Hansard, 1957-07-30

Order for Recommittal read.

Clause 323- Amendment proposed - [29th July, 1957] - In page 245, to leave out lines 31 to 40, and lines 1 to 12 in page 246. - [Mr John Ede]. Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, be left out."

Mr Chairman, to recapitulate what I was saying yesterday. I very briefly pointed out that Singapore was passing through a period of transition which has involved, amongst other things, the Malayanisation of the civil service. I will go on from there. The machinery of Government has been deprived of a certain number of officers with experience and ability, and to the extent that those officers have gone the machine is temporarily reduced in its capacity for work. That loss will be made up rapidly as new officers get their training and experience but I want to point out that the machinery of the civil service is confronted not only with the traditional tasks, the old tasks which it has always carried out, but that two new aspects have imposed additional strain on it. First of all, it is now for the first time working under the direct control of a political Party, a political Government, which has its specific programme to carry out and which is seeking to carry it out. And this inevitably means a great deal of additional and new work and sometimes work of new kinds, and that is a new aspect which has not been in Singapore before. There is also a new tempo, and this is a more unfamiliar idea to Members of the Opposition. In the past, broadly speaking, all policy decisions had to be funnelled, channelled, through the Chief Secretary's Office. Now decisions can be taken at the ministerial desk in many cases and the consequence is that work moves a good deal faster. We are now in my own office dealing with various matters which in some cases have been coming up annually for five or six years, but since we have a ministerial system they, are now getting into their final stage although there was no sign of their ever approaching a final stage before. This also has imposed new strain on the civil service and I would like to say, Mr Chairman, that I think Singapore is very much indebted indeed to its civil servants. They have responded magnificently to the needs of Singapore in the last two-and-half years. They have done a fine job and I am sure they will go on doing a fine job. But let us not impose on them any unnecessary demands. Let us try to be realistic about the situation. I shall have to say a word again on the next item on the Order Paper, the proposed new clause after clause 17, so I will not labour this point. I shall only say again: do not be unrealistic about these transitional provisions; the Opposition should not set up ideals of what should be without taking account of what actually is, because at the time we are living in now, the problems are very considerable and an unrealistic or artificial approach will only magnify the problems without bringing them any nearer to solution.

Mr Chairman, yesterday the Hon. the Chief Secretary commented on the time taken between the First Reading and the present debate. It has been a long time of course; that means there has been all the more time in which to get the house in order for the District Councils and the new City Council, and to have organised a more sensible scheme. The Hon. Minister has just spoken, Sir, that at the ministerial level things now go much faster than they used to do, but that is a point we see no evidence of in respect of this Bill at all. He said, too, that unnecessary demands are being imposed on civil servants. These unnecessary demands are being imposed by altering boundaries unnecessarily instead of leaving them alone, and the complications are of the Government's own making. The Hon. the Chief Secretary also said that the reference to a period of four years by the Minister was a reference to administration by the Rural Board and not to clause 323 which we have before us. But column 343 of the Report of the Select Committee will show that in fact this is not so. The Minister said: "The provisions of clause 324, [as it was then] I should like to stress to the Committee, are transitional and discretionary. Read in relation to sub-clause (4), it clearly indicates that this is purely transitional legislation. It is very clear, Sir, that the Government feels that at least during the first term of the district council, there should be this sort of arrangement. It also thinks that the transitional period will not last the full term of office of the new district council, that it is not going to last for all time." And, Sir, in answer to the question which we asked as to what the elected representatives in Katong are going to do on the District Council when the administration is carried out by the City Council, all he had to say, so far as I understood him, was that for the period December of this year to March 1958 when district council elections will be held, there will not be any elected representatives at all. That seems to us a somewhat cynical answer and it reaffirms that Katong will be a no-man's-land with no representation for a period of four months, and very futile representation thereafter. This seems to us to be the negation of a solution. If you turn, Sir, to the last sentence of the Government White Paper, page 9, you will find it stated: "Local Government administration in any area is intimately connected with the day to day lives of the inhabitants living therein and it is but right that they should have a say in the election of a local government body depending closely upon their support, and whose decisions should pay due regard to their wishes concerning their happiness and well being." Now these words have turned to ashes in view of the Labour Front's action in introducing this clause 323. It seems to me that these are mere "apple-tree" promises, and it gives us, Sir, an extremely bad start to district council administration to have this absurd situation of representatives sitting on one council and administration being carried out by another. The City Council apparently is to administer Katong under ministerial orders. What interest can you really expect the City Council to take when it is acting under ministerial orders, and it is only for a short period of time before Katong leaves it? And what interest will the District Council take in Katong if, to begin with, it has nothing to do with its administration? Sir, the Hon. Minister for Commerce and Industry suggested a few days ago that District Council meetings would be nothing more than a tea party, where people sat round a table and have an amiable chat while the officers deal with all the work. It certainly would be a mad hatter's tea party as far as Katong is concerned.

I made no such suggestion, Sir.

Mr Chairman, perhaps the term "tea party" was not used but the suggestion given was that there was going to be a jolly little causerie in these District Councils and no work would really be carried out. There would be a nice chat about drains and that sort of thing, and all the work would be done by somebody else. That is not our view of the way in which the District Council work should be carried out, and it is not followed either in the White Paper or in this great Bill which now includes District Councils in the rural areas which is not of course in the present Municipal Ordinance. The thing is simply this, Sir, that if Katong had been left in the City Council this nonsensical Heath Robinson device of clause 323 would not have to be availed of.

