the holding of elections to be delayed beyond December this year. There are, Sir, several answers to this. Firstly, the Government must never ward off or ignore criticism, or threaten postponement of elections as a reason for not accepting amendments. If the amendments are sound, but may cause delay, then delay must be accepted by all parties or a way found round that delay. Secondly, the Hon. the Chief Secretary himself said that minor changes could still be made. If that is so, the public have a right to express their views as to these changes. Thirdly, changes in boundaries do not affect the compiling of the list of voters, which is the biggest task. The electorate itself is the primary compilation; fitting them within the boundaries is secondary. Fourthly, if the Government feels that gazetting and advertising in the newspapers for four consecutive weeks would severely upset its programme of a December election, we on this side would be quite prepared to accept an amendment to this particular proviso to the effect that the boundaries be gazetted, say, twice and advertised four times within two weeks, with a further week for objections to be sent in. What kind of a time-table would this mean? Gazetting on Saturday, 3rd August to the 10th August, and the last day for objections say 17th August. This will not only give time to the All-Party Committee to study the boundaries but give Independents and individuals the chance to express their views. We have no doubt that if the Government wants to do this it can do it and still hold December elections. Mr Chairman, if we want to have clean elections we must start off in a clean way, with no suggestions or implications of Government having manipulated the divisions to suit its own interests. If the Government refuses to accept this amendment suspicions will be aroused inevitably, and corruption - which we all profess to want to see removed - will not be removed.

Mr Chairman, I have an amendment to make to the amendment. Amendment to the Amendment handed in.

The amendment is in order. Please proceed.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I beg to move two amendments. The first is, At the beginning of the first proviso, to leave out "Provided that no" and insert "(2) And no". The second amendment is, At the end of the first proviso, after "him" to leave out all words to the end and insert "provided that the provisions of this subsection shall not apply in respect of the first ordinary elections of Councillors to the City Council or to any District Council held under the provisions of this Ordinance.". Mr Chairman, the first amendment is consequential to the second amendment and I shall therefore take them both together and explain the second amendment. Government agrees in principle with the first proviso given in the amendment by the hon. Member for Tanglin. There are similar provisions in clauses 5 and 15 of the Local Government Bill. It is not agreed, however, that the present procedure envisaged should apply in respect of the first ordinary elections under this Ordinance. That is why I am moving this amendment. At this stage if boundaries are to be altered, all the work which has been done in the preparation of registers for electoral divisions showing the polling districts will have been wasted and the registers will have to be scrapped. As it is, Sir, more than half of the registers have been printed by the Printing Office. Elections would have to be postponed several months. At the last sitting of the Assembly the Hon. the Chief Secretary explained that the boundaries for City electoral divisions had been drawn up by officials without any direction. In spite of what the hon. Member for Tanglin has just said, Sir, I repeat once again that that is so. I should like to draw the attention of this House to the statement made by the hon. Member for Serangoon wherein not only did he cast an aspersion on the Government in power, but also on our civil service. Thank God, Sir, we have a first-class civil service which is above board, a civil service which cannot be influenced by the machinations of any political Party, even by the Party in power. This morning, Sir, for the information of Members of this Assembly I circulated the Report of the Committee which delineated the boundaries of the City Council. A perusal of that Report, Sir, will apprise Members of the basis upon which the electoral divisions were delineated. For the above reasons, Sir, I have to repeat once again that any alteration in the present boundaries as drawn up by the official Committee will involve delay in the holding of elections. Sir, I beg to move.

The original amendment is, In page 17, line 14, after "Ordinance", to insert the three provisos as appear in the Order Paper; since when an amendment to the original amendment has been moved, firstly, to leave out the words "Provided that no" at the beginning of the first proviso and there to insert "(2) No", converting the first proviso into a subclause of the clause; the second amendment to the amendment is after "him" at the end of the first proviso to leave out all the words to the end and insert "Provided that the provisions of this subsection shall not apply in respect of the first ordinary elections of Councillors to the City Council or to any District Council held under the provisions of this Ordinance.". The first Question is, "That the words 'Provided that no' proposed to be left out, be left out." In the debate, hon. Members will be permitted to touch on the second amendment to the amendment. 10.30 a.m.

Mr Chairman, we welcome on this side the fact that the principle that alterations in electoral division boundaries should be gazetted and objections invited from the people of Singapore. But once you have accepted that principle you must apply it from the start. Take the second part of the amendment to the amendment - I see no reason whatever in the first place why this principle should not be accepted in respect of the District Councils. I mentioned that a few moments ago. You have much more time in the case of the District Councils. Therefore having accepted the principle in the first instance, accept it without hesitation in respect of the District Councils. We then come to the problem - we admit it is a problem - of the City Council electoral division boundaries and the need to hold the elections as soon as possible. In this regard it must be remembered, as the Hon. the Minister has just said, that the Report of the Committee which has worked out the delineation of these boundaries has only been placed in the hands of Members this morning and I presume supplied to the Press this morning. Why could this not have been done before? Why could not some machinery, say the All-Party Committee, have been put into operation to consider these boundaries at least two or three weeks ago? It would have been quite possible to do this. Then possibly there would have been no need to move this part of the amendment, as I call it the second proviso. We would have accepted the fact that the public and the All-Party Committee were being given a chance to consider these new boundaries. But no, we are faced with this Report today, on the very day in which we have to debate this important question. It could have been given to us earlier. I do not know why it was not. Will the Hon. the Minister therefore not accept our suggestion that if he cannot agree to four weeks of gazetting and advertising in the newspapers in respect of changes in the City Council boundaries, he will agree to reducing the length of time of gazetting in order that this important principle is accepted, which in fact Government has accepted through accepting my first proviso?

Mr Chairman, Sir, in support of my friend and colleague, the Minister for Local Government, I have to say that the Statistics and Printing Departments are well on with preparing the electoral rolls for the City Council elections based on the City Council boundaries specified in the Local Government Bill and on the electoral divisions drawn up by the official Committee. Any change in the boundaries must of course delay the final certification of the electoral registers, and if the changes are major ones the effect will be more serious. For example, Sir, if Katong is restored to the City it will materially affect the total number of voters in the City Council area as it contains a large number of voters - I remember, Sir, roughly well over 25,000 voters. The electoral divisions have been based on the assumption that there will be a total of 505,000 names on the rolls altogether and the 32 divisions have been designed to divide this number as equally as possible. If the total number is increased it will probably be that all 32 divisions will have to be revised. If divisions adjoining the boundary of the City Council are altered there will almost certainly be repercussions throughout. Even a minor change of two electoral divisions - let us say Cairnhill and its Western neighbour, River Valley - must cause some delay, and the length of the delay will depend on the number of alterations to be made. If the first proviso given in the amendment of the Member for Tanglin is made applicable to the City and District Council electoral divisions, as suggested in the second and third provisos of the amendment, it will initially mean a delay of at least four to five weeks. If you read the first amendment, Sir, there will be an initial delay of four weeks and if the Minister is to consider the representations made it may mean another delay of one week or perhaps even more. Next, if any major change takes place, it will involve a further delay of three or four months, for the following reasons: (1) We have to rearrange the cards into new divisions and this will require, according to those who have to carry out this work, about 10 weeks; (2) to reproduce, collate and bind the registers will require another ten weeks; (3) assuming that a large part of these two territories overlap, at least 15 to 17 weeks will be required. If Katong is put back into the City and the rural area included in the Western part of the City area is taken out again, the recasting of the boundaries of all District Council areas will have to be undertaken. My hon. colleague said in this Assembly - I think it was at the April or May sitting, Sir - that it was intended to hold District Council elections in March 1958 if City Council elections are held in December 1957. One of the reasons, Sir, is that there cannot be simultaneous preparation of every phase in the drawing up of new District and City Council registers because the sorting machines and so forth can only be concentrated on one set of registers at a time. Therefore, Sir, if City Council elections have to be postponed to April/May 1958 then District Council elections will have to be postponed to June/July, or even August, 1958. I do not know whether we want that. I do not think we want that, Sir. I think the people of Singapore want to see the new City and District Councils in being as quickly as possible. We cannot afford any delay if elections are to be held in December. Since the electoral rolls should be published by the latter half of August in order to hold elections in December, the tentative time-table to which Government is working, based on the periods allowed for in the Bill, is as follows: (1) listing, printing, collating, binding and publication of draft registers to be completed by 20th August, 1957; (2) allowing for claims and objections to be completed from 21st August to 18th September, 1957; adjudication of claims and objections to be completed by 19th October; listing, printing, collating and insertion of amendments for claims and objections in the draft registers and certification of final registers by 31st October. Thus a writ of elections can be issued any time from 1st November, 1957 onwards and if it is found possible to publish draft registers before 20th August so much the better, Sir. Sir, for the reasons which I have given, I oppose the second and third provisos of the hon. Member's amendment. We want to try and hold to this time-table. We want to have these City Council elections in December and the District Council elections in March. I repeat again, Sir: the public of Singapore want these new Councils. For those reasons, Sir, I support the amendment moved by my hon. colleague.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the last speaker has only one point to offer and that is, "We do not want to delay City Council elections." But let me ask this House, Sir, how long has Government delayed them? Has it not delayed them for at least one year? Did we not hear in this Assembly last year that it was going to postpone the City Council elections? I remember when the new Government took office it said it wanted to hold elections at a very early date but there have since been two postponements. I think I am right; there have two postponements of these elections. What has the Government been doing during these two years? I would like very much to know. Has it been working on the matter? Has it been trying hard to make early elections possible? It is always good to say that people want early elections. We want them early too, but it is a very different thing not to put it into practice. There was plenty of time on the hands of Government in the last two years and more, yet today we are confronted with the reason, "We do not want delays." Government could have made them earlier but it has not attempted to make it earlier. [Interruption].

Order.

Another little point that the Government put up is, "We have had everything printed. Delay will cost money; it will delay a great deal more." I have already said that these delays could have been averted if it had started earlier. There is another one more point to consider. It would be better to have an election which is said by all to be fair, to be democratic, than to have one thrust down your throat just because Government says, "We cannot delay." Now that is like tempting you by saying, "If you want it this way you must have it my way. If you want to have elections in December then you must carry out elections on the lines we propose. If you do not carry out on the lines we propose then there will be no elections, and if there is going to be delay the blame will be on you." That is absolutely unfair. That is absolutely undemocratic. That amounts to coercion, Sir. And now how much will it cost the people of Singapore to change a little bit of this printing? Cost and labour should not be taken into consideration. The more important consideration is whether it is democratic, whether it is viewed by all to be fair. Since the Government, Sir, has accepted the first proviso, I see no reason why the third proviso should not have been accepted. People living in the City are important. They can have objections. They must be notified of changes. But I personally feel that people living in the rural areas are also as important, and that if one measure is given to the City people then it should also be given to people in the Districts. This will not be done if the amendment of the Minister is accepted to strike off the second and third provisos, the reason for opposing the second proviso being that if you are going to have alterations now to your City Council divisions you will not be able to have elections in December. Let me quote, Sir, from a note which I received this morning about the electoral divisions in the City proposed by the Government Committee. I happen also to have a copy of the Constituency Delineation Commission of the Federation of Malaya, and I shall also quote one or two extracts from that. 10.45 a.m. In the Report of the Committee to delimit the Electoral Divisions of the City and District Councils, I would like to read from Annex B, paragraph 1 (a). Under the heading, "Densely populated Divisions with unusually high voter strength", the reason is given as: "The ratio of voter strengths to population is high in all these areas and is due in some cases to the fact that many suburban and rural dwellers have registered their addresses in these divisions..." It seems then, Sir, that the system is very faulty and the Committee which deliberated on this and used the existing facilities would be led to wrong conclusions. On page 3 of the statement shown under the heading, "23. Telok Ayer (TA)", sub-heading "TA.1", the "Population as at the Numbering stage April, 1957" is given as 3,260; and the "Electors as at April, 1957" is given as 4,062. Sir, when a check is made on the number of people living in a certain area, you find that there are 3,260 people; your electoral roll, however, shows that there are 4,062 people in that area. There must then have been ghosts in the area! Let us call them ghost voters! They do not live there; they live elsewhere, but invariably they turn up for voting. Now this is a terribly bad system, Sir, of compiling our electoral rolls. You put it to any man and if he can say that it is logical to have 4,000 odd voters when there are only 3,000 odd people living there, then something must be wrong. I would like to draw your attention further, Sir, to the fact that the 3,000 odd people are men, women and children combined, whereas the 4,000 odd voters are all over 21. The Chief Minister rose-

Is it a point of order?

