BRITISH IN MALAYA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 789, 3 September 1954, Page 5

BRITISH IN MALAYA

Sir,-Professor Wood's article on Dr, Purcell’s book about Malaya has the insight and impressiveness of presentation one expects from him. This new problem of West and East (or an old one in a new form) is one that we dare not ignore, and Professor Wood helps us to understand it. It may be pointed out, however, that in his strictures on General Templer and British policy in Malaya, Dr. Purcell has provoked some criticism in Britain, as well as receiving some support. He and others argued in the correspondence columns of the Spectator at length, I think, before the book was published. In a letter in March, Vernon Bartlett, who knows Malaya, wrote, among other things, that General and Lady Templer had "encouraged every kind of organisation likely to bring the racial communities together.’ On June 4, Vernon Bartlett reviewed Dr. Purcell’s book in the Spectator. His sympathetic attitude