I think the hon. Member is still wide off the beam, Mr Chairman. Surely the point is that, although Katong obsesses his mind, in fact the District Council will cover a very much larger area than Katong, which is just the nucleus or hard core around which the whole District Council will be built, and the transitional provisions will be necessary, in any case presumably during the period in which the whole system is being readjusted. His other favourite area, the Ulu Pandan section and the Clementi Road divided down the middle - all this tragic business about the farmers on one side and the farmers on the other having different electoral laws - is the same sort of thing. We do need transitional provisions of some sort. He has the idea, we gather, that the Government somehow could create out of the air a full and complete pre-judged, pre-estimated, pre-thought-out, pre-planned and provided system with all the officers, all the buildings and the equipment. He would like that; and if we cannot do it at once then, he says, do not do anything at all; let us go to sleep for another 10 years and let things go on as they are. That is what the hon. Member for Serangoon said earlier, that it did not matter if we did delay; if we could not do it the Liberal-Socialist way then let us do nothing at all, let us let things slide and have further delay. That is an inconsistency - we have been attacked first for delaying City Council elections and now we are attacked for trying to get them on. This sort of argument is really rather frivolous, Mr Chairman. I did make the point when I first stood up about the extent to which public servants are being subjected to very heavy strain and pressure in this transitional period. As far as I can see, the objective of the Member for Tanglin is still to demand that they should be reallocated in some way immediately so as to make it clear that Mr X works for one Council and Mr Y for another Council and so on. He still does not appreciate that you cannot do that by a momentary decision. You have to study records, you have to examine a man's confidential files - a whole mass of civil service work has to be done before you finally decide where Mr X is to go and where Mr Y is to go, and that Mr X is to go up or down and that kind of thing. There is an enormous amount of work to be done in the offices though, of course, the Opposition does not see it. But it does see the results of it, and then it complains that the results are not what they would have been if the Opposition had had to do it. But I wish the hon. Member would get a little more realistic in his approach to these problems and not keep putting up his rather unspecific demand that nothing should be done about Katong and therefore nothing should be done about anybody at all. 10.15 a.m.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I agree with my colleague that to exclude Katong from the City limit would be a very unwholesome way of adjustment. As we know, Sir, in the City we are going to have a City Council and as a whole the City Council will be concentrating its efforts on how to improve the area within its control. Katong is to be thrust on to it by these powers. It will just carry on, as we say, in the line of obligation, but I doubt that there will be any effort made to improve conditions in the District of Katong. It has now become the responsibility of none of the Councillors and in that case, Sir, Katong may just have the existing facilities and no more. There will be no further improvement on it. The people will not get better services for paying the same amount of rates, and all in all enjoy no further facilities at all. On the question of delays, and accusations of not delaying as propounded by the Hon. Minister for Communications and Works, I think that it is a confession of the inefficiency of the Government. An hon. Member: Nonsense!

Anybody who is at the helm of things could have made the whole matter go faster or slower. It is not right to put the blame on anybody else but on itself. It has the ultimate power. It has all the instruments behind it, all the civil service which has to carry out its policies. And if it had thought about it carefully, all these things would have gone very smoothly. It is lack of thought, lack of planning, lack of timing, that placed a strain on the civil servants. The pressure which the civil service is experiencing now is the making of the Government. It is not that the civil service is not worked harder, but that it is not used properly. Civil servants, I would say, are just like machines. If the person at the wheel who drives the machine is not efficient probably the machine will bog down and stop. Who is to blame - the machine or the person at the wheel? Certainly I would like to lay the blame on the person at the wheel and not the machinery. Only a bad workman quarrels with his tools! Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out, be left out." The Committee divided: Ayes, 9; Noes, 19; Absent,4. Ayes. Noes. Ede, John. Abdul Hamid bin Haji Jumat. Goh Tong Liang. Ahmad bin Ibrahim. Jumabhoy, R. Braga, A. J. Lee Choon Eng. Chew Swee Kee. Lim Choon Mong. Goh Chew Chua. Lim Koon Teck. Hart, T. M. Ong Piah Teng. Jumabhoy, J. M. Soh Ghee Soon. Lee Kuan Yew. Tan, William. Lim, R. C. H. Lim Yew Hock. Absent. Mak Pak Shee. Lazarous, A. R. Mohd. Sidik bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Lim Cher Kheng. Nair, M.P.D. Lim Ching Siong. Shanks, E. P. Seah Peng Chuan. Stewart, S. T. Sutherland, G. A. P. Tan Theng Chiang. Thomas, Francis. Wong Foo Nam. Amendment accordingly negatived. Clause 323 ordered to stand part of the Bill. New clause (immediately after clause 17)-

Mr Chairman, I beg to introduce a new clause to be inserted immediately after clause 17: "Appointment (1) A District Council shall, with the of District concurrence of the Minister, appoint fit Council and proper persons to be Secretary, Treasurer, Employees. Health Officer, Assessor, Engineer, Architect and Building Surveyor and Cleansing Superintendent. (2) Persons appointed to such posts shall not be removed without the consent of the Minister.". Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir, I move, "That the clause be read a Second time." Sir, this clause and the two other new clauses which we shall move later are of course to a great extent inter-related in that they do refer to the setting up of proper administration of the District Councils, and I hope I shall not be considered to be irrelevant if I do to some extent in a general way range over the subject matter of the two new clauses because I hope possibly that by doing that we may be able to shorten the debate and concentrate on the general principles as we go on. Sir, the issue really seems to be this, that for some reason the Government has been unwilling to write into this Bill clauses that are necessary to make the District Councils largely autonomous; to give them powers over their staff, powers over the list of posts, powers over their finances through the constitution of a District Council fund. We have heard from the Government Benches that it has had great difficulties in getting everything ready for these new District Councils; whether that is justifiable delay or not we have debated it and we need not go too far into that point. But nevertheless I think the Minister said in his speech a week ago that it was in sympathy with our intentions in having these clauses written into the Bill, where in fact they will have to be written in in any case in due course if the District Councils are to operate as we all wish them to operate, and even the Government wishes them to operate. What we do not understand is the reason why they cannot be written in at this stage because, as I say, even if there has to be some delay in bringing in the implementation of the autonomy of the District Councils in full by March 1958, by the introduction of these clauses - having them on the Statute Book from now - the Government is still covered perfectly adequately by clause 1 (2): "The Governor may appoint different days for the coming into operation of different Parts or provisions of this Ordinance and may in such notification declare that any provision of this Ordinance shall not apply to District Councils until the Minister by notification in the Gazette declares that it shall so apply." 10.30 a.m. So there you have in clause 1 (2) powers whereby in any case you need not bring in these clauses which we are considering now, particularly this one on the appointment of District Council employees. You need not bring these into effect in fact until you are ready. The Minister at some stage, I think, did say that it might be that one District Council, the Katong District Council, could be got working on an autonomous basis earlier than the other two. Surely the very fact that you have these clauses written into the Bill would mean that you could bring them into operation in respect of the first District Council to be properly organised under clause 1 (2)? The difficulties therefore seem to be very slight indeed. It seems to me that if those clauses are there, then we on this side will be more satisfied that every effort is being made to put the District Councils on a proper footing as soon as possible. We have talked about four, five or six months, or even quite a short period after March, when at least one of the District Councils can be put on a proper basis, but let it be remembered, Sir, that for a short period after March - or it may be a long period of some months - there will be a change in our Constitution and there may very well be, and we hope there will be, a change in Government, and it may be that there will not be adequate time over a period of months for new legislation to be carried out. And there will be an excuse for a delay in putting into effect what at all events must be put into effect as soon as possible. And so by using clause 1 (2) the difficulty is avoided; when everything is ready, whatever period it may be, the operation can go forward smoothly. Sir, the Hon. Chief Secretary said only yesterday, he conceded, that the staff were available and that all arrangements have been made for the staffing of the District Councils. If that is so, there should be no difficulty in accepting this clause. There might, Sir, I agree, be some small argument as to whether a cleansing superintendent is really necessary in a District Council when you have a health officer, and that possibly you could cut out the superintendent and leave all health aspects including cleansing in the hands of the health officer. If that is the difficulty in the way of the Government we would of course be glad to accept an amendment of that nature, so that if there is any officer in this list that we propose who does not square quite with what perhaps would be necessary in the District Councils, an amendment can be made at this stage with the greatest of ease. Sir, we on this side are somewhat suspicious, I regret to say, as to the reasons for the delay in putting these new clauses into the Bill. It is most desirable that we should have the machinery working by March or as near March as possible so that the District Councils are as near as possible autonomous from the start. Now if the Liberal-Socialists or the People's Action Party was to win a majority in the elections to a District Council-or any other Party was to win a majority-the Government could be (I do not say it would be, but it could be) deliberately obstructive so long as it had all the powers resting in its hands. We are suspicious, I say, Sir, because on Friday two Ministers declared with glee that no impartiality could be expected in a Labour Front Mayor. We therefore now know what to expect in the District Council with a non-Labour Front majority, and we know the way possibly the nominated members would be appointed. The Government has shown its hand in this matter and we think, for this reason alone, that these clauses should be incorporated in the Bill at this juncture.