A point of information, Sir. Would the hon. Member be good enough to tell us what particular page he is quoting from?

I was quoting from the statement showing number of seats, population and number of electors within the City area.

It is at page 5 of Annex "A".

Under "23...TA.l".

I think hon. Members will find it on page 5.

It seems to me, Sir, that if a thing like this happens and is going to exist in our electoral rolls, it cannot be considered to be democratic. How can we say it is if I happened to be living in one district and am one of the 3,260 people yet when it comes to voting I may be swamped by people who are not living in that area? The person who is elected may not be elected by the people living there but may be elected by people living in other districts. This system of compiling the electoral roll will tend to make people change their addresses just for the purpose of elections. If I happened to be controlling a labour union. Sir-

Order. Perhaps the hon. Member would like to explain how his complaint about the compilation of electoral rolls has any relevance to electoral divisions?

Certainly, Sir. In fact under clause 8 the Minister may by notification published in the Gazette make up all these rolls, and Government has already intimated that it is going to do that in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee set up by the Government for the purpose of compiling the rolls. Furthermore, Sir, this is the first election and Government says that it is not going to accept any objection; therefore I am speaking against Govermnent's decision of not accepting or not hearing objections.

Clause 8 refers to electoral divisions and I think the hon. Member's complaint is against the roll of electors. I should like to find out what connection there is.

I am grateful for your pointing out this, Sir, but I would say the divisions will have no meaning unless the people listed are living inside there and the divisions are made in such a way that there will be that many people in that division. It has that bearing, Sir. Will you allow me to continue?

Please continue until I get a little more puzzled!

I hope you will not, Sir. On this point, Sir, if we give power to the Minister under this clause without it being amended then all these things will come about, all the ghost voters will come in every time. Furthermore, Sir, if no objection is to be allowed in this first election, then we will be going against the principle agreed to by all and also adopted by the Federation of Malaya, that, "in view of the very great distances involved in some of the more sparsely settled portions of the country, it would not be regarded as unreasonable if in some instances a rural constituency were to contain as little as half of the inhabitants in the more popular urban constituencies returning single members." Again on this point, Sir, you will find if you look at the recommendations which the Government is going to gazette and push through to the people, the population of areas in more rural districts like Tanglin- The Minister for Commerce and Industry (Mr J. M. Jumabhoy) rose-

Is it a point of order?

No, Sir.

It is wrong to remain standing when the hon. Member has the floor.

I am referring, Sir, to the top of page 3 of Annex "A". The number of electors would be 18,695 for Tanglin which is a big sprawling area, whereas we have a small compact area like Kreta Ayer with 16,954. Here, Sir, you have one large population in a big rural area returning one member, and there you have a smaller population in a compact area. If you look further, Sir, you will find that some of these areas have as low as 11,000 electors. There again, Sir, I find that the Committee has not been carrying out its work on the principles agreed. At our last sitting we heard the Chief Secretary say that the divisions were drawn up on the line of similarity of interests and that main roads or waterways were used as the division lines. But in Whampoa you find the area goes over Upper Serangoon Road, which is a main street; there is again deviation from the accepted principles. If Government will not accept the amendment proposed by my colleague, Sir, I think it will be trying to push through something which is unfair, all because we want to hold elections in December. This is not going to help the people of Singapore realise that democracy is at work. I certainly feel that a little time to look into the whole matter so that everybody will be satisfied, will go a long way to make the people of Singapore realise that we are now an elected Government and not a colonial one which is going to ram everything down their throat whether they like it or not.

Sir, we all agree with the Hon. the Chief Secretary that we want elections in December, but we do not agree with the price that we are paying today. We do not want to be faced with a fait accompli, with a statement that you cannot change anything now, cannot make any amendments in this Assembly, because half of the lists have been printed and the delineation has been completed. This shows that Government has had all this information in its hands very, very many months ago and either it wilfully chose to hide it from us in order to rush things through the Assembly today, or it has been thoughtless or has not spent any time in thinking of this side of the House or of the people of Singapore as a whole whether we should be given a say in the drawing up of this new division of districts. 11.00 a.m. It seems to me, Sir, that instead of sitting down and doing their work, Ministers and Assistant Ministers have been flying all over the world. They appointed a Committee of officials and told them, "You go on. We shall accept what you find, and we shall push it down the throat of the Assembly and the people of Singapore." That is what we object to today and I, being one of the most mild men, one of the mildest men in this House, was really roused this morning to find that the Government is now trying to hide the mistakes and the blundering throughout its years of office by pushing this Bill through and giving the excuse that anything you do now - making even the slightest amendment - is going to put back elections for two or three months. We cannot accept such acts and statements without a challenge, and we shall tell the people of Singapore that we shall never accept such a ramming down our throats as our leader has described. What better evidence of this is there than the throwing by the Government into our face this morning of this document, the Report of the Committee Appointed to Delimit Electoral Divisions of the City and District Councils? I would like to know how long Government had this document in its hands and why should it be given to us now when we have no time to study, when we have to hold a debate and still read this Report? Is it fair to us that this document should be given to us now? If it had been given to us a month ago, it would have saved a lot of accusations and we might have accepted quite a number of things which are proposed. As it is, Sir, I support the hon. Member for Tanglin and I must vote against these amendments to the amendment.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Government has thought fit to give a very convenient excuse that any change now in the divisions will cause a delay in the City Council elections. The life of the present City Council has been extended on two or three occasions; what harm will it do to have a further delay of one or two months if it is in the interests of the people of Singapore? Every year the Government puts it to the Assembly that we must extend the life of the City Council because we are not yet prepared to hold elections. Then all of a sudden, as the Member for Paya Lebar has said, this Report is pushed on to us to accept, without giving us a chance of even glancing at it, not to say of study. Are we rubber stamps that we must accept whatever the Government pushes on to us? If we are to be rubber stamps why bring all of us here? There is no purpose; the Government itself can run the country. There will be no use having elected representatives in this House. Whose fault is it then that this Report has been pushed on to us today? Whose fault is it that there will be delay? Rather than say that all Parties should accept the responsibility I should say the Government should accept the responsibility for all this delay. If this Report had been prepared and circulated to us much earlier, we could have had a chance of studying it. But we come today to this House and, as the Member for Paya Lebar said, while we are going through the debate it is pushed down our throat. Should there be any change, the Chief Secretary said, there will have to be alterations to all the divisions; and printing of the registers has already begun. Why should they be put into print before the Government come and tell us what it has done? Why should it unnecessarily give orders and instructions to have them printed? Was Government certain that this Report would be accepted or must be accepted? It should have let us have this Report earlier for discussion, for debate, so that we would know where we stand. Even in the Report as it is tabled today I find little can be made out of it. What is there in figures only? Where are the boundaries? In submitting this Report, could not the Government give the boundaries of each division so that we could go further into the matter? Only figures and more figures are quoted. What can figures show us? Nothing; they bring us nowhere. I think the Government should be more careful in submitting such figures and not push them on us. I will certainly support the amendment moved by the Member for Tanglin and oppose the amendment to the amendment.

Mr Chairman, Sir, even a mild man is no longer mild! Yet when I looked through the Report it was the same mild man who was a member of the Select Committee and never thought of the matter. Sir, the allegations about this Report, that we are ramming it down the throats of the public of Singapore, can only be made by people who refuse to understand. The proper, the true situation or position as it faces us today is this. At the sitting of the Assembly last week it was suggested that there had been manipulations on the part of the Government in so far as the delineation of the City Council electoral divisions are concerned. We pointed out at that sitting that this delineation was carried out by an official Committee, and to prove that it was so we tendered a Report to each Member of the Assembly so that they could have something in their hands to prove at a later stage that what the Government proposed to do were recommended in the Report. This Committee was appoined in June, only last month, because at that time the Select Committee was still considering the Local Government Bill. Therefore any suggestion that we are ramming this down the throat of any Member of the Opposition or the public is most unfair. We put this Report in the possession of hon. Members so that they can have evidence at a later stage. When the Minister announces in the Gazette that the City Council area shall be divided into such and such electoral divisions, it can then be seen by all Members of the Opposition and the public that what the Minister proposes to do is as stated in this Report.

Including ghost voters!

Ghosts from the other side of the House!

Mr Chairman, the hon. Member for Tanglin started off in an apologetic manner trying to justify having second thoughts. Sir, we on this side of the House are very sympathetic. We understand hon. Members having second thoughts, especially hon. Members belonging to the Liberal-Socialist Party, who are well known for having no thoughts at all, and who cannot make up their minds. Sir, if, as the hon. Member requests, reference is made to an all-Party Committee, how will that give the people of Singapore a chance to raise objections to the electoral divisions? How will that give a chance to the people of Singapore to express their views? The all-Party Committee - three or four members - will sit down and demarcate the boundaries; but this will still not give the people of Singapore a chance to express their views or to make objections to the proposed boundaries, as proposed by the hon. Member in his amendment. The hon. Member did say that if there has to be delay, then it must be accepted by all Parties. Yet. Sir, reading through the Press a few days ago. I came across this article with big headlines on the front page of the Free Press of 18th June: "TOP COUNCILLORS THREATEN THEY WILL ALL RESIGN 'We can't take it,' they say. Senior members of the Singapore City Council are threatening to resign their seats if the Government does not fulfil its promise to hold elections in December. Some of the Councillors said this morning they were 'fed up' with Government's repeated postponements of elections. The last elections to the Council were in December 1953. A number of senior members have been Councillors for the past six years without a new mandate. One of them, Mr Chan Kum Chee, claims they shoulder the major part of the Council's work." And it goes on to say that Mr Chan Kum Chee says that he and his colleagues shoulder the major part of the Council's work and that there is a threat by Councillors to resign if Government does not have these elections in December 1957. Sir, probably the members of the Liberal-Socialist Party could not make up their minds amongst themselves as to what it should be. Here is a leading Liberal-Socialist member of the Singapore City Council threatening that he and his colleagues will resign if they do not have an election in December, and here are members of the same Party in this Assembly who cannot make up their minds, who want to postpone elections.

We wanted it last year.

Order.

Sir, it is a well-known fact that the Liberal-Socialist Party cannot make up its mind. That is known all over Singapore. My Friend the Hon. the Chief Secretary has given a time-table to show how closely the periods are fitted in so that elections can be held in December this year. The hon. Member for Tanglin has suggested another time-table, but then he is not responsible for making the arrangements for these elections; he can suggest any time-table he likes but whether it is workable or not is a factor which my Friend the Hon. the Chief Secretary has got to consider and if he says it is not workable then I think the House should accept his word because it is he who has to make the arrangements. Sir, at the last sitting of this Assembly, when my Friend the Hon. Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing moved the adoption of the Report of the Select Committee on this Bill, the hon. Member for Serangoon had the - would "audacity" be a parliamentary word, Sir?

The Hon. Minister must first use the word.

The hon. Member had the audacity to suggest that the Government was involved in machinations, on "fixing" of boundaries to suit its own purpose. He even went so far as to accuse the civil servants (incidentally one of the Members of the delimitation Committee is not a civil servant) that they had worked to a directive of the Government and had been biased, and so on and so forth. Sir, that is why today the Minister has handed over to hon. Members this Report of the Committee appointed to delimit the electoral divisions, to prove that these accusations against the Government are without foundation. And if anybody reads this Report he will find in certain paragraphs the basis on which this Committee has made its recommendations. I will just read a few lines: "In reaching its recommendation for these boundaries, as shown on the attached map, it has employed the following basic considerations:-

The Hon. Minister is probably confusing the two Bills. One is the Local Government Bill, the Report on which was presented on 19th June 1957; we are dealing with the Local Government Elections Bill the Report of which was presented on 18th January, 1957.

