Sir, when we realised how deep and all-embracing was the grip of the communists on the ground and their determination to seize power, my mood changed. I lost my youthful innocence. The seriousness of the threat and the high stakes involved brought a more sombre tone to my speeches, reflecting my deep concerns for the future. Politics was a deadly serious business, in which all the parties, all the players, including us, were playing for keeps. Make no mistake about this. In this Chamber, we are playing for keeps. The future of Singapore and its three-plus million people is not a question for light-hearted banter. We are seeing before our eyes today what has happened in the last two years in Indonesia and what is happening right at this moment in East Timor, and yet if you cast your mind back to 1997, all was peaceful. So when I hear these speeches about liberties, freedoms, and so on, I said that is a luxury we, by our tough, hard-headed policies, have afforded them to talk about. But for us, nobody would be here today. Imagine what this place would be like. So I make no apologies either to the people, to my opponents here or to my critics abroad. Nobody believed we could make it, but we have. But there is no reason to believe that we will continue to make it. We will continue to make it only if there are tough-minded people who know the difference between the froth and the substance. Sir, as people in Singapore became better educated, our MPs reflected this change. In 1955, there were four of us. I was the only one with a university education. Goh Chew Chua, an old man, had made his way up in the world as a building contractor. Lim Chin Siong did not finish Chinese high school. And Ahmad Ibrahim, a trade unionist from the Naval Base Labour Union, did not complete standard six. In 1959, 43 PAP Assemblymen, competent politically, were not highly educated, grassroots, trade unionists, two barbers, one farmer, journalists and many non-graduate teachers. With each successive election, the educational level improved, as it must. Unless this House is able to reflect the different population that is growing up outside, it will not remain relevant. Voters expect their MPs to be better educated, more energetic and effective than they themselves are, and humble and grateful that they have been voted in once every four to five years. But that is the way it is. This trend will continue. It means that MPs will have to be more knowledgeable and debate issues at a higher intellectual level. That is happening, and I am proud to say that I have contributed to this process. But all said and done, each batch of MPs met the needs of their generation of voters or the PAP MPs would not have been re-elected the next time round. Because if you have an MP who does not tend to his constituents and does not represent them well, that is a problem at the next election. Because they did, they enabled the Government to implement tough but sound policies and got us to where we now are. They were men and women of integrity. During the 40 years, since 1959, only four MPs have smudged this record of clean and honest government, only four out of over 100 MPs over a space of 40 years. Because of the absence of the opposition, we encouraged our backbenchers to play a critical role; their questioning has helped to ventilate issues which otherwise would not have been brought forward. The critical period, as I said, for our foundation was three years of intense stress, 1968 to 1971, when we reshaped our industrial relations. If we carried on the way we did previously with irresponsible unions calling strikes and go-slows, we would have perished. The union leaders knew that. Although they made powerful speeches why we should not go so far, nobody, no trade unionist in this House voted against amendments to the Employment Act, Trade Unions Act and the Industrial Relations Act. They have created the foundation on which our industrial relations have produced benefits for workers, in their homes, CPF, schools, clinics, hospitals, for the employers in the businesses that they have expanded, and for the Government in their repeated good returns at successive elections. There were no more moments of high drama because the Government's majority was never at risk. Even when we lost one seat in Anson to Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam in 1981, the excitement was momentary because no one expected major change. Mr Chiam See Tong created a bigger wave in Singapore when he won a second time in 1988 with a total of three seats. It carried long-term implications if the trend had continued. Unfortunately, for him, he fumbled and he got expelled from his own party. The question is: will this House see the return of an Opposition that can pose a serious challenge to the PAP? My answer: that depends on whether the governing party allows itself to go soft and flabby, and ceases to respond creatively to changing circumstances, and loses its standing with the people. This will surely happen if the PAP does not self-renew by attracting some of the brightest and the best of each year's cohort to become MPs and later Ministers, men and women committed to improving the lives of their fellow citizens. Even more important is that the PAP must never be foolish in refusing, or failing to include on its side, able and dedicated men of strong