The new clause is intituled "Appointment of District Council Employees." The Question is, "That the clause be read a Second time." I think it would be convenient to Members if the debate does range over the next two amendments, the new clauses intituled "List of Posts" and "District Council Fund"*. "List of The Chairman of a District Council shall once a year posts. submit to the Council for its approval a list of the posts which he thinks necessary for the purposes of this Ordinance with the salaries and allowances, if any, proposed to be attached to such posts respectively.". Immediately after Clause 101: "District Council Finances. District (1) All moneys recieved by a District Council by Council virtue of this or any other Ordinance shall constitute Fund. a fund which shall be called the District Council Fund and shall together with all property which is or may become vested in the District Council be under the direction and control of the District Council subject to the provisions of this Ordinance. (2) All liabilities falling to be discharged by a District Council shall be discharged out of the District Council Fund. (3) All payments to and out of a District Council Fund shall be made to and by the Treasurer who shall be responsible therefor to the District Council."

Mr Chairman, Sir, I hope I shall also be allowed by you to range over the subject matter of these new clauses together because, like the Member for Tanglin, I think that will shorten the debate on the succeeding new clauses. Sir, Government does agree, as the Minister indeed pointed out, with these amendments in principle, but they cannot be introduced at present and they are premature. Members will appreciate, Sir, that it is not possible to create independent and 100 per cent self-sufficient District Councils overnight. We have to be practical. Government has repeatedly stated that these District Councils will be run for an interim period, after their establishment, on Rural Board lines. Since they will be largely dependent on Government for funds and staff, therefore it is not unreasonable for their finances to be subjected to ultimate Assembly approval. Sir, with regard to the new clause 17, as I have said before, and which I think has been said also in the explanatory note, the District Councils will have their staff, who will be Government servants. Government will provide the staff for the District Councils for an interim period and therefore this clause is unnecessary. They are Government servants and the appointments will be made by Government. They will be subject to Government salary schemes, promotions and transfers. When these District Councils become autonomous, they will have their own independent staff. In connection with the particular clause as it stands at present, I have two points, two comments, to make. One is that it is even wider in its application than that which has been agreed upon with regard to the City Council. There we restricted the clause to cover certain heads of departments only, like the City Engineer, City Health Officer and City Assessor; but this clause, as it reads, has wider application. For instance, if you take the word "Engineer", it may mean more than one type of engineer. It could mean an Assistant Engineer also, but that is not the intention. I think this clause should be restricted like the one on the City Council is restricted. Then again you have to bear in mind that in the City Council these posts already exist, whereas in the District Councils they need not necessarily be so. For instance, there might be a combined post of Secretary-Treasurer instead of two different posts of Secretary and Treasurer. I think in the Penang City Council, and if I am not mistaken also in the Malacca Council, there is a post of Secretary-Treasurer. Here we are trying to anticipate things by saying that there should be a Treasurer and a Secretary. These things will have to be left to the District Councils. They may decide to have, for the time being, a Secretary-Treasurer, not two separate posts. And again we do not know how the District Councils will call these posts when they have their own staff. We do not know whether they will stick to the word "Engineer"; they may call him "District Engineer" or "Chief Engineer". The same with the Health Officer - they may prefer to call him "District Health Officer" or "Chief Health Officer". On the clause immediately after this new clause, entitled "List of Posts", we agree in principle, as I said, that the District Councils should be autonomous, but here again it is premature. On this particular clause the proposer seems to have forgotten to say how such appointments and promotions to all the posts in the list shall be made. If you just introduce this clause and accept it, it will be like making an amendment in isolation. You create a list of posts but you do not say how promotions and appointments are to be made, as you do for the City Council. I think it is made under clause 12. On the new clause immediately after clause 101 as it stands, as I say for an initial period the District Councils will be run on Rural Board lines, and in view of this intention to run them on Rural Board lines while they are largely dependent on Government revenue and until they become financially viable, this new clause as it stands is contrary and inconsistent with the provisions of the proviso to clause 16 which already stands part of the Bill. The new clause says: "All moneys received by a District Council by virtue of this or any other Ordinance shall constitute a fund which shall be called the District Council Fund and shall together with all property which is or may become vested in the District Council be under the direction and control of the District Council subject to the provisions of this Ordinance." Clause 16 says that all these properties of the District Councils during this interim period will be Crown property. The proviso to clause 16 on the constitution of District Councils says: "Provided always that...in any case where, by reason of the exercise by a District Council, of any power, function or duty, discretion or authorization, by this Ordinance imposed or conferred upon or exercisable by that Council, any land or other immovable property has been vested in or would be vested in or acquired by that Council, such land or other immovable property shall vest in or be acquired by the Crown, and the Crown shall have the sole right of selling, letting, granting or leasing...". Sir, if this new clause after clause 101 is passed now, it will also be wholly inconsistent with clause 103. In this new clause, sub-clauses (2) and (3) mean that a District Council will be responsible for the drawing up and approval of its own budget, whereas clause 103 means that the budget is to be submitted to the Minister for ultimate incorporation into the Colony Estimates. If the intention in this new clause after clause 101 is to make District Councils operate now as financially autonomous bodies, this solitary clause by itself falls woefully short of what is necessary to achieve that end. For instance, the proposer does not make provision for the disposal of moneys received in respect of the funds (we have the corresponding clause 68 in respect of the Municipal Fund), on how to invest such moneys and on the mode of preparation of the budget. There are also other matters which must be looked into before we can make District Councils autonomous and have their own district funds. 10.45 a.m. Sir, there is therefore no point in inserting these new clauses now, and on the strength of what the Member for Tanglin says they need not be brought into force now. The reason why we say they should not be brought into force now, that they are premature, is that they are really amendments in isolation. Other provisions should also be put into this Bill, if you want to make these District Councils autonomous in financial dealings. The financial arrangements as long as they are going to be run on Rural Board lines as envisaged in this Bill, are a simple, practical and necessary procedure for an initial period in view of the District Councils' dependence on the Government. The Government has already stated - I repeat that again, Sir - that when these Councils have been set on their feet, and have become financially viable, amending legislation will be introduced to enable them to function independently like the City Council. The clauses which the Member has proposed can then become part of such legislation. I do not know why he has stressed the word suspicion. There is no suspicion; we are only being practical. To include them now in this Bill is to make them amendments in isolation serving no purpose whatever. For these reasons, Sir, as long as these District Councils are to be run on Rural Board lines with regard to staff, vesting of property, revenue and expenditure, I say the clauses on financial procedure which we have provided for in the Bill are a practical, sensible and necessary way of letting the District Councils operate. For these reasons, Sir, I oppose the amendment.