I am sorry, Sir. My point was this, that one is related to the other and unless we have the Local Government Bill we cannot have this Local Government Elections Bill passed in this House. Hon. Members will remember that in fact this Bill was got ready by the Select Committee early but because the other and major Bill, the Local Government Bill, was held up in Select Committee this Bill could not be got to the House. Since both Bills are related, it is important that a complicated piece of legislation like that proposed in the other Bill, the Local Government Bill, should be given full consideration before it comes to us and should not be rushed. Now, Sir, we are doing all we can to hold the elections in December, bearing in mind the sword which is hanging over our heads of the Liberal-Socialist City Councillors, who threaten to resign if we postpone the elections from December. Perhaps, Sir, the suggestion that elections can be postponed beyond December made by the Member for Tanglin may have a thought behind it - that if these elections are postponed the Liberal-Socialists can hold sway longer in the City Council. I do not know whether that thought is behind the suggestion. I am not in the habit, Sir, of making accusations without justification, as the hon. Member for Serangoon is. I am just suggesting that the wish may be father to the thought - to his proposal to delay the elections. It is possible. I do not say that that is so. Sir, the hon. Member for Paya Lebar, who normally is a meek and mild man, who does not hurl accusations like the hon. Member for Serangoon does, today came out in full force against the Government. He said, Sir, that it would have saved a lot of accusations if the Government had published this Report a couple of months back. He does not realise that Government is rushing this thing through as fast as possible, that the Minister is spending sleepless nights studying the Bill and that all the officials are working overtime to get this thing through so that we can have elections quicker. He does not realise that we have not held up this Report for two months and that it was given to hon. Members to counter the accusations hurled by the Member for Serangoon, who tried to imitate the hon. Member for Tanjong Pagar but evidently could not imitate his oratorical powers. The hon. Member for Serangoon at the last sitting tried to accuse the Government of machinations and so on, of "fixing" boundaries. That is why this Report has been given out to show to the hon. Member and the public at large that these accusations are false and without foundation.

Mr Chairman, the Minister for Commerce and Industry made the suggestion - he said it was not an accusation - that possibly the reason for all this debate today is that the Liberal-Socialists want to remain in office in the City Council. We do not want to delay the City Council elections provided principles are observed, and what we most emphatically want to do is to have genera1 elections earlier to put the present Government out of office. The Minister also considers that I was being apologetic in having second thoughts and that the Liberal-Socialists cannot make up their minds. I find his argument amusing. The Government itself has had second thoughts by accepting the first part of our amendment and the principle that goes with it. The Liberal-Socialists have made up the Government's mind for it. I welcome the Government's second thoughts which endorse our own second thoughts. However, to get back to facts. The Hon. the Chief Secretary a little time ago confessed that the printers were now well on with making up the registers. That being so, it is quite obvious that the delineation of the electoral boundaries was completed some considerable time ago. Why therefore was this Report not made public earlier so that representations could be made? The fact that the registers have been made up - I think the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing said they were half-completed - means that the delineation itself was completed a long time ago, otherwise the registers could not have been half printed which means presumably that 16 of the divisions are already complete and printed. Sir, I spoke on this same principle in the Select Committee on the Local Government Bill when clause 5 was considered, on 16th May. The amendment which I tabled which included a similar proviso to that we are discussing now, was in the hands of the Government a fortnight earlier. Therefore the Government knew perfectly well what was the argument on this matter regarding the publication of boundaries for public objection. Sir, to say that the Government has not had time is an argument which we cannot support. It seems to us, Sir, that the Government is determined to push these new boundaries through without any consideration for any objections which may be made. It has nevertheless accepted the principle and then gone on to flout that very principle. It accepts the principle for future elections but will not accept it for the coming elections. In other words, it accepts the principle but writes it down on a post-dated cheque, which only shows its bankruptcy of democratic ideas and democratic principles.

Mr Chairman, Sir, if I understand the hon. Member for Tanglin right, he said that he had given notice of this amendment about a fortnight ago and as this Report would have been in the hands of the Minister by then he could have gazetted the delineations. Is that what the hon. Member said?

Mr Chairman, no; what I said was that I filed an amendment to clauses 5 and 15 of the Local Government Bill at least a fortnight before the clauses were actually debated in the Select Committee on 16th May. I said that that amendment was similar to the one we have listed.

It is exactly because there have been amendments to clauses 5 and 15 of the Local Government Bill that the first proviso of the amendment before this Committee is accepted by Government. Sir, some doubt has been cast on the statement of the Hon. the Chief Secretary, that because the Statistics Department has now about half the electoral rolls in the machines almost completed the hon. Member is led to believe that the Government must have decided on this delineation months and months ago. Sir, the sorting out of the voters into their various electoral divisions is done by machine - all set, nice and proper, from the information gathered. That information is then conveyed to the Committee. All the facts are there. Once the Committee had decided to recommend which particular mukim should go to which particular electoral division, it takes one lot and feeds it to the machines.

I just want to add that the machines are not Labour Front machines!

Mr Chairman, Sir, there are two aspects to this problem which we have been debating today. The first is the question of the procedure which the Government has thought fit to adopt. The second is the question of the merits of the charge made by the Liberal-Socialist Party against the Government that it has been fixing the boundary lines to the advantage of the Labour Front Coalition Parties. On the first charge, that the procedure has not been, to say the least, proper, no one can deny that the position of the Minister responsible is indefensible. He had ample opportunity to inform all the other political Parties of what was going on. He could not only have cleared his Ministry and the Committee, but everyone else of any allegation of bias. For some reason or other he has not done that and therefore he has to bear the responsibility for this unnecessarily long debate on this very short point. But on the merits of the boundary lines I would like to ask the Liberal-Socialist Party to remember this: for the first time 500,000 people or more are going to vote, many of them for the first time in their lives, and no Party, however clairvoyant, can predict which way the voters are going to vote. The Progressive Party was responsible for the Rendel Constitution and they worked out the boundary lines. They lost because over 200,000 voters went to the polls for the first time and threw them out. So even assuming that the Labour Front has been rigging these boundary lines, there is no guarantee - in fact I am more than certain that there is no guarantee - that over 500,000 voters who are going to vote for the first time in their lives may not vote in a manner expected either by the Labour Front, or the Coalition Parties or indeed the Liberal-Socialists. An hon. Member: Or the P.A.P.!

Be that as it may. Therefore, I say the problem before us is this. If we are sticklers for procedure and are prepared to postpone elections for one or two months to go through this procedure, then by all means let us go through with it. All it means is that the Minister can hear objections after proper notifications have been made, then he rejects the objections and we go through with it. We just go through the drill. But if we do not want delay and we are satisfied, as indeed my Party is, that there cannot be, it is impossible, to rig things because nobody knows which way the voting is going to go, then we just leave it be and go on with it in December. 11.30 a.m. Question put, "That the words 'Provided that no' proposed to be left out, be left out." The Committee divided: Ayes, 17; Noes, 11; Absent, 4. Ayes. Noes. Abdul Hamid bin Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Haji Jumat. Ede, John. Braga, A. J. Goh Chew Chua. Chew Swee Kee. Goh Tong Liang. Stewart, S. T. Jumabhoy, R. Hart, T. M. Lee Choon Eng. Jumabhoy, J. M. Lee Kuan Yew. Lim Cher Kheng. Lim Choon Mong. Lim, R. C. H. Lim Koon Teck. Lim Yew Hock. Soh Ghee Soon. Mak Pak Shee. Tan, William. Mohd. Sidik bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Nair, M. P. D. Ong Piah Teng. Absent Shanks, E. P. Lazarous, A. R. Tan Theng Chiang. Lim Ching Siong. Thomas, Francis. Seah Peng Chuan. Wong Foo Nam. Sutherland, G. A. P. Question accordingly agreed to. Question, "That the figure and word '(2) No' proposed to be inserted, be there inserted," put and agreed to. Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.

Sir, I beg to move the second part of the amendment to the amendment, After "him" at the end of the first proviso to leave out all the words to the end and insert "Provided that the provisions of this sub section shall not apply in respect of the first ordinary elections of Councillors to the City Council or to any District Council held under the provisions of this Ordinance.". Amendment to the Amendment agreed to. Original Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

The consequential amendment will be made - the insertion of the figure "(1)" after the figure "8", in page 17, line 11. Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 11-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 18, line 41, to leave out "(6)" and insert "(3)". This is to correct a wrong reference. Amendment agreed to. Clause 11, as amended ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 22-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 26, after line 18, to insert a new sub-clause (3) as follows:- " Ord. of (3) On a casual vacancy occurring in the 1957. office of a Councillor an election shall subject to the provisions of subsection (2) of section 26 of the Local Government Ordinance, 1957, be held within two months of the date of the casual vacancy upon a date to be fixed by the Governor.". This is necessary, Sir, to rectify an omission to provide for casual elections. Under the present Municipal Elections Ordinance a casual election shall be held within one month of a casual vacancy occurring. One month, we believe, is too restrictive and does not allow of sufficient time for the issue of a writ to nomination day and from nomination day to polling day. Amendment agreed to. Clause 22, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 27- Amendment made: In page 27, line 33, to leave out "1956" and insert "1957".- [Inche Abdul Hamid]. Clause 27, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 34-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 31, line 20, after "taken", to insert ", such date being not less than sixteen days after the date of publication of the notice in the Gazette". The reason for this is that in the case of an ordinary election or elections to fill casual vacancies, the purpose of this amendment is to prescribe a minimum period between nomination day and polling day for electioneering. Amendment agreed to. Clause 34, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Bill reported with amendments; read the Third time and passed.

Order for Recommittal read.

11.45 a.m. Clause 3-

Mr Chairman, before I move the amendment standing in my name I would like to seek your guidance regarding the Standing Orders of the Assembly on the recommittal of a Bill. I refer to Standing Order 54 (1), which reads: "If any Member desires to delete or amend any provision contained in a Bill as reported from a Committee of the whole Assembly or to introduce any new provision therein he may at any time before a Member rises to move the third reading of the Bill, move that the Bill be recommitted...". Sir, the point I have in mind here is that this particular amendment - the first amendment standing in my name - is really consequential to the introduction of new clauses in respect of District Council finances and other allied matters, and I think it would be for the convenience of the House if we could take those three new clauses more or less together rather than take a debate on what is really a consequential amendment. In other words, if the Government will accept the new clauses which will be debated after the other amendments, then this proviso to the definition of appropriate local authority funds could be deleted by recommitting clause 3 at that stage.

Can the hon. Member indicate which new clauses he refers to?

Yes, Sir. The clause actually affected is the clause concerned with District Council finances and funds; if it is approved by the Government then this proviso under clause 3 will of course not be necessary. It does seem to me that the questions of the District Council employees, posts and funds could more conveniently be taken together if I do not move this amendment at this stage; this proviso could be cleared up later after this debate.

Does the hon. Member then suggest that the new clauses "Appointment of District Council Employees" and "List of Posts" appearing on page 104 of the Order Paper are related to the new clause "District Council Fund", and may be conveniently debated together? Is that what the hon. Member says?

Mr Chairman, what I mean is that they are to some extent interrelated. Those three new clauses are all on District Council matters and what we consider to be omissions by Government. If we are to take this very minor proviso to clause 3 now, it does mean in effect that we will have to debate the question whether or not to have the clause on the District Council funds.

The procedure is quite clear. The hon. Member may proceed with his amendment, that is the deletion of the proviso appearing at the top of page 70 of the Report, and in debating that amendment hon. Members will be at liberty to debate the merits or demerits of the introduction of the new clause entitled "District Council Fund", notice of which has been given in page 104 of the Order Paper. As to the other two new clauses I would prefer not to make a decision until the debate proceeds.