political convictions, whether because of differences of personality or unwillingness to adjust to PAP policies, and that drives them to the Opposition benches. Because a few sincere and capable leaders could be the spearhead of a group of men and women, able in one or two election terms, to present the voters with a shadow cabinet, an alternative team that can match the PAP's. I was able to build up a credible team in one election term, four years after getting elected into this Chamber in 1955, just four years, because I had a group of talented colleagues outside the Chamber to plan and implement our strategy and I could present at election time a credible government of people with experience in administration and business who could be trusted to govern the country. Apart from barbers, farmers and trade unionists for grassroots support, we presented a team with a programme that is still available in print called The Tasks Ahead. If such a turn of events were to happen, where the PAP is displaced by a leaner, keener and shrewder team, I would not shed any tears over such an ouster. I would say that they deserved to be ousted. For this would be one way to renew the political leadership of Singapore. What would be cause for despair, and this is the reason for the Elected Presidency, if a transient mood of disappointment among the people as a result of some setback or mishap just before an election and it were to lead them to reject the PAP and vote in a motley crew of incompetents and adventurers. That could end up in tragedy. Hence it is important for us to expose opportunists and incompetents before they can pass themselves off as possible replacements for the PAP. There is a reason behind the sharp replies that we give. If you allow someone who is an adventurer, who is incompetent, who is a liar, to pass off as a credible person, then we are in trouble. And for that reason, when I look at Dr Vasoo there, I feel proud that we have such a Member because when Dr Chee came out in the 1992 by-elections and I found that he was his subordinate, I asked Vasoo what sort of man he was. He said, "Well, so-so, not so bad." But after Dr Chee's conduct in the elections, he decided, on his own, that he would expose the man as a charlatan, a petty liar and a thief. You can imagine the amount of problems we would have once he is elected and allowed to become a Minister. The spin doctors that would be at work that have surrounded themselves around his office. So there is a serious purpose which the foreign press of course thinks is dictatorial and authoritarian. But look at their countries. They do not discover the character of their leader until after he has gone into office, then they wring their hands. Is that wise? Parliament's chamber does not stand unchallenged as a pulpit to get your views across. With television, the pre-eminence of this Chamber as a forum, has been challenged by many other settings. It is not just for Singapore. You will notice that in Britain, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, regularly uses television settings outside Parliament, because his parliamentary setting is too raucous, too noisy, too disorderly, everybody wants to catch the eyes of the Speaker to appear on television, a television opportunity to project themselves. At a reception you gave, Mr Speaker, Sir, a few years ago, you invited a former Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas (later Lord Tonypandy). And over drinks, the Prime Minister and I asked him whether the introduction of television was a good thing for Parliament. He said it was inevitable but he did not think so, because it had lowered standards of behaviour in Parliament and standards of debate. They were speaking for a wider audience. But it has to happen, and we have to live with it. However Parliament as an arena for the contest of wits and wills over matters of policies will always remain important because of our system of parliamentary democracy, where the Prime Minister has to command the support of the majority in this House, not outside. He is elected not by the general electorate but by Members of this House, and there is a profound difference. As a voter outside, you only know Mr Chiam or Mr Low Thia Khiang from his speeches in print or from the bits you catch of him on television or from listening to him at mass rallies. But in this House, with constant interaction, you get the measure of the man, his character, his ability, his integrity, the quickness with which he is able to seize a point or the charm with which he laughs away and says, "Well, I am not very good in arithmetic." And for that reason, Mr Chiam got re-elected. Had he tried to pretend that he was a mathematician, Potong Pasir would have written him off; but Potong Pasir liked the sincerity of this man. I believe that this is a better system for choosing a leader because the selectors have a better knowledge of the person they will support as against those voting for a presidential candidate whom they know little about except what they see on television and what the mass media reports him to have said. Therefore, Parliamentary debates will remain important, not just as a forum for the clash of ideas, but the frequent exchanges that allow Members to get insights into whether this or that MP will make a good leader and deserves to lead them in the