Sir, what the hon. Member for Tanglin is putting forward today is only a question of principle, and whether these District Councils should be allowed to run autonomously or, as the Hon. the Chief Secretary has said, with great timidity, is just a question of approach - whether we are prepared to launch into a real democratic system of local government as soon as possible or to delay this indefinitely and run all the three District Councils in the manner the Rural Board has been run or as advisory councils. It is on principles that we are talking about now and any consequential amendments which the Hon. the Chief Secretary said must be made will have to be made if the principles are accepted. There is only the question of approach to this matter today - whether we are prepared to try out District Councils and launch them as real district councils, or just to approve District Councils in principle and let it take five or ten years to mature or to bring into effect.

Mr Chairman, the underlying fear in the mind of the Opposition that has emerged throughout these four days of debate on this Bill has been the fear that the Labour Front Government may be unfair if the local government bodies are filled with other Party members. And the Member for Tanglin has highlighted this fear today by giving us an example of what might happen if the District Councils had a majority of Liberal-Socialist Councillors. Sir, that fear of the Liberal-Socialists is a credit to the Labour Front in that they have confidence that the Labour Front will be returned as the government in the coming elections. We thank them for that, Sir. But he also did mention that two Ministers had said that Ministers could not be impartial. I think, Sir, that if that was not a deliberate twisting of what I and the Minister for Communications and Works stated, it must have been a big misunderstanding on the part of the Member for Tanglin. What I stated and my colleague stated was that Ministers could not be impartial to Party programmes and Party platforms - not in individual matters: in individual matters Ministers must be impartial. There is one point, Sir, arising out of this debate on the amendment which the Member seeks to move, and that is that the amendment states that a District Council shall, with the concurrence of the Minister, appoint fit and proper persons to be Secretary, Treasurer, Health Officer, Assessor, Engineer, Architect and Building Surveyor and so on. Supposing the District Council does not feel the necessity of appointing an architect or an assessor, that it feels it could make do with the City Assessor and share the cost of that post? This new clause which the Member seeks to move makes it imperative that the District Council shall appoint such officers and shall create such posts, so that this would mean that the District Council concerned would be forced to go into expenditure which it might not necessarily want to go into.

Mr Chairman, the reasons given by Members of the Government Benches for not accepting this new clause, and by implication the next two, seem to us extremely flimsy ones. They are quibbling points rather than points bearing on the necessity of proper administration of the District Councils. The Hon. the Chief Secretary stated that the term "Engineer" might be taken to refer to the chief engineer or the head engineer or the senior engineer, and that perhaps we should have a Secretary-Treasurer; and the Minister for Commerce and Industry said that the District Councils shall appoint - it should not be obligatory; and so on. In other words, it is quite clear that the Government has not the faintest idea what officers are to be appointed to the District Councils. Surely at this stage it should have a clear intention of what it intended should operate under this Bill? I suspect sometimes that it is because Government cannot produce the staff to man the District Councils properly, and being in this dilemma of course it cannot commit itself to having any officers at all! The Hon. the Chief Secretary also mentioned that the new clause on list of posts as tabled was incomplete, and that it would mean sub-clauses would have to be added to it if it was to be satisfactory, following clause 12 of the Bill in respect of the City Council. We are quite aware of that, Sir. We have put down the main, salient sub-clauses of these clauses as a matter of principle and it follows of course that they should be fully completed if the Government accepts the principle involved, and we agree that if these clauses were to be accepted there would have to be changes in other clauses of the Bill. We are quite aware of that, Sir, but that is the work of the Government to do: it is not the business of the Opposition to bear the work of legislation. I think that is really all I have to say, Sir, but we have not had an answer to the fundamental point which I have made, and that is there seems to be no reason why these clauses should not be written into the Bill here and now when you are completely and adequately covered by clause 1 (2) whereby the Governor may appoint different days for the coming into operation of different parts or provisions of this Ordinance and may in such notification declare that any provision of this Ordinance shall not apply to District Councils until the Minister by notification in the Gazette declares that it shall so apply. And it does seem to us that because use is not being made of this very admirable umbrella under which the Government can shelter, that there is the intention of delaying the autonomy of the District Councils as long as possible. The Chief Secretary stated that in any case they could not become autonomous until they are financially viable. When is that going to be? We on this side of the House fully realise that, to begin with, Government will have to subsidise, with the approval of this Assembly, the finances of these District Councils probably up to 60 per cent of its revenue, and that being the position, if we are going to wait until these Councils are financially viable, then we will have to wait for decades.

About six weeks ago, Mr Chairman, the hon. Member for Tanglin regarded it as an insult to the elected representatives on the District Councils if they were not given the full staff from the very start. That was six weeks ago. Since then he has had the benefit of hearing a debate in this House and heard some words from myself about being realistic, and it is no longer an insult - we can now shelter under the umbrella of clause 1 (2). In short, we are to put this thing in but not to operate it.

Point of clarification, Sir. I was only suggesting a way out for the Government out of its dilemma.