Mr Chairman, I fear that I have not made myself quite clear. What I wanted to enquire from the Chair and to seek your guidance on was whether if I do not move this amendment, the deletion of this proviso, on page 70 at all at this stage, and we debate the three new clauses in due course at the end of the amendments on the main clause 3, and come to District Council funds last, if the Government approves of this particular clause, then the proviso in question before us now will have to be deleted; and my suggestion, Sir, is that under Standing Order 54 (1) we could recommit the Bill on clause 3 in order at that stage to delete the proviso. I hope I have made myself clear.

I take it then that the hon. Member is not at the moment ready to go on with the debate on the new clause. If that is so then of course the procedure suggested by the hon. Member is quite correct. He need not move the amendment standing in his name at this stage. He may apply under the relevant Standing Order and, as pointed out, if his new clause is accepted, he may ask for a further recommittal of the Bill before the Third Reading.

Thank you very much, Sir.

I take it that the hon. Member is not moving amendment (a) to clause 3, which is- In page 70, to leave out lines 1 to 3.

I am not, Sir. Amendment (b), I beg to move, In page 71, after line 23, to insert:- '"member of a local authority" means a City Councillor or a District Councillor, or the Chairman of a District Council or the Deputy Chairman of a District Council, as the case may be;'. Sir, my point in moving this amendment - indeed I moved it in Select Committee - was to clear up what I felt was an inconsistency in this Bill. Sir, you will find that in the first few clauses of the Bill continual references to City Councillors and District Councillors. I might mention clauses 8 and 9, where the word "Councillor" figures right through those clauses. Now it is only when we get to clause 20 after passing through the section dealing with District Councils where we find the term District Council is used, that we read in sub-clause (1), "No person elected or nominated to be a member of a local authority shall act in such office..."; so that here instead of using the term "Councillor" we change to the term "member of a local authority". If we go further to clause 25 (3), we will find the two terms mixed up. In line 6 at the beginning of sub-clause (3): "The date on which the seat of a member of a local authority shall, unless in this Ordinance it is otherwise provided, be deemed to be vacated shall be-...". And then we come to line 17 of sub-clause (3) (C): "in the case of a councillor ceasing to possess a qualification or becoming disqualified,...". Now I think there is no doubt that here a "member of a local authority" and a "councillor" is one and the same thing and yet we are using two different terms for one and the same person. I made this point in Select Committee and you will read in column 9 of the Official Report (No. 1) that the Hon. the Attorney-General said at that time: "...we do recognise there are inconsistencies and I did say we are grateful to the hon. Member for drawing the attention of the Committee to them. If we can leave the matter there, I will give that undertaking and the final result will, I think, be that the inconsistencies which are bothering the hon. Member will be removed." In those circumstances I begged leave to withdraw the amendment. But nothing in fact has been done and we still have this anomaly of the term "councillor" in one part of the Bill and "member of a local authority" in another, an anomaly in fact even in one single clause which I have already quoted. Therefore it seems to me that this amendment is necessary, that "member of a local authority" means a City Councillor or a District Councillor because that will avoid making amendments right through the Bill because of the interchange of these two terms.

Mr Chairman, the hon. Member for Tanglin mentioned about the Hon. the Attorney-General undertaking to see that any inconsistencies would be rectified, and he quoted column 9 of the Official Report (No. 1) dated 16th May, 1957. I would also like to quote from column 9 the words which you said, Sir: "Can I explain further? Perhaps if after the Hon. the Attorney-General has considered the whole point he considers that a definition of this nature is not necessary, it is still open to the Member for Tanglin to move his amendment at the Report stage...". Sir, after consideration we feel that this amendment is not necessary. There is no need to amend as suggested by the Member for Tanglin. There are certain general clauses which are applicable to all local authorities, Sir, and in such general clauses the description which is mostly used is "member of a local authority", as in clauses 21, 22, 23 (1), (2), (3), and (5), 24, 25 (1), (3), 27, 28 and 45, and there is no need to define a member of a local authority, Sir, because local authority is already defined as being a City Council or a District Council as the case may be. So a member of a local authority means a member of a City Council or a District Council as the case may be, which is the same as saying a member of a local authority means a City Councillor or a District Councillor as the case may be. There are, however, certain specific clauses which refer either to the City Council or to a District Council, in which Councillor is specifically used as referring to such persons specifically. And in the definition of the Member for Tanglin, he includes Chairman of a District Council and the Deputy Chairman. I would like to point out, Sir, clause 17, where the Chairman is already deemed to be a Councillor. There is no need to mention him again in the definition of "member of a local authority", and again, Sir, with regard to the Deputy Chairman, I think the Member for Tanglin has perhaps overlooked the fact that the Deputy Chairman is not a Councillor. For those reasons, Sir, we feel that the amendment is not necessary.

Mr Chairman, perhaps the Hon. the Chief Secretary will explain the reason why in clause 25 (3), line 6, there is mention of "a member of a local authority" and in the same clause, sub-clause (3) (c) a little way down the page, there is a change to the term "councillor". Perhaps there is some specific meaning which has escaped this House?

The hon. Member is referring to clause 25 (3) at page 86.

Mr Chairman, in that one case I would agree with the hon. Member that the word "member" would be better. That is, so far as I can find, the only case where a change appears to be desirable.

Mr Chairman, then I would like to know whether the Government will accept my amendment or whether it will continue the inconsistency. Amendment negatived. 12.00 noon.

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 72, line 24, after "messuages" to insert ", houses". This is a minor amendment which is intended to help clean up the Bill as I had hoped the previous amendment would do, and I see no inconsistency in moving this amendment just to make things a little clearer than they are at present. "Premises" includes houses, buildings, lands, tenements - the word "houses" by being inserted there underlines what is a common term in various parts of the Bill, in particular with reference to annual value, and therefore it seems convenient to have these four terms together under the definition of "premises". If you would turn, Sir, to page 69, line 33, on the same clause, you will find that the words "house, building, land or tenement" used - "the annual value of such house, building, land or tenement". If you turn to clause 111 on page 121 regarding valuation, you will read: "A local authority shall cause to be prepared a list, which shall be known as 'the Valuation List', of all houses, buildings, lands and tenements...". Now I agree, Sir, that you can say that in the definition of "building" on page 70 there is included the term "house", but "building" there is used more in the sense of a structure than in that of a dwelling house, and you have a definition of "house" on page 71 which includes a dwelling-house, warehouse, office, counting-house, shop, school, and any other building in which persons are employed, that is to say a place of habitation rather than a structure. I therefore think it is convenient - I agree it is not absolutely essential but it is convenient - to have under the term "premises" the word "houses" included. I would point out that in the Select Committee stage an amendment was accepted by which the term "tenement" was included and that is in exactly the same position. You will find tenements included under the term "dwelling-house" and you will find dwelling-house included under the term "house", and you will find house included under the term "building". But my point is this: for cleaning up the Bill and making it as clear as possible from the point of view of annual values and ratings, it is convenient to have the word "houses" included in the definition of "premises". The Chief Minister (Mr Lim Yew Hock): Sir, we accept this amendment. Amendment agreed to. Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 5-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 74, line 18, after "him", to insert ", provided that the provisions of this section shall also apply in respect of the alterations in the limits of the City described in the First Schedule to this Ordinance from those existing under the Municipal Ordinance". This amendment to the clause is to some extent parallel to that which we debated under the Local Government Elections Bill earlier this morning, but much larger issues are involved in this clause than in respect of the other Bill. The principle that notification should be gazetted not only for future minor alterations but the present major alterations is an important matter when you are making such vast changes in the limits of the City and the Districts as are proposed in the First Schedule to this Bill. You do not have to go into the merits or demerits of particular cases but you have a large part of Katong, Siglap and Geylang Serai-Ulu Bedok going out into the district areas. A large part of this area is thoroughly urbanised. You have on the other hand a largely rural area - Pasir Panjang and Ulu Pandan - being brought into the City Council area from the rural areas. You have a third anomaly which cuts across the other two, of a change in the Braddell Road area, where an entirely rural area which has been in the City Council area for many years is being divided into two, one part going out into the Districts and the other remaining in the City. So you have three different types of anomalies striking against the normal principle of extension of City Council boundaries. When a rural area becomes urbanised it is normal to bring it within the area of the City Council; whereas the Government, for some reason best known to itself, wants to go in the opposite direction. Now whether or not these changes are acceptable is a matter in which the people should have a say, and in which they have not had sufficient say. It is true, of course, that the Schedules were to be found at the back of this very complicated Bill when it was first gazetted some time ago, but it was only of course available in the English language (and I shall shortly point out that it is somewhat stretching the English language trying to follow a surveyor's idea of where a boundary lies). But there was no notification whatever in the other three main languages - Chinese, Malay and Tamil - although for the first time those are to be spoken languages in the City Council and the District Councils As I said earlier on the other Bill, I raised this point on 16th May and the Government has had plenty of time. It has had two months in which to make the necessary gazetting or to inform people as to what these new boundaries are in four languages and with the assistance of a map. And I may say that the description of the boundaries is extremely complicated to follow and there has been no map published with the Bill, only with the White Paper; so that the public has not had sufficient access to the facts regarding the Government's intentions. As I say, I raised the point in the Select Committee meeting on 16th May and I would also refer you to the present Municipal Ordinance, section 362, where the same or similar provision is made: "No alteration shall be made in the limits of the Municipality under section 5 or in the water limits under section 59 or in any area mentioned in section 399, unless and until the proposed alteration has been notified in four successive Gazettes and contemporaneously advertised once every week for four consecutive weeks in one English and one vernacular paper, if any...". This more or less follows the main part of this clause 5. My point is this: I question whether in fact notification should not have been given under section 362 of the present Municipal Ordinance. Legally perhaps the lawyers will argue that that would not have been possible but even if the letter of the law could not have been observed, the spirit of the law is there, and because the future Local Government Ordinance is to succeed the present Municipal Ordinance it would be only right in principle that the Government should have published and notified by Gazette and in the newspapers of four languages what it intended to do, for the convenience of the people so that they could make their objections if they desired. I would just like to refer you to the First Schedule at the back of the Bill, page 246, and to suggest to you that as this is all that has been placed before the public, it is inadequate and the Government has not carried it out, as it should have carried it out, adequately. The first Schedule starts: "All that part of the Island of Singapore bounded approximately as follows: - Commencing at a point where the production southwards of the western boundary of Clementi Road across West Coast Road meets the southern coast of the Island of Singapore approximately 50 yards south-west of the junction of Pasir Panjang, West Coast and Clementi Roads, the boundary runs generally northwards along the aforesaid production of the western boundary of Clementi Road and its continuation along the western boundary of Clementi Road to a point approximately 220 yards north of 7� mile stone, Clementi Road where it meets the south-eastern boundary of Clementi Road Housing Estate; thence along the aforesaid southeastern boundary of Clementi Road Housing Estate on a bearing of approximately 247� for a distance of 1,310 feet to the eastern boundary of West Coast Road; thence along the eastern boundary of West Coast Road by successive lines of bearings and distances approximately as under: - Bearing Distance 340� 38' 00" 177 feet 342� 18' 00" 487 feet and so on. Now, I suggest to you, Sir, that that may be the route the surveyor takes, but it is easier for people to understand if you say that the boundary follows Clementi Road until its junction with Ulu Pandan Road and then proceeds up Ulu Pandan Road until its junction with Holland Road and then proceeds down Holland Road until it has reached its junction with Bukit Timah Road, which is roughly but not exactly what this boundary in point of fact is. But within what I dare say is a terminological exactitude we find that the boundary does not in fact go down Clementi Road which any logical boundary you think would do, but it makes a sudden jump round a housing estate built by the Singapore Improvement Trust and where I think the Malay Regiment is housed. Now why it should suddenly make a jump and take in a little housing estate as it proceeds down the road is best known to the Hon. the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing. But the point I am making is this, that the Government has not, whatever the Government may like to say by publishing this rigmarole at the back of the Bill several months ago, made it clear to the public what its intentions are. And as I say, with these vast changes in the City Council limits, which affect Katong, Ulu Pandan, Pasir Panjang, Braddell Road, and Siglap and so on, it should notify under clause 5 in respect of these first changes as it proposes should be done in the future. 12.15 p.m. As I said before on the other Bill, we should start as we mean to go on. That would be a proper democratic way of doing things. And if the Government again claims that we do not have the time, then I have only to point out that it had just as much time, and even more time, to publish and gazette these changes than it has for the other Bill.