next elections, because the leader in the next elections will decide whether you win your seat easily or whether you are clinging to the ledge of the cliff. Sir, as we close our proceedings in this old Chamber, allow me, as the oldest Member, a moment of nostalgia. When I came up the stairs today, probably for the last time, I recall the different era when so much depended on how the votes would go at the division, the temper of the fierce opponents who used to frequent this Chamber and the Members' Room. They all played their part in keeping Singapore's parliamentary system alive and well. I do not just remember the people who are now before me, but more vividly in my mind's eyes are those who, by the accident of circumstances and the speeches they have made, etched themselves indelibly in my memory. They are ghosts that only I see. But when I go to the Members' Room or what is now the Members' Room and used to be the Select Committee room, I am reminded of the time in March 1958 when I took a communist underground leader, the Plen as I call him, into that same room, for our first encounter. It played a not insignificant part in the history of Singapore, as did many other encounters I have had in this Chamber, but none more momentous and more exciting than that one. I had a message from a pro-communist trade unionist who used to converse with me in Mandarin to improve my Mandarin. This was in 1958 and he said, "Would I meet an important person?" I said, "Yes." He said, "It had to be very secret." I said, "Why?" Because he was wanted and he had to be very careful. So I thought, "What if I am caught with him?" I said, "Yes, I will meet him if he will meet me at the road between the Victoria Memorial Hall and Empress Place." And we agreed that we would meet there at half-past eleven. He said that the man would have his glasses placed in his shirt pocket. He would hold a Chinese newspaper. I said fine. He was there. I said, "Come with me." We came up and I took him to the Committee Room. The staff allowed him in because I brought him in. If the police were to descend on me, I would have said, "He is a constituent. He wants to see me." The staff did not know who he was. So I had prepared what I thought was a credible defence. He said, "I am the leader." I said, "How do I know?" He said, "You've got to take my word for it." I said, "Well, if you are the leader, then you order Chan Yuen Tong, who is a Workers' Party City Councillor, to resign. Then I'll believe you are the leader." He said to me, "Give me time." Six weeks later in April, in London, when I attended a constitutional conference, I opened the Straits Times, and Mr Chan Yuen Tong had resigned. I thought, God, a man, wanted by the police, hiding somewhere, is able, without messengers, telephones, office, no bells, to get this man to resign. I was dealing with a real leader. We were to meet again three times before the elections. They were momentous meetings, because they decided how the Communists would act against the PAP, when it formed the Government. I was privileged to be present at the opening of this Assembly and fortunate to be present today at our last sitting. Like much of Singapore, we have to move out and on. But with this change, something is lost, and not just for me. There is a reason why the British, and other people with long histories, keep a certain sense of continuity of place. So people never allow a city to be completely demolished and forgotten. When Warsaw was bombed and destroyed in World War II, first by the Germans, and then by the Russians coming back, they laboriously rebuilt Warsaw on their old plans that they dug up, because a people must have a certain sense of place. We do not have the privilege of rebuilding around this Chamber to keep our sense of place. The building is not capacious enough, or sturdy enough, to allow us that privilege. Remember, when the British House of Commons was bombed during the War, they decided to rebuild it in exactly the same place, and kept as much of the old as was possible, so that they can say there Lloyd George, Gladstone or Disraeli, made their momentous speeches. When we became an independent republic in 1965, my colleagues and I considered whether we should move Parliament into a more handsome building like the City Hall. We decided against it. We wanted to keep our sense of proportion. The importance of this Chamber did not, and does not, depend upon its size and its grandeur, but upon the quality of the men and women who occupy it as representatives of the people. We must have that sense of proportion. When I heard Sidek Saniff saying that perhaps we should be one of the memorable tribes that Kotkin wrote about, I say, if only that were true. It is beyond our reach. But the premises we are moving to is within our sense of proportion. It is better furnished, more spacious, but not the magnificent and awe inspiring edifice that many new nations put up. By the standards of other public and private buildings in Singapore, it is modest by comparison. But that is a virtue. Behind the understatement lie great strengths of character, integrity and determination. That is what will see Singapore through, not the grand statements and monuments in brick and mortar or steel and concrete, with which so many other new nations try to impress themselves and their followers. [Applause.]