In suggesting a way out, to take refuge under an umbrella, he is seeking a way out for himself from a change of ground, from what he resisted as an intolerable insult six weeks ago but now accepts as a perfectly acceptable manoeuvre; to satisfy his demand that we should have something written into the Bill but also to say, "I realise this cannot be done but we will have it written in just to show that I have not made a mistake in putting it down on the Order Paper." Now we go on to the principle of autonomy, which is a favourite word on the other side of the House; but principles must have practicable application. Let us imagine that you wish to have an engineer in each of the District Councils. He must have equipment, staff, a maintenance depot, otherwise he will not be able to function. All this will have to be provided before you appoint him, otherwise you would be paying him salary and he could not do anything. We do not know precisely yet what the District Councils will want done. I do not think that the Opposition will accept - I certainly would not accept myself - that the District Councils will do no more than what the Rural Board has done or that they will do precisely what the Rural Board has done. They will no doubt have their own ideas because these will be the ideas of the people living in those districts. And therefore if this proposal to have, say, an engineer means anything, it means that we should now beforehand commit the Councils to expenditure on equipment and to lay out a staff which may not be what in fact they want and which experience may show to be unsuitable. 11.00 a.m. This is the sort of administrative point which the Opposition completely fails to grasp. They see some admirable principle and of course it is a very sound thing indeed that the District Councils should have the proper staff to carry out the work that they want done and everyone agrees that that is the intention; that intention can be achieved but it will not be achieved by putting down empty clauses and then operating under clause 1 in order to make the clause of no effect and then perhaps to take the clause out again and say, "Well, on consideration, the District Councils tell us that they do not particularly want these people. They would like to have something different. They find that the Technical Assistant level is enough for the engineering work for the time being or they find (as the hon. Member himself said) that they want to combine the Health Officer and the Cleansing Officer or any other combination of functions." The hon. Member is apparently prepared to foresee at all stages what the elected representatives in the District Councils will want to do. I think he is unable to foresee it except insofar as there may be Liberal-Socialists under his orders or under directives of his Party managers or controllers. I would like to make one little further point. The hon. Member said that it is expected that the Government cannot produce the staff to manage the District Councils properly. I think he used the word "manage" - my notes have "manage". But I think there again he is under an administrative misapprehension. It would be possible and it will be possible, I think, as far as the staff of my own Ministry is concerned, for the Senior Executive Engineer (Rural) and those who work under him to meet the needs of the District Councils for the first part of their term. He can deploy the staff so as to meet their needs, if we keep the existing structure in which the Senior Executive Engineer will be the advisory Engineer who would attend the Councils when wanted and give them the benefit of his advice, in the same way that the Rural Board makes use of the Executive Engineer now. But if you were to try to break up his organisation and fragment it and share it out amongst the different Councils, you might well find that in fact you got less work done and not more.

Mr Chairman, Sir, if District Councils are going to be set up without having their own civil servants, engineers and technical people to help them but are to be dependent on Government to supply all these needs, then I say that the elected District Councils will be no more than glorified rural district advisory committees. At present, Sir, the Rural Board is dependent on Government for all such officers like architects, surveyors and health officers to carry out its work. Then you have on the district level the advisory committees. The advisory committees are supposed to be representing the people of a district. The members put their heads together, produce an idea and say, "We want a certain bridge built." That suggestion will then come up to the Rural Board which may reject it or the Rural Board may accept it and put up its recommendations to the engineer. Then Government, on the other side, may say, "We do not want to have it built." There you are, you will have all these frustrations. Even in the case of an idea being accepted at the level of the Rural District Committee now by the Rural Board, it will take a very, very long time for it to be implemented. I have known of cases - we will take the simple case of stand-pipes - where the rural people asked for standpipes. The Rural Board agreed to that but it took a very long time for the standpipes to be installed. In this case of standpipes, of course, it is not the Government that is carrying out the work, but the work falls on the City Council Water Department. Here I am using this as an illustration, Sir, to show that if you do not have your staff, you will not be able to carry out work satisfactorily. You will never be able to answer the people whom you represent as to why there was a delay or why certain principles having been accepted had never been put into operation. Now, if Government thinks that this is a good system, then I believe that the people coming into such a district will be faced with more frustrations. I would like Government to consider very carefully the suggestions put forward from this side of the House that the District Councils must be autonomous and that they must have their own staff. We put this forward not because we want to redraft the whole lot of the amendments but as an eye-opener to Government telling it that it has failed in this instance and that it has not realised what is important to the people, if you are going to make democracy work. I would like Government to consider this point very, very carefully indeed.

Mr Chairman, I think perhaps I can relieve the Member for Serangoon of one of his worries. He has referred to the very, very long delays it takes to carry out certain types of works and he fears that these delays will be worse unless the District Councils are fully equipped with the sort of staff that the Member for Tanglin has envisaged. I think it is only fair to say this, that a very large number of the delays derive not from lack of capacity to do the work but from other types of causes. The Member for Tanglin will recollect writing to me, I think in April or May - thereabouts anyway - about a lady who had some fruit trees on her plot on a site through which a road had to pass and he wrote to say, "Could she not be allowed to stay on the site until August so that she could gather the fruit harvest before she had to be evicted and moved to a new area?"

I have not had an answer.

That is a proper and reasonable request for an Assemblyman to make on behalf of people residing in his electoral division but when you add all those sort of things together, the fact is of course that the road does not get built, in that particular case, he only referred to one lady. I have the file with me actually: I have been looking at the draft answer which he has so long been waiting for. There are a number of families on this road site; people having their fruits, their pigs, their houses or their little factories: for one reason or another they do not want to move off the land where they are and, consequently, the road does not go through. The Member for Serangoon is frequently asking questions - which should be directed of course to the local government authorities and not to me; but I try to answer them when I can about the stretch of Yio Chu Kang Road between the Serangoon Garden Estate and Thomson Road. Well, there again, we are trying to get the road widened and improved but unfortunately we cannot get the sites cleared and we cannot get the road work done because the people are living right up against the sides of the road; you have to move people out of the way and interfere with their normal way of living. That is a difficult and slow process. It is not lack of capacity there which is preventing us from improving the road. It is the inability to get the use of the site and get on with the job. That sort of thing applies to a great deal of work, particularly in rural works. That is one of the big factors that makes delay. It is not the inadequate capacity of the Senior Executive Engineer (Rural) but the inability to get the use of the land and get on with the job.

Question put, and disagreed to.

Mr Chairman, in the circumstances, I do not propose to move the other two new clauses.