It is a convenient time to suspend? Hon. Members indicated assent. Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the Assembly.

The Assembly is suspended until half-past two. Sitting accordingly suspended at 12.16 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as tomorrow being a Friday is not a sitting day, may I move a motion under Standing Order 7 (2) to enable that at its rising today, the Assembly do sit tomorrow?

Has the hon. Member the assent of hon. Members present? Hon. Members indicated assent.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Sir, I beg to move, That at its rising this day the Assembly do stand adjourned to tomorrow, Friday, 26th July, 1957.

I second it.

Question put, and agreed to. Resolved, That at its rising this day the Assembly do stand adjourned to tomorrow, Friday, 26th July, 1957.

Debate in Committee resumed.

Clause 5- Question proposed, In page 74, line 18, after "him", to insert ", provided that the provisions of this section shall also apply in respect of the alterations in the limits of the City described in the First Schedule to this Ordinance from those existing under the Municipal Ordinance".- [Mr John Ede]. 2.32 p.m.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the merits and demerits of the boundaries of the First Schedule have been discussed at length in Select Committee and was touched upon by the Minister in his speech in this Assembly last week. I think we can discuss the question of boundaries more in detail when we come to the First Schedule, Sir. The argument here is that the boundaries in the First Schedule should be subjected to the procedure laid down in clause 5. It has already been pointed out, Sir, that the McNeice Report and the Government White Paper showing boundaries were published some time ago and that an opportunity to submit representations to the Select Committee was given. What I said this morning. Sir, about the effect on the City Council and District Councils elections on changing boundaries now also holds good in discussing this clause. If this amendment is accepted, then the City Council elections cannot be held in December. There is already considerable dissatisfaction because of the delay in holding the City Council elections. Here we have a new Bill repealing the existing Municipal Ordinance and reorganizing local government in Singapore. New local authorities are being created with jurisdiction over new areas and this Bill incorporating the new areas is before the representatives of the people in this Assembly for approval. I would like to quote, Sir, the words of the then Attorney-General (Mr C. H. Butterfield) at column 20, Report No. 1: "As the hon. Member can see from the provisos to both clauses 5 and 15, the Government accepts the principle that changes in the limits of the City and of the districts should be advertised, and that the procedure described in these clauses should be followed. But this particular change in boundaries made by this Bill is, in our view, on a different footing altogether - the changes in the existing boundaries are incorporated in a Bill presented to the Legislative Assembly and will be dealt with by the Assembly. For that reason, and also for the reason that we must take some definite step towards holding City Council elections in the reasonably near future, we cannot accept the amendment which the hon. Member has moved to clause 5." Then, Sir, I would like to quote the words of the Member for Tanglin (Mr Ede) at column 17, Report No. 1: "Yes, Sir, but there is one rather important point which perhaps I can make, and that is this: that I would wish, of course, to move a similar amendment under clause 15 on district council limits, which is similar to clause 5, bearing in mind that the Government has now introduced an amendment to its own First Schedule before this Select Committee, an amendment which has not been given any airing whatever for the benefit of the public. The Government may say, "Well, we have published this Bill which includes the First Schedule and let out what these new areas will be. The public have had a chance to air their views and to appear before this Select Committee to say what they feel.' But that will not be the case in respect of the amendments which are proposed by the Government on page 30 onwards of the Revised List of Amendments circulated on 15th April, 1957. These amendments propose changes to be made in the district areas which are unknown to anyone outside this Committee so far as I am aware." Sir, the Member for Tanglin said that there is an amendment to the First Schedule in Select Committee which was not given an airing whatever for the benefit of the public. In fact, Sir, there are two amendments but what are these amendments? They are mere rectification of errors in the description of the boundaries and nothing more. No boundary has been altered. They are just errors in description and we are rectifying the errors. He mentioned the amendments to the Second Schedule made by Government in Select Committee for similar reasons. Except for two amendments, the other amendments are also corrections in the description with no actual change in the boundaries. Of the two amendments, one is actually a minor one which I am sure nobody will quarrel about and the reasons are given in column 353 of Report No. 13: "The reasons for the first amendment as suggested by the Chief Statistician is that, as will be seen from the Plan B, the present proposed local government boundary cuts along the land now occupied by the Royal Malayan Navy. It follows the electoral division boundary between Sembawang and Bukit Panjang..."-

On a point of clarification, Sir.

If the hon. Member will give way. Mr Stewart resumed his seat.

Mr Chairman, I just wanted to know whether we were taking clause 15 or clause 5. The amendments to which the hon. Member was referring, I think, come within the Second Schedule under clause 15.

Sir, I was only making these remarks in connection with the remarks of the hon. Member at column 17 of Report No. 1, but I will refer to them later in clause 15. Sir, I think the hon. Member in referring to the First Schedule said that the manner in which it was described was very difficult for people to understand. Sir, there is nothing wrong with the manner in which the First Schedule had been drawn up. In fact, it is a recognised method of description and it is only describing the boundaries; these boundaries are shown in the maps attached to Report No. 13. Even the Schedules in the Local Government Bill, when they were introduced in this Assembly, Sir, merely described the boundaries which appeared in the McNeice Report and the White Paper on Local Government. Sir, in view of the facts, I submit that there is no need to advertise these boundaries in the newspapers as would be required if this amendment is accepted and for those reasons, Sir, which I have given, I oppose the amendment.

Mr Chairman, as in the case of clause 8 of the Local Government Elections Ordinance, so in this clause, a principle is involved. The principle is that, when changes are made in the limits of the city area or the district area, the Minister shall gazette and advertise in newspapers so that objections may be lodged. As I pointed out this morning, that is a principle which has a precedent in the present Municipal Ordinance in section 362 and although it may be a legal fact that you cannot apply that in this particular case, as I said, it is the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law that counts. The Government at the time had the precedent to gazette and advertise in the manner which has been done for many years under the present Municipa1 Ordinance but apparently they had not the intention. Indeed I would say that they have been extremely casual with the future electorate in the City Council area in this matter. I would refer you, Sir, to the original clause 5 on page 8 of the Bill which reads: "No alteration shall be made in the limits of the City under subsection (1) of section 4 of this Ordinance unless and until the proposed alteration has been notified in four successive Gazettes and contemporaneously advertised once every week for four consecutive weeks in one English and one vernacular newspaper circulating in the City..." It was only when I moved an amendment in the Select Committee, pointing out that with the introduction of four languages for prospective candidates to the City Council advertising in one vernacular newspaper was insufficient, that an amendment was accepted by the Government that it should be one Chinese, one Malay and one Indian and not merely one vernacular newspaper, presumably selected at random. 2.45 p.m. So we can see that sufficient thought has not been given to this matter by the Government although they have had sufficient time and certainly sufficient warning to carry out the purpose and the spirit of the amendment which we propose today.

Mr Chairman, on the point of the purpose and the spirit, I may mention that these amendments were made in Select Committee and they are still in Select Committee. I think - I am new to this Assembly - if I am correct, we cannot disclose anything which is still in Select Committee to the public.

Mr Chairman, that was not my point. My point was that the Government had before them section 362 of the Municipal Ordinance which they could have followed in the spirit.

Mr Chairman, I hate to suggest that some of the Members of the Opposition are embarking on a filibuster in connection with this Bill. Really I feel we cannot go on-I suppose we can but it is undesirable that we should-discussing a lot of points that have already been made this morning. The point is really very simple: whether the boundaries proposed are all right. No serious argument has been produced to show that they are not all right. There has been no questioning of the boundaries as such. As someone said, "On principle, let us have as much delay as possible." The Member for Serangoon (Mr Lim Choon Mong) appeared to welcome the chance of having some delay and he was vigorously supported by the Member for Queenstown (Mr Lee Choon Eng). The delay was no harm at all in his opinion. Now, it is obvious that if you are going to reopen the question of boundaries for objections either there will be objections in which case there will be delay, or else there will be no objections in which case the exercise is meaningless. There is no reason to suppose that there would be objections, since substantially everyone has known for a very long time what the proposed changes were: whether they follow Clementi Road on a surveyor's description is a very minor point. The general scheme of what was going to happen has been known for a very long time indeed and I really feel that we ought to get on with our business, Mr Chairman, and not involve ourselves either in delay during this debate or in delay further on by accepting this amendment.

Mr Chairman, it seems to me that the Hon. the Minister for Communications and Works wants to gag the Opposition. He stated that there has been no objection to the boundaries and that we thought that the boundaries are all right. Sir, that is a complete misconception. They are not all right. I made the point this morning that it would be preferable not to go into the pros and cons and the merits and demerits of Katong going into the District Council or staying in the city area and that was echoed by my friend the Hon. the Chief Secretary only a few minutes ago. We do object to the boundaries as they stand at the moment, and I am quite prepared to launch into the case for the boundaries being left as they are at this very moment if my hon. Friend wishes, but our intention was that we should discuss this particular point on the amendments to the First and Second Schedules.

Mr Chairman, Sir, there is just one principle involved: must we or must we not let the electorate know whether they are going to be in the city area or outside the city area? I think on this point there can be no argument. Clause 5 of this Bill states clearly that it is the Government's view that they must be notified by four successive Gazettes and contemporaneously advertised once every week for four consecutive weeks in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil in the newspapers. This principle has been agreed by all. The Government has put it forward. We agree with that principle but the point is this: if this principle is introduced, is it going to be observed only when it suits the Government or if a principle is involved and agreed upon, then it must be agreed upon and put into practice every time? I think to exclude it for the first time, Sir, does not convey that spirit. In accordance with the amendment here, there is nothing wrong about it. The principle just calls upon the Government to carry out that principle which it is preaching not only for coming changes but also for present changes. I think the people have a right to know and have a right to put their views before the Government. The principle is there: everybody accepts it. Why it is not put into practice is in the words of the Government, "Do not cause delay." But whose fault is it when it comes to a matter of delay? Is it because the people delayed in conveying their views to the Government? Has the Government given them the chance to voice their opposition to this? The Government has not up to this point. The Government has not put them into Gazettes or published them. There are two different phases in accordance with this view: one is to put this Bill to this House and make it law and the other is the Delineation Committee. Now, we have come to this stage, Sir. The Government today is trying to tell us, "Now, we have passed this Bill. You shall accept our recommendation." Could not these recommendations have been put forward by the Delineation Committee at an earlier date? Could not this committee have been appointed at an earlier date and then the proposed boundaries made known to the people so that they could be gazetted before it is too late? We are not in any way agreed on postponing the elections. The postponement of the elections is mainly due to the inefficiency of the Government and if the Government had thought about it during the time when it expressed vociferously about holding City Council elections in 1955 and in 1956, it should have had a thought about these new boundaries, appointed a committee earlier and let the people know earlier through the newspapers.

Sir, I am really fed up listening to the inefficiency of the Government -

So are we.

- and the people not being informed of the changes. Sir, may I invite the attention of hon. Members to the Report of the Committee on Local Government? Full opportunity was given to all members of the public to put their views to this Committee in regard to matters affecting local government and I can see from this Report at Appendix C that quite a number of people had submitted representations. Moreover this Committee had representives from various political Parties. Again. Sir, when this Bill was referred to a Select Committee, as you are aware, we made it specifically clear that any individual or body could make representation to the Government. We can see these facts on paper and they cannot be denied by any hon. Member. If any hon. Member were to suggest that these are all matters hidden from the people, I can only say that that is "double talk".

Order. I think the hon. Member must know that "double talk" is unparliamentary.

Sir, I was trying to explain how-

Will the hon. Member please withdraw that expression?