That disposes of all clauses. Amendments to the numbers of the clauses in the Bill consequential on the deletion of clauses 284 and 287 will be made as a matter of course. First Schedule-

Mr Chairman, I move, In page 246, line 28, to leave out from "Singapore" to the end of line 48 in page 249 and insert:- "within the limits of the City of Singapore as constituted under the provisions of the Municipal Ordinance." The intention of this amendment is quite simple, Sir. It is to leave the City Council boundaries as they are and not to play about with them in the way in which the Government proposes. There are three areas mainly involved and I need not repeat them because we have become somewhat familiar with them during the course of the last few days, but I must refer you first in respect of Katong to the McNeice Report which is often called the Report of the Committee on Local Government, at paragraph 143, where it is stated: "We have noted that in and around Katong there exists an area of individual character, the population of which consists almost entirely of locally born people who have firm roots planted in the life of Singapore." We think, Sir, that that is a very admirable sentence, that it very truly depicts the position of Katong and that it is an entirely homogeneous area and, having stated that, we find it most extraordinary that the next step which was proposed by the Committee on Local Government and accepted by the Government itself was to divide Katong precisely into two, down a little drain that leads to the sea just beyond Haig Road and Kampong Amber. Why, having established the premise which is a perfectly true one that Katong is a homogeneous area, do you then split it neatly into two: one area in the District Council and the other in the City Council? That it is an unsatisfactory arrangement can be seen from paragraph 154 of the Report of the Committee on Local Government which is in the nature of a sort of apologia for the decision that they have reached when they say: "The naming of the Eastern district has proved particularly difficult and a majority of the Committee have compromised in proposing the name 'Katong-Changi'; two members of the Committee prefer the name 'Siglap' on the assumption that the administrative centre for the district will eventually be sited in the Siglap area." So that once you start dividing Katong into two, you get into the embarrassing position of not knowing what to call your new District Council. Katong-Changi was one effort and Siglap was another effort but the Government decided that the area which comprises Siglap, Changi, Ulu Bedok and part Katong should be called Katong. Now, it appears then that the other half of Katong to the west nearer the city will have to be called some other name and we will find that we are faced with an illogicality which I am sure people visiting Singapore will not be able to understand: Katong Park and the well known road Tanjong Katong Road will no longer be in Katong. The only argument that we can find for the reason for expelling half Katong into the District Council area is because of the necessity of finding a town to allocate, as it were, to this new Direct Council and I will read to you, Sir, if I may, columns 342 and 343 of the Select Committee's Official Report, what the Minister had to state on this particular matter: "In the fixing of boundaries, it was thought the new town for Bulim would form the hub of the new Bukit Panjang-Jurong district council, the one in Yio Chu Kang the hub of the Serangoon district council and the one in Woodlands would eventually form the hub of the Bukit Panjang district council when that area is divorced from Jurong. So the Committee thought that the suburban town of Katong would in itself form the hub of the Katong-Changi district council. It is not stated in the Master Plan that there should be a new town in either Changi or Katong districts." Now, from that sentence: "It is not stated in the Master Plan that there should be a new town", so it is not stated in the Master Plan: therefore there cannot be one. It appears that the Minister and the Government have become a slave to the Master Plan which has dictated this absurdity to them. Has the Government even approved the Master Plan? - we do not know. It has certainly not been approved on this side because the proposals in the Master Plan have never been brought before the Assembly for debate and approval. The Minister stated that the town of Katong would form the hub of the District Council; it would, in fact, be on the outer rim with, I think, rather a flat tyre as far as organisation is concerned. Katong is not central to the District. It is already married to its other half nearer the town and the whole area has been brought closer to the city through Merdeka Bridge and Nicoll Highway. To order the inhabitants of Katong to look eastward, when by nature they look westward, is the act of a Canute telling the tide to recede. So we can see no reasons at all for this particular kind of hybrid arrangement in the east side of the rural area of this island. Turning to the Bukit Panjang/Pasir Panjang area, a rural area which it is intended to bring into the City Council area straightaway, as I have said before, the normal procedure is to extend city boundaries outwards as urbanisation increases and not to go in the reverse direction. To bring under-developed areas into the city before they are ready is a wrong method of approach. The Government have used the argument that rural areas should be nursed by a gradual process before being launched on to the sea of complete autonomy in rural affairs and yet this argument is completely nullified by leaving out the nursing period in the case of this particular area. The move, in other words, is completely premature and it also goes against the argument of the Government in saying that they disapprove of the City and Island Council arrangement because the people in the rural areas who have been brought into the City Council area as representatives on a single council of local government for the whole island will be swamped by the people in the city. Well, here is a City and Island Council case in miniature in which these people in the rural areas are being brought into the City Council area and they would of course be rather swamped by the other representatives on the City Council whereas they could have played their full part in local government affairs if they had remained in the Pasir Panjang District Council. There is the other point which we referred to previously - the question of languages - that farmers and shopkeepers in this area do not speak Mandarin and so it would be difficult for them to find their own personal representative in that area. They would probably find someone imposed on them from outside who will stand in this area for election. It would be much more difficult for them to find somebody who could adequately represent them, despite the whole principle on which we are going that the people living in the area should elect their own representative whom they know and whom they trust. That is the basis of all things in local government. Lastly, there is this peculiar situation in the Braddell Road area of another homogeneous farming area being split into two because this farming area is to be found on each side of Braddell Road. Anyone who drives down Braddell Road knows very well that there are vegetables being grown in quantity in this particular area on both sides of the road and for a long time they have been within the City Council area as a homogeneous group. Now, they are to be split neatly into two because of the boundary that follows Braddell Road: one-half to the north will go into the District Council area and one-half to the south will go into the City Council area. One could have understood if the whole of that area had been put into the District Council area because it is in fact a rural area. That would have been logical and comprehensible but that it should be split into two is not comprehensible at all. Now, Sir, that concludes the points that I would like to make about these three changes in the proposed limits to the City Council area and I see that the Minister for Health has now returned so that he can give us the benefit of his wisdom as to the splitting of his own constituency into two. I am sure that that was not an election promise of his two years ago.

Mr Chairman, Sir, I had hoped that the Member for Tanglin would withdraw his amendment to this section of the Bill in view of the other amendments connected with this question of Katong and Ulu Pandan which have not been accepted by the Assembly. I do not think I have very much to add to what I have already said earlier on at this sitting but I would like to reiterate again, Sir, that with regard to Katong, it is thought that Katong will develop sooner than the other Districts and will provide a model for other District Councils in Singapore. On the other question of the homogeneity of Katong and of the splitting of Katong into two Districts, here again, the canal which leads from Geylang Serai to the sea is an old city boundary and could be regarded as an extension of the Green Belt. Well, Sir, I do not think I have anything more to add to what I have already said. All the pros and cons have been debated in the Select Committee and if one were to read the Official Reports of the Select Committee, it is very obvious why Government has decided that the District of Katong should be split into two and also with regard to Ulu Pandan where we have taken in some areas which the Member for Tanglin said were very much rural areas, but then, on the other hand, development is going on there at a very great speed and if one were to look at a map of that particular area now he would realise that more than half of the new City Council area which is now being embodied in the City Council is more highly developed than some of the City Council areas within the city.

It was interesting, Mr Chairman, to hear the Member for Tanglin referring to Katong as my constituency. The Member for Tanglin has been an ardent opposer of this particular clause in the Bill. For a considerable time he has argued it most extensively in the Select Committee and yet neither he nor any other Member of the Liberal-Socialists has been able to induce a single resident of Katong to make any representations to me at all. I meet the people there at sessions weekly including Lib-Soc members and not a single person in Katong has yet approached me expressing any opposition at all to this and I do not see how it can be said that I have not kept my election promises. The Liberal-Socialists have not been able to induce a single resident in Katong to make representation to me.

Mr Chairman, Sir, it is astounding to me that the crucial point of this debate should have such little arguments to support it. The Minister for Local Government, Lands and Housing was so optimistic as to think that our Party would withdraw such an amendment particularly when he must have seen the support that has been given us in the Press unless he chooses not to read what is against his Party's policy. It seems to me that if there is no argument at all against the submission so ably put up by my learned Friend, this amendment before the House should be completely carried and what is worse the Minister for Health whose constituency is Katong comes up and says that everybody in Katong is against this simply because he has not received one complaint or one demand to let the boundaries stay as they are. One would enquire whether he really lives in Katong or whether it is because his constituents have given up faith in him and have come to see our representatives in this area instead of him. Sir, so far, no argument has been raised and I submit that Members of this Assembly should accept this amendment. 11.30 a.m.

I am afraid that the Member for Paya Lebar seems to think that we have not got a reply to the amendment proposed by the Member for Tanglin. In fact, we on this side do not like to repeat what we have said over and over again in this debate.

Not in this House. Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out, be left out." The Committee divided: Ayes, 9; Noes, 18; Absent, 5; 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. Ong Piah Teng. Hart, T. M. Soh Ghee Soon. Jumabhoy, J. M. Tan, William. Lim Cher Kheng. Lim, R. C. H. Lim Yew Hock. Abstention Mak Pak Shee. Nil. Mohd. Sidik bin Haji Abdul Hamid. Absent Nair, M. P. D. Lazarous, A. R. Shanks, E. P. Lee Kuan Yew. Stewart, S. T. Lim Ching Siong. Tan Theng Chiang. Seah Peng Chuan. Thomas, Francis. Sutherland, G. A. P. Wong Foo Nam. Amendment accordingly negatived. First Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill. Second Schedule-

Mr Chairman, I do not propose to move my amendment, [In page 250, line 1, to leave out from beginning to the end of line 48 in page 262 and insert:- "All that part of the island of Singapore within the limits of the Rural Board area created under the provisions of the Municipal Ordinance.".] Second Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill. Third Schedule-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 263: after "FORMS", to insert: - "A. FORM OF DECLARATION OF ACCEPTANCE OF OFFICE OF MAYOR. (Section 9) I, ............... a duly elected member of the City Council of Singapore, having previously made and delivered my declaration of acceptance of office as a Councillor in due form and as required by the Local Government Ordinance, 1957, and having been elected Mayor of the City, hereby declare that I take upon myself the office of Mayor and will duly and faithfully fulfil my duties as Mayor to the City and to the citizens thereof according to the best of my judgment and ability. ......................... (Signature of Declarant.) Declared before me this..........day of.........., 19.... ............................................... (Signature and description.)". Sir, it will be found in the Third Schedule on page 263 that there is only a single form of declaration of acceptance of office which simply states: " I ............................... having been elected a .................. hereby declare that I take the said office on myself and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties thereof according to the best of my judgment and ability ....................". That is the form of declaration for Councillors. Now, when the City Councillors have given that form of declaration, they then proceed with the first meeting for the election of a Mayor and, as that is laid down with great clarity in the Bill - I think it is clause 9 - we feel that when we have gone through the process of electing a Mayor, then there should be a special form of declaration which the Mayor should make under sub-clause (11) where a Declaration is in fact required to be made. Sub-clause (11) of clause 9 states: "The Councillor elected as mayor shall not act in such office unless he has previously made and delivered to the Secretary a declaration of acceptance of office of mayor in Form A in the Third Schedule to this Ordinance". Now, it seems quite clear to us that, Sir, because of the position the Mayor holds, he should make a special declaration of acceptance of office and he should not repeat the declaration, that he has already made previously, of acceptance of office of Councillor. In view of the remarks of the Minister for Commerce and Industry two or three days ago to which I referred earlier this morning, I think it is all the more important that the Mayor should declare that he will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties as Mayor to the City and to the citizens thereof according to the best of his judgment and ability.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Government accepts this amendment but would point out that, in addition to the consequential amendments already noted, there will of course be certain others in clauses of the Bill and in marginal notes where forms now lettered B to G have to be re-lettered C to H. Amendment agreed to.

Consequential amendments will be made.

Mr Chairman, might I just make one point, Sir? I think that there should be another consequential amendment, after what will now be B (Form of Declaration of Acceptance of Office) the words "of Councillors" should be added. I do not know whether that is a consequential amendment or whether it is a major amendment.

The Form actually refers to a Form which is required by section 20. The word "Section" and the figure "20" will appear under Form B and section 20, I think, refers to an oath of a Councillor. Perhaps that would suffice?

It does, Sir. It is only that in the new Form A, as accepted, we have the "office of Mayor" specifically stated but I thought perhaps it would be better to have "of Councillors" on Form B.

These titles, of course, are not part of the Bill and if the Government side requires an amendment of that nature, that amendment can be made as a matter of course. Third Schedule, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill. Sixth Schedule-

Mr Chairman, I do not propose to move my amendment. [In page 273, line 8, after "nuisances", to insert "including noise".] But I would, at this stage, seek your guidance on another matter. I wish to recommit a further clause - clause 144 - to the Committee of the Assembly. I am not quite clear at what stage one moves.

The relevant Standing Order of course is Standing Order 54 (1). The motion must be made before a Member rises to move the Third Reading of a Bill. Sixth Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Sir, I move, "That the Bill, as amended on recommittal, be reported to the Assembly."

Question put, and agreed to. Bill reported, with Amendments.

11.45 a.m.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, That the Bill be recommitted in respect of clause 144. Sir, this clause 144 is one which we were dealing with indirectly yesterday when we were considering our amendment to clause 143 on the question of the width of private streets. I have had the benefit of having this considered by the Hon. the Chief Minister and the Attorney-General to whom I am very grateful. I think we have come to a compromise on this matter which, while it is not entirely suitable to us, does go a very long way to meeting the point we have in mind on this question of ensuring that owners or occupiers of premises bordering on streets that are less than 36 ft. wide would, through this amendment we now propose, have a chance of having streets declared as public streets.