As you please, Sir. I was only trying to emphasise that these matters were really in the hands of the people for quite a long time and I think, Sir, to say that the people did not know anything about these matters is insulting the intelligence of the people of Singapore. They were very well aware and if they had any idea of making representations to the Committee they would have done so. In the absence of any representations, Sir, we believe that the people are completely behind the Government in their views. Furthermore, according to the amendment suggested by the hon. Member, at least for the first ordinary elections to the City and District Councils, if the Minister were to ask representations from individuals in writing, probably a discussion of this kind would not be taking place. In other words, the Members of this Assembly would not have had an opportunity of debating the merits and demerits of the aspects involved in the local government affairs. I feel that we have given the opportunity for all hon. Members to discuss the merits and demerits of not only the various boundaries of electoral divisions but also the Schedules as suggested in this Bill. I would like to quote, Sir, a statement made by the then Attorney-General (Mr C. H. Butterfield) from the Official Report of the Select Committee on Local Government Bill No. 1 at column 20: "The Government maintains its stand for the very good reason that these changes are being brought before the representatives of the people in the Legislative Assembly - a far better method than advertising in the newspapers (which would, of course, be followed where changes in the City limits are made at a later stage)." Sir, the Attorney-General said this on behalf of the Government. I feel, Sir, that, although we agree in principle that changes in boundaries of local government should be published for public representations, we must make a start and a start cannot be made by asking the people to say about the boundaries and other matters connected therewith for the first elections. The Government boldly and with determination, after due consideration, fixed the boundaries to expedite the elections. Sir, there has been talk in this Assembly that we have been trying to do things in our own way, not caring for the views of the Opposition. I think, Sir, we must admit that we cannot always accept cock-eyed views which can be regarded seriously by Government.

I think I heard the hon. Member say "cock-eyed". If that is correct, I will ask the hon. Member to withdraw that word.

I withdraw it. We can only appreciate and take into consideration the views of the people which are desirable in the interest of the people as a whole. I believe, Sir, that the Government's stand is very clear. I do feel that it is democratic and, if we are to agree with the hon. Member, I feel that democracy will be moving very slowly whereas, with the Government's stand now, democracy will be running a bit faster.

Mr Chairman, I think the remarks of the Member for Seletar have gone slightly askew - if that is a parliamentary word. He stated just now that we implied that no representations had been made to the Select Committee regarding changes in boundaries. I would refer him quite briefly to pages 358 and 359 of the Minutes of Evidence where he will find that City Council representatives who appeared before the Select Committee and included Members of the Labour Front in the City Council objected to the new boundaries. I should like to know why the Labour Front Coalition Government repudiates its own City Council representatives.

Sir, I would like to clarify that point. I said: no individual member of the public. The City Council as a body had made representations and, of course, as the hon. Member knows, we have considered them but what I meant was that no member of the public made either written or verbal representations to the Select Committee.

Probably because their views will be put aside and not considered by the Government!

Sir, as a matter of fact, we had members of the City Council as Members of the Select Committee. Question put, "That the words proposed to be inserted, be there inserted." 3.00 p.m. The Committee divided: Ayes, 8; Noes, 21; Abstention, Nil. Ayes. Noes. Ede, John. Abdul Hamid bin Goh Tong Liang. Haji Jumat. Jumabhoy, R. Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Lee Choon Eng. Braga, A. J. Lim Choon Mong. Chew Swee Kee. Lim Koon Teck. Goh Chew Chua. Soh Ghee Soon. Hart. T. M. Tan, William. Jumabhoy, J. M. Lee Kuan Yew. Lim Cher Kheng. Abstention Lim, R. C. H. Nil. Lim Yew Hock. Mak Pak Shee. Absent. Mohd. Sidik bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Lazarous, A. R. Nair, M. P. D. Lim Ching Siong. Ong Piah Teng. Seah Peng Chuan. Shanks, E. P. Stewart, S. T. Sutherland. G. A. P. Tan Theng Chiang. Thomas, Francis. Wong Foo Nam. Amendment accordingly disagreed to. Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 6-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 74, line 25: to leave out "thirty-two" and insert "forty-eight". Sir, by this amendment, we desire to increase the number of the City Councillors from 32 to 48. The number at present proposed by the Government is 32. If one leaves out the mayor, from the point of view that he is the first gentleman of the City who should be above the general run of committee work and is as it were on a pinnacle of his own, that will leave 31 active members dealing with the day-to-day affairs. With the mayor at its head, you have only 31 as opposed to the present 27 members of the City Council. This increase of four is, of course, quite insufficient when compared with the enormously enlarged electorate with which we are now faced. It is so long ago since the City Council elections were held and I do not know whether any of us remember just how many there were on the City Council electorate three years ago but it was a very insignificant number compared with the 500,000 with which we are faced in the coming elections. From the Report of the Committee which has been thrust before us only this morning, we find on page 1 that the average voter strength of a division or ward is 15,761 and on page 2 of Annex "A" you have the breakdown of the 505,276 expected electors and the numbers apportioned; against that, is 32 wards. You will find that in Telok Ayer for example, you have no less than 21,078 electors and below it you have 12,124 electors in Pasir Panjang. But the average, as I have already stated, in this Report is 15,761. Now, that in itself as an average is higher than the average of the present - I think it is about - 16 divisions of the Assembly constituencies roughly within the city area, the other nine being in the districts and, as in the future we are of course going to double the representatives in this Assembly, that figure will be even more reduced subject of course to the increase through our new citizenship laws which are to come into effect shortly. Whichever way you look at it, it is quite clear of course that the wards - if I may so call them to separate them from the divisions in the Assembly - are going to have many more electors than the divisions. That is a wrong principle altogether. That position of course is quite inevitable because the qualifications for electors for the local government elections are much lower and quite different from those that we are going to have for the electorate for the Assembly elections. Clause 5 of the Local Government Elections Bill reads as follows: "Subject to the provisions of section 6 of this Ordinance, any person who-

On a point of information.

If the Member will give way. Mr John Ede resumed his seat.

Could not the Member for Tanglin attribute sufficient diligence on the part of Members of this House to have read that Select Committee Report?

I do not think that that is a very fair remark. I think the hon. Member was drawing attention to a paragraph and if he did not read that paragraph, the purport of his speech would be lost. Please continue.

Thank you, Sir. "If we have a Council of 48, there will be more delegation of authority to these Committees and the work of the Council, as such, will be reduced to a very large extent. Most of the work will be completed in the Committee room, and decisions taken by the Committees will be acted upon the following day, whereas the present policy is this: that even though, say, the Health Committee may meet on the first possible day in the month, its decisions cannot be acted upon until, maybe, 30 days later. Having to wait for decisions to be confirmed by the full Council often means a waste of time and money." That is the point. "That is the only reason why we think an enlarged Council would lead to great efficiency. It is with that end in view that we suggested 48." Now, the Minister - I think it was in his speech last week - said that he was quite satisfied that the City Council was running efficiently with the present number of members. Now, that is a question that he asked at this stage in the Select Committee and the answer is in column 38, page 363 of the Minutes of Evidence. It is quite brief, even if the Member for Tanjong Pagar has already read it: "I will not say that the Council is not run efficiently, but I would say the Council would run much more efficiently if the Council would delegate more of its authority to the Committees. We can get the work done much more quickly and, I think, as time goes by, it will become more and more imperative that decisions should be acted on more and more promptly." Surely, that is the feeling very often among members of the public that decisions of the City Council are held up for a very much longer time than they need be. What appear to the City Council as trivial matters are nevertheless important matters affecting their daily lives and if we can speed up our administration at the local government level, we shall be doing the people a good turn. Those then, Sir, are the main reasons and the two very strong reasons why we feel that the representation on the City Council at 32 is not enough. Firstly, as I said, the electorate has been increased by an enormous amount to half a million people and, secondly, the work of the City Council can be improved by the quicker disposal of minor points in administration.

Mr Chairman, with great timidity in this jungle of local government administration, I would like to draw attention to one or two remarks of the Member for Tanglin. He referred to the City Council dealing with day-to-day affairs and said that the increase - of four by his account - or five actually, which would make it 32, was inadequate and that standing committees were too small for their onerous duties. I have in my hands the minutes of the proceedings of the ordinary meeting of the City Council on Friday, 31st May. Here is one of the earth-shaking decisions which had to be taken by the Health Committee to which he especially referred and which then was brought to the whole City Council: "Approved unanimously, subject to compliance with all Municipal requirements, an application from the licensee of a Milk Bar and Confectionery on the ground floor of No. 91 East Coast Road, for permission to sell hot drinks in addition to the articles he now sells and that the licence he endorsed accordingly." This most difficult decision first occupied the time of the Health Committee and then had to come before the whole City Council, if I understand their procedure aright. Other vital decisions were: The Vehicles and Traffic Committee agreed unanimously that "No Right Turn" sign be erected instead of a "No Entry" sign. Elsewhere, we have: Mr Lim Guan Kong, licensee of Stall No. 1 Hot and Cold Drinks, Esplanade, was given leave to go to China for five months and his nominee was allowed to operate instead of him. In another case, An Assistant Assessor had 6 days excess leave deducted from his future vacation leave entitlement. These are the sort of decisions and problems with which these overworked City Councillors burden themselves. If these things really have to be taken by the City Council at that level of detail, I should have thought the fewer Councillors, the better and then they will get decisions through quickly. Perhaps I can now quote from the Hill Report on the reform of local government in this matter. Dr Hill said in paragraph 375, on page 95: "A total of eighteen elected members is not quite enough although large councils should be avoided in the interests of efficiency. There are twenty-seven members of the City Council at present,...and a total of twenty-seven is quite large enough." He went on to say at paragraph 377: "The tendency in Singapore is to refer too many questions to special committees and to spend too much time in committee procedure. It should be remembered that committee meetings take up a tremendous amount of time of important and highly paid officials and that the bulk of the time spent in committee could be avoided if the details of administration are left to the officers and the committees, concentrated on policy." He goes on further at paragraph 379: "If the highest standards of efficiency in administration with the consequential economy in public money are to be attained, the members of the council must play their part by first of all 'letting the managers manage', secondly, by self-challenging every urge for information with the question 'Is it really necessary?', and finally, to refuse to refer questions to sub-committees as a temporary evasion of the task of arriving at an immediate decision. In nine cases out of ten the ultimate decision of the committee, after a sub-committee has spent a lot of time on the subject will be the same as that which would have been given when the case was first raised." Finally, at paragraph 398: "Without attempting to be critical I am sure no one except an outsider could see just how much time is being spent on doing work which is not worth doing but which has become routine, how many operations could be streamlined, and the number of outmoded systems which no one has the courage to drop. I have not looked for these things particularly but many have almost jumped up to meet me during my investigations." Mr Chairman, I feel myself that those quotations from the actual minutes of' the proceedings of the City Council coupled with the very pertinent remarks of a very able expert, Dr Hill, effectively dispose of the argument that the City Council ought to be larger in order to conduct its business more efficiently.

Mr Chairman, the Member for Tanglin gave two reasons why he thought the number should be increased from 32 to 48 and the first one is a startling one in that because of the lowering of the qualifications the electorate has increased and therefore, more elected representatives have become necessary. I take it that it is the practice of his Party councillors whenever somebody approaches them for help to find out first whether they are on the electoral register. If the argument had been that the population of Singapore had increased and the work had increased and therefore we need more councillors, there might have been some substance in it. As for the second argument that it will expedite the work by delegation of authority to standing committees, may I point out that the Member for Tanglin who was a leading member of the Progressive Party recommended in the Rendel Report only 25 elected seats for the whole island and now we are going to have no less than 32 in the City Council, 12 times three District Councils (36) , making a total of 68. So what is all this complaint about? One has a sneaking feeling that probably the Liberal-Socialist Party fancies that its chances would improve by fielding more candidates. Fielding a candidate is always an expensive process for parties not so well endowed with wealthy patrons and therefore if one increases the seats there are to contest, mathematically one increases the number of chances of success in the elections but on the merits of the case whether we should have 32 or 48, we say let us start with 32 and let us see whether it works. We are quite confident that it will work. There is no reason why it should not work. There is no merit at all in this claim for 48. 3.30 p.m.

Mr Chairman, there are one or two points which I would like to answer. First, with regard to what the Member for Tanjong Pagar has said that you do not need a large number of members of the City Council to carry out the work of that City Council, nevertheless, it has been found from the experience in the United Kingdom from which we take our Local Government Bill in our local government practice that a large number of councillors is a satisfactory way of associating people with local government and, in my own home town with a population of 60,000, there is a City Council of no less than 50 persons, so that when we advocate 48 for a City Council of about one million and an electorate of half a million - one million is perhaps slightly over the estimate, it may be a little less; it is not very much less than that - then it seems to me that we are not very much out of line in putting forward 48 for this now huge city. With regard to the remarks of the Minister for Communications and Works, he quoted one or two minor decisions of the Health Committee such as the permission to sell hot drinks which having been made on the first or second day of the month then had to be confirmed by the ordinary meeting of the City Council at the end of the month and he suggested that that was unnecessary. I quite agree with him and that is the point of delegating more powers but of course not all decisions of the Health Committee are as simple and obvious as asking for permission to sell hot drinks. There are very many more important decisions that the Health Committee has to make each month and, at the moment, these have to be referred to the whole Council for ratification because such a small number of the City Council altogether are involved in coming to decisions. You have a quorum of only three persons. Is it desirous that you should delegate to the Health Committee very many more powers than you do now so long as you have a small standing committee to deal with these questions? That is the point. The quorum of three is not sufficient to represent the City Council make-up of parties and independent members, whether they are Liberal-Socialists or Labour Front-U.M.N.O.-M.C.A. or P.A.P. If you want to get a cross-section of the City Council represented on your standing committee, with an increase in your quorum, then you can delegate powers because you will have decisions being made by a proper representation of the people but the City Council feels now - and very rightly feels - that important decisions cannot be left to a small number of people to tackle and therefore their recommendations that are made at the beginning of the month have to be ratified by the full meeting of the City Council at the end of the month; therefore, resulting in a delay of two or three weeks. As I say, if you had a larger committee sitting on these problems - the important problems, not the problems of selling hot drinks but the important policy problems - then those problems could be dealt with straightaway and put into practice the very next day and not be held up for a considerable time.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I think that the instances quoted by the Minister for Communications and Works rather strengthens the case for an increased number to 48 instead of 32. They bring out very clearly that due to the lack in the number of elected members in the City Council, we had very small quorums. Therefore, the Council itself was not prepared to leave decisions in the hands of the quorum. Sir, you have members of Committees, as we have had experience in this House, absenting themselves about twelve out of thirteen times. You must have a big quorum then if hon. Members even of this House do not assume the responsibility to attend Select Committee when they have been chosen, causing some of these Select Committee meetings to be postponed. Of course, the Member for Tanjong Pagar is always in the habit of attributing improper motives: in this case, not to hon. Members of this House but to a Party simply because we have changed our stand from 25 to 48, but circumstances change.

On a point of clarification, Sir. The original proposal by the Progressive Party to which the Liberal-Socialists are the heirs and successors was 25 for the whole island. An hon. Member: Twenty-four.

Twenty-four. Worse still!

Still the point is that times do change and working conditions do change and we do find that the idea of democracy in going out to the people results in much more work. I think we are justified in asking for more members now. If every member appointed to committees would attend meetings, then I think that there would be less justification but as things stand at the present moment, we are fully justified in asking for more members.

I just want to clear up one point. I am afraid hon. Members have misunderstood what I was saying. I am not suggesting that the Health Committee should have the sole and unrestricted power to decide whether Mr X sells hot drinks or not but they should not concern themselves with that sort of work at all. They should leave it to their much more qualified officials to judge whether he is a proper person; and the same with the whole mass of other detailed work which they undertake at present and which, to my mind, should be left to their officers and not to be taken by the Councillors themselves at all. In every way, it appears to be undesirable that they should take this sort of detailed case and argue the merits or demerits of one man against another in the way they do at present.

There is a trifling matter worthy of making some observation on this lack of quorum for standing committees. I was just counting the number of heads in this House who are also members of the City Council. I am counting not less than five: two on the Government Benches and three in the Opposition including one Liberal-Socialist. So, I think a contributory factor is that all these heavily overworked politicians are finding themselves incapable of discharging their dual duties. So on the point raised by the Member for Tanglin and by the Member for Paya Lebar, I am quite sure you could set a good example by asking our new Member for Cairnhill (Mr Soh Ghee Soon) to concentrate on either one or the other of his duties, and the work will get on.

Mr Chairman, we have not yet had any coherent reasons from the Government why they do not agree with the increase to 48. I would like to point out that the proposal of 48 was put by representatives of the City Council before the Select Committee on which sat Members of the Labour Front. Why is it that the Labour Front does not give support to proposals of members of its own Party?

Mr Chairman, Sir, in reply to the Member for Tanglin, I have here a verbatim report of a City Council meeting held in those "glorious" days when the Rendel Constitution was being tailored to suit the needs of a certain political party. You perhaps may remember, Sir, the "glorious" meeting when we discussed about the aldermen principle. In that meeting, Sir, the President's remarks were: "The next point, as I see it, is the question, of having agreed that there should be 24 electoral divisions, it is agreed that there should be 32 members of the Council." Then the President says later on after some debate: "Yes, 24 seats. Well, shall I take a count on that? Those in favour of 32 seats, please indicate? Those in favour of 24? So that is 32 seats are favoured by 21 members and 24 seats are favoured by two members." The voting was in this fashion and that is that most of the Councillors agreed that there should be 24 divisions and there should be 24 seats but there should also be eight aldermen elected - and the Progressive Party councillors were the majority in that City Council who favoured 24 divisions for a whole city and island-wide Council!

Mr Chairman, second thoughts apparently are not acceptable to the Minister for Commerce and Industry, not even if they come from members of his own Party. I would like to point out once more that on the 21st of January, 1957, the leader of the Labour Front in the City Council came before the Select Committee and advocated that there should be 48 members of the City Council and they have still to have a proper answer front the Government as to why they do not agree with their own City Council leader and also why they wish to keep the number down to 32.

Mr Chairman, I am afraid it is for the same reason why the Member for Tanglin, the Liberal-Socialist Member in Select Committee, turned down the proposal of the City Councillors to sell refrigerators and electrical appliances.

Sir, I do not understand that argument and I still do not hear arguments against what my colleague has said. I would very much like Government to give reasons.

Sir, I would like to tell the hon. Member the reasons why we feel that 48 members are not necessary. Firstly, in the proposed Ordinance, Katong is divorced from the city. Secondly, it is envisaged that the public utilities services will be undertaken by one authority and not by the City Council as at present. Thirdly, from the evidence we have heard from the City Councillors themselves, we felt that they are running the city affairs most efficiently with 18 elected plus 9 nominated members. We felt that while replacing the 9 nominated members, we are increasing the total number of City Councillors to 32 and that the City Council would be able to run efficiently with 32 members in the new Council. Question put, "That the word "thirty-two" proposed to be left out, be left out." 3.45 p.m. The Committee divided: Ayes, 9; Noes, 20; Abstention, Nil. Ayes. Noes. Ede, John. Abdul Hamid bin Goh Tong Liang. Haji Jumat. Jumabhoy, R. Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Lee Choon Eng. Braga, A. J. Lim Choon Mong. Chew Swee Kee. Lim Koon Teck. Goh Chew Chua. Soh Ghee Soon. Hart. T. M. Tan, William. Jumabhoy, J. M. Lee Kuan Yew. Lim Cher Kheng. Abstention Lim, R. C. H. Nil. Lim Yew Hock. Mak Pak Shee. Absent. Mohd. Sidik bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Lazarous, A. R. Nair, M. P. D. Lim Ching Siong. Ong Piah Teng. Seah Peng Chuan. Shanks, E. P. Stewart, S. T. Sutherland. G. A. P. Tan Theng Chiang. Thomas, Francis. Wong Foo Nam. Amendment accordingly negatived. Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 15-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 80, line 27, after "him" to insert ", provided that the provisions of this section shall also apply in respect of the alterations in the limits of the City and Districts described in the First and Second Schedules to this Ordinance respectively from those existing under the Municipal Ordinance and from those described in the Local Government Ordinance, 1957. Mr Chairman, this is the same point on which we had considerable discussion already today: principles are principles and they apply to the District Council limits as much as to the City Council limits. The arguments, in the main, are of course the same as we already had previously this morning and this afternoon and I do not propose to go over them all again. An hon. Member: Thank you.

But in this particular case, there is all the more need for this amendment because changes in boundaries have been made since this Bill was gazetted. Amendments were moved in Select Committee by the Government which they referred to as minor trivial amendments of no consequence. One of them, it is true, is a small matter to which I need not refer but the second amendment of the Government in a boundary is one I should have thought was of some significance. It is the moving of a whole village from one District into another: Nee Soon Village from the Bukit Panjang District into the Serangoon District. Now, I do not wish to argue the merits or otherwise, whether Nee Soon Village should be in one District or another District, but the principle remains that in Select Committee, the Government moved this amendment that a village should be changed from one District to another which I should have thought would have been of considerable importance to the inhabitants of that village themselves. Now, as will be known to Members of this House, under the Powers and Privileges Ordinance, anything that is decided in Select Committee may not be discussed or mentioned outside that committee to any person whatever, even other Members of this House, and it is therefore not possible to obtain the views of people on amendments that are moved in Select Committee. Now, the Bill, as amended by the Select Committee, was only reported to the Assembly a fortnight ago. It was only available presumably to members of the public in this large voluminous form a fortnight ago and so again in this case we feel that it is all the more necessary that the changes proposed which are completely new to the people, particularly to the people of Nee Soon, should be gazetted and advertised in the ordinary way as is proposed for future alterations. Our view is that it is not a small matter to move one village from one District to another. There must have been very good reasons initially why Nee Soon Village was put in the Bukit Panjang District and there may be very good reasons why it has since been moved but the voices of the people of Nee Soon should be heard if they wish to make themselves heard and that opportunity should be given in the normal way. It is not sufficient, in our view, that these changes should be notified purely through the publication of a huge Bill as it is not likely that many residents in Nee Soon Village would be able to read a voluminous report of this kind. It should, of course, be published in the Chinese newspapers and in the Malay and Tamil newspapers so that the people there can understand what is going on.

Mr Chairman, Sir, like the Member for Tanglin, I do not wish to repeat the arguments and viewpoints which this House has already heard in connection with the Member for Tanglin's amendment to clause 5, resulting in it being thrown out. He mentioned in connection with this amendment, similar to clause 15, two amendments to the Second Schedule. I am glad to see that he agrees that one of the amendments is a minor one which nobody would quarrel about. He speaks at greater length on the second amendment. It is true that it is not a very minor amendment. On the other hand, it is not a very major amendment but the point is that this proposed change was unknown to anyone except the Select Committee. I would like to point out that this second amendment is the direct result of the representation of the Rural Board which represents the people of the rural areas in Singapore. They made representations that this amendment should be made and the Government accepted that amendment and so we had the Second Schedule amended to follow the representations made by the people of the Rural Board. For those reasons, Sir, I do not wish to repeat what has been said when we discussed clause 5, and I oppose the amendment of the Member for Tanglin.