I second it.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as mentioned by the Member for Tanglin, there has been a discussion on this particular amendment which he moved to clause 143. As a result of that amendment, agreement has been reached that we recommit clause 144. The Government does not oppose the recommittal of this clause.

Question put, and agreed to. Bill considered in Committee:

Clause 144-

Mr Chairman, I beg to move, In page 143, line 31, after "may", to insert "whether at the request of the owners of premises fronting, adjoining or abutting on such street or otherwise". Amendment handed in.

The amendment is in order.

Mr Chairman, I do not think that there is anything I wish to add to what I have already said on this point. It is simply that now under clause 144 whereas I pointed out yesterday that only the local authority could take the initiative in getting a private street declared a public street, it now becomes possible with this amendment that owners of premises fronting, adjoining or abutting on such street can take the initiative to the extent of requesting the local authority that such street be declared a public street. As I said, I am very grateful to the Attorney-General for looking into this matter seeing how it could be drafted and to the Hon. the Chief Minister for meeting what I think is rather an important point.

Mr Chairman, Sir, the Government accepts the amendment. Amendment agreed to. Clause 144, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Sir, I move, "That the Bill, as amended on recommittal, be reported to the Assembly."

Question put, and agreed to. Bill reported, with an Amendment.

Third Reading, what day?

Now, Sir. Mr Speaker, I beg to move, "That the Bill, as amended, be now read the Third time."

I second it. Question proposed.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not wish to make a long speech on the Third Reading of the Bill. It must be made clear that the Liberal-Socialist Party has voiced its disagreement and will continue to do so on certain important clauses. We are not satisfied with the dictatorial manner in which the new city limits are being introduced nor with the limits themselves. We are in disagreement regarding the number of councillors on the City and District Councils and the inclusion of nominated members. The powers over rating in the new areas given to the Ministers are, we feel, wrong when differential rating is already a power in the hands of the local authority, while the transitional provisions in clause 323 relating in particular to Katong's administration is a mockery of democracy. We disagree with the loan policy in clause 81 and we consider the failure to include clauses regarding District Council funds, officers and posts an indication that the Government's new policy for the rural areas falls short of its promises. But, Sir, however long and tedious this four days' debate on the Bill in Committee stage may have seemed, their importance as a part of our democratic Assembly procedure has been proved and perhaps has been shown in no previous Bill. As early as the first day, the Minister for Communications and Works, in an outburst of impatience unworthy of him, accused the Liberal-Socialists of filibustering and suggested that the issues had been debated in Select Committee and why should we waste any further time. The Government's well-known desire to steamroller things through this House has never been more overtly demonstrated and it has made us on this side all the more determined to carry out our duty of Opposition. In point of fact, never have the functions of the Opposition been better shown than in this Bill. Government has been pushed into accepting amendments to about 15 clauses: two started by the People's Action Party and not completed by them (that Party has shown an almost total lack of interest in the Bill itself) and the rest by the Liberal-Socialists, and that is a complete justification of our procedure under Standing Orders. One other matter I must touch on because it goes to the very basic principles on which this Local Government Bill is founded. Nothing has horrified the Liberal-Socialist Party more than the unashamed confession - indeed, it was not a confession but a proud pronouncement - of the Minister for Commerce and Industry backed by the Minister for Communications and Works, who ought to know better, that the Mayor, if he were a Labour Front Mayor, would not hold his office impartially: you fight the election apparently on a Party ticket and if you become the Mayor, you follow the Party programme and the Party line. In other words, according to the Labour Front, a Mayor elected by them will sit in the chair and give his rulings on the Bill, on Standing Orders and on by-laws not impartially but in accordance with Party direction. Bias and prejudice of this kind would make a mockery of democratic institutions and would bring all the work put into this great Bill to nought in a matter of months. So that if ever any amendment of the Liberal-Socialist was justified, our amendment not to allow the Mayor a vote has been shown to be so. Well as we know the Minister for Commerce and Industry, we did not expect such cynical contempt for impartiality in persons of high office as he has expressed, an impartiality which the Liberal-Socialists regard as axiomatic. The failure to accept our amendment on this point in the light of the debate it produced would be alone enough to make us view parts of this Bill with disfavour. Fortunately, a Labour Front Mayor will now not eventualise because the people of this country will not vote for a Party with such a policy and such an outlook.

How do you know?

Sir, in dismissing this unpleasant taste from one's mouth, I would like to congratulate the Minister for Local Government for steering this difficult Bill through all its long stages to a conclusion even if we on this side cannot agree with a good deal of it. Indeed, it is clear that he does not agree with much of it himself and that it is purely a Labour Front Bill because he has rarely risen to speak in defence of it and only the Labour Front Members have defended it. An hon. Member: Nonsense.

Lastly, I would like to thank you, Mr Speaker, for the patience with which you have assisted Members of the Opposition first in Select Committee and in this House over difficult matters of procedure, in which your known impartiality has been invaluable.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I can well understand the stand taken by the Liberal-Socialists in this matter. The Member for Tanglin says that, insofar as the amendments which he proposed and which were lost, the Liberal-Socialists will still maintain the same stand. I can understand that feeling. In fact, it is the only stand that the Liberal-Socialists can take but I would like to suggest to him that we too on this side of the House have views of our own. If our views do not coincide with theirs, it is ridiculous to suggest that we are dictatorial whereas if they keep on dictating to us and we do not accept their dictatorial attitude, they say that they are right and that we are dictatorial. They suggest that we steamroller everything. Surely it is not so, Sir. The debate during the past four days has shown that the Government is very anxious that this Bill should be passed as quickly as possible so that elections can take place in December as far as the City Council is concerned. The Member for Tanglin also said that the Government was pushed into accepting, I think he said, 15 amendments. We were not pushed, Sir. We are prepared to accept any amendments that have merit and it just happened that these 15 amendments which we accepted had merit. Sir, I would like also to associate myself with the remarks of the Member for Tanglin for the very capable manner in which you have handled the debate for the last four days and the great patience you have shown us when so much noise has been made; so much so that the last amendment in regard to the inclusion of "noise" has been withdrawn.

The Speaker does not speak, of course. He just says, "Thank you."

Question put, and agreed to. Bill, as amended, accordingly read the Third time.

Sir, I move, That at its rising today, the Assembly do stand adjourned to Wednesday, 21st August, 1957.

I second it.

Question put, and agreed to. That at its rising today, the Assembly do stand adjourned to Wednesday, 21st August, 1957.

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

I second the motion.

Question put, and agreed to. Resolved, That this Assembly do now adjourn. Adjourned accordingly at fifty nine minutes past Eleven o'clock a.m.