Mr Chairman, Sir, Government always say that they do not like second thoughts and I suppose these second thoughts coming from them would be acceptable when they transfer a village from one District to another. This is very unconvincing. Government seems also to want to put for our consumption that it is very democratic and sympathetic and that it would listen to the views of the people. Here, you have the Rural Board coming to make representations to them and saying, "We want Nee Soon Village in this other District and not in the other," and they have agreed. Yes, in this instance, Sir, they seem to agree and they seem to make the best of it by beating drums and crowing about it but what about the City Council? The City Council is another body - an elected body, in this instance. They have made representations to the Government. Has the Government said, "We are sympathetic towards it. We will consider your views put forward to us?" No, Sir. In the other case, the Government said, "Your views must be chucked aside. Your views are not good enough." In one instance, it is a Board appointed by the Government. In the other instance, it is a Council with many members elected by the people. If you weigh the views of the people and you think that democracy must work, this is an instance, Sir, where it will come under the wings of dictatorship; you may have your views heard but if you have this type of democratic principles applied, it will never work. I am tired of all the views put forward by the Government about delays. The Government has one single idea in its mind and that is to steamroller everything in accordance with its wishes. The principle that the people should have a voice in their affairs is clearly stated in the two clauses 5 and 15. In the case of clause 5, the excuse is, "Please do not delay." Of course, the delay had always been the fault of Government. In this instance, Sir, we are not going to hold the District Council elections in December. I hope that the Government will not change its mind again. I do not think that the electoral rolls are already made up. I do not think that the boundaries are also made up. I hope certainly that Government is not going to appoint another committee and then put forth everything cut and dried before us and say, "Accept or you will not have your elections." If what I have been thinking is correct, there is time for Government to allow the people to have a voice as to whether they want to be in one District or in another. Four successive Gazettes and publication in the papers will only take another four weeks. All in all, it should not take more than two months to consider all that. The difference in time between the City Council election and the rural District Council election will be round about 4 or 5 months. You have ample time to do that. Let us see that Government get on with the work so that these people can at least perceive that Government is going to adhere to the principle it has declared. I urge this Government not to crow when every time the Opposition puts up an amendment and is defeated, it says, "Look, your amendment has been defeated." Let the Government remember that we are here to voice the opinion of the people. Whether we are defeated or not, it does not matter. We have our duty to perform to our constituents. Let the Government remember, Sir, that they are not in absolute majority. Let the Government know that they have three official votes and four nominated votes. Let them not crow, Sir, that every time they win-

Order. Moment of interruption. Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the Assembly.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to report that some progress has been made in Committee on this Bill and ask leave to sit again tomorrow.

Tomorrow it will be.

Sir, I beg to move, That this Assembly do now adjourn.

Sir, I second the motion. Question proposed.

4.01 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, early this year, the Government tabled a White Paper on the subsidy of housing. It is a policy of the Government and I congratulate them for that policy. But much earlier than this year, most of the Members sitting on the Government Benches made promises during their election campaigns that, if elected, they would try to reduce the rents of S.I.T. houses. I can speak with some authority on this because at that time I was a member of the Labour Front and it was a platform of the Labour Front to reduce rentals on S.I.T. houses, if elected. Apart from myself who also made that promise, I think members of other Parties made the same promise also because at that time when it was election time all sorts of promises were made, not caring whether they could be carried out or not. If my memory is correct, at one of the P.A.P. meetings, the P.A.P. even quoted figures to show how such rents could be reduced by granting loans to the S.I.T. without interest. What has the Government done so far apart from introducing that White Paper? I do not see anything. The only benefit that can be seen so far is the abolition of service charges on the old S.I.T. houses. How much did that amount to: a matter of a dollar, two dollars or to five dollars? Would that relieve the poor tenant very much, a matter of reduction from one to five dollars? I doubt whether that would give relief to the tenant very much. It looks to me now, Sir, that all those who made promises at the time of election are not any more interested. "Why bother? I have already been elected and I am now in this Assembly." But promises will be made again when the next general election comes round again next year or earlier. I will quote, Sir, paragraph 13 of the White Paper: "It is clear that considerable subsidisation will have to be undertaken. Sites, particularly in urban areas, are becoming more difficult and costly to acquire and prepare for building. Buildings will have to be of solid and substantial design and construction if sites, particularly those in urban areas, are to be developed with the maximum degree of efficiency, having regard to locality, density of population and other planning considerations. The economic rents of these buildings, having regard to the cost of acquisition and preparation of sites and to the cost of construction, will in most cases exceed the rents which are within the capacity to pay of the sections of the public for whom the houses are built. The difference between the economic rent and the rents which the prospective tenants can pay will have to be met by subsidy." Now, Sir, this paragraph 13 clearly indicates that Government is prepared to reduce the rents of houses which are to be built to a level which is within the pocket of the common man. At the sitting when the White Paper was tabled, the Government announced that only new houses built after the introduction of that White Paper would be benefited and that that privilege would not be granted to the old houses because the old houses were built at a higher interest or so. Why, Sir, should there be discrimination between the old houses and the new houses? Are they not all S.I.T. properties? Why should one section of the S.I.T. tenants benefit by the White Paper and another section of the S.I.T. tenants be charged at a higher rental? I will quote, Sir, an answer that was given to me by the Minister in his reply to my question regarding Singapore Improvement Trust Flats in Albert/Prinsep/Short Streets: Government Subsidy. I asked the Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing if he will give complete figures pertaining to the Singapore Improvement Trust flats in Albert/Prinsep/Short Streets showing how the amount of Government subsidy in respect thereof is calculated and the answer I got was: "The method of subsidy by Government on S.I.T. housing is outlined in the Government White Paper, No. Cmd. 6 of 1957. The subsidy is not related to any particular scheme but is in fact the amount required to make up the annual deficit in the Trust's Housing Account. It is not possible therefore to give any exact calculation of the subsidy in respect of the Albert Street/Prinsep Street/Short Street scheme for which there can be in any case no complete figures until the buildings are completed. The approximate figure of $30 to $40 given in oral answer to a question by Mr Lim Choon Mong at the last meeting of the Legislative Assembly as the subsidy for the $35/30 p.m. two-room flat is the best estimate which can be given." Now then, the Minister himself is not sure of the amount of subsidy that would be granted to S.I.T. houses whether they be new houses or old houses. He himself is not certain what the amount of subsidy would be. Now, are the Prinsep Street or Short Street houses not completed yet? He says that unless they are completed, he is not able to give a correct figure. They have been completed long ago and complaints of grievances have come to the knowledge of the Minister through some Members of this Assembly. Why has he not looked into them? He has no reply other than to say that the method of subsidy is contained in No. Cmd. 6 of 1957. Well that Paper is here and I think everyone has read it. All this year, Sir, the City Council and the Government have shirked their responsibility towards this housing subsidy and the reason given by these two organisations is that the S.I.T. is a statutory body which is of no concern to Government. During my application for this adjournment speech, I included the allocation of S.I.T. houses, but you, Sir, have ruled me out that it does not come within the purview of the Ministry. For all purposes, it is most convenient for the Minister to say that he has got no control -

Order. The hon. Member is out of order in referring to a matter in which he himself had been ruled out of order by the Speaker. Will he please confine his remarks to Government subsidy on S.I.T. rentals?

Yes, Sir. I am just passing a remark that the Minister is always trying to shirk his responsibility by saying that it does not come within his control at all. I am just only making a passing remark on that and not in fact making reference to it. Now, Sir, we have an elected Government, not a colonial Government. At the time when the S.I.T. was managed by a Board of Trustees, it was under a colonial Government. Today, out of those nine Benches on the opposite side, five are elected, one is nominated and three are ex-officio Members which clearly indicate that there is a majority of elected Ministers in the Government. Can this elected Government now shirk its responsibility? Can this elected Government which made promises during the election campaign shirk their responsibility in that they have got nothing to do with housing subsidy? I doubt they are prepared to do so because election is coming very near - a matter of another year - and the election campaign will start in a matter of a few months. Did Government not also make a promise that they would set up a Housing Authority which would come under the control of the Minister for Local Government? When we have that Housing Authority, then the Minister will say, "Ah, this is within my Ministry and my portfolio. I will look into it." For how many months have the Government promised to set up that Housing Authority? So far, nothing has been heard about it except the Malayanisation of the S.I.T. and the protest by the employees of the S.I.T. When can this Housing Authority be set up? We have yet to see it. These promises here and there come in when election time comes round. I am quite sure that by the time the life of this Assembly expires, the Housing Authority will still be in thin air. I doubt there will be a Housing Authority. The Government should set their machinery straightaway and then set up this Housing Authority with the subsidy that the Government are prepared to offer to old and new tenants of S.I.T. houses, not to discriminate one section from another, but to all S.I.T. tenants who pay their rents to the S.I.T. or to this new Housing Authority. 4.11 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in my Oral and Written Answers to the Questions in the Assembly during the last few months, I have been at some pains to explain that the Government subsidy policy is contained in Sessional Paper No. Cmd. 6 of 1957. The subsidy which Government provides is not related to any particular scheme for housing whether in Queenstown or Kallang or in Albert Street or anywhere in the island but it is operative over all the Trust housing estates. The total subsidy is in effect the amount required to make up the annual deficit in the Trust Housing Account as embodied in the White Paper and I will now, Sir, proceed to read the relevant paragraph. The Member for Queenstown read paragraph 13. I think it should be read in conjunction with paragraph 19. This is what paragraph 19 has to say, Sir: "This Housing Account will contain, on the Income side, the proceeds of rents from all housing erected by the Trust and by the Authority, that is, rent from pre-war properties which arc still subject to rent control, from the properties which have been built since the war, and from all the properties which will be built in connection with slum clearance and other schemes in the future. On the same side of the account will appear contributions from tenants in respect of conservancy and service charges and income from miscellaneous sources. On the Expenditure side will appear the cost of administration of the Housing Authority, the cost of designing and supervising the erection of new buildings, and the cost of managing the housing estates. On this side of the account also will appear contributions to the City Council in respect of rates (rents on public housing include rates), payments to the City Council in respect of conservancy and service charges, maintenance of buildings, annual contributions to a Repairs Fund. Lastly, payment of interest and repayment of principal on all loans from the Government for housing." So, Sir, if the Member for Queenstown were to read paragraph 14 in conjunction with paragraph 19, I am sure he will understand what is the policy of the Government on subsidy of S.I.T. rentals. 4.15 p.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, there are one or two remarks made by the Member for Queenstown which might be misleading to this House. One is that the S.I.T. is controlled by the elected Government. Sir, there is still in existence a Board of Trustees and the only control the Government has on the S.I.T. is in regard to the new buildings of the S.I.T. The houses that they are now putting up are covered by this housing subsidy policy laid down by the Government. In all other respects, the Board of Trustees of the S.I.T. take their own decisions even as regards the fixing of rents of shops. Government decides the rents of the new houses bearing in mind two things: the type of accommodation provided and the ability of the tenant, who is going to occupy that accommodation, to pay. That is laid down in the housing subsidy policy in Paper No. Cmd. 6 of 1957. Therefore, it is not right for the hon. Member to say that because we have an elected Government to ask what the elected Government has done about the rents, and so on. But one thing is clear and that is when the Labour Front went out for elections in April 1955, there was a promise that we would try to reduce the rate of interest charged by the Government to the S.I.T. for putting up the houses. Now, I believe that the rate of interest charged at that time - I am not the Minister for Local Government; but I do remember certain things - was round about 4 per cent and the promise that we made to the electorate was that we would try to reduce it to 2 per cent. A reduction of the interest rate by about 2 per cent would have probably given a reduction in the rental by about $8 or so, whereas now (if you see the new houses that are built in Short Street and Albert Street) according to the new housing subsidy policy, the reduction in the rentals is far greater. Normally the economic rent for that type of house, according to the present cost, would be somewhere in the region of about $60 to $70 and the Government has fixed the rents at $35 for newcomers and $30 for people who are cleared out from slum areas. Therefore, the subsidy is between $30 and $40 per house. My contention is that you could never have achieved such low rentals if we had just reduced the rate of interest by 2 per cent or even if we had abolished the rate of interest entirely. It is because of this bold subsidy policy that the tenants of those houses are going to enjoy a much greater reduction. The other point I want to make is that the decision to waive conservancy and other charges has resulted in a reduction of $10 on Manila Street flats. In some cases, it is $2; in some it is $5, but in the case of Manila fiats, if I am not mistaken, it is $10.

Sir, it is with some reluctance and trepidation that I enter into what is largely a political debate but, for the purposes of the record, I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that as is stated in paragraphs 9 and 10 of the White Paper, S.I.T. houses are in fact subsidised at the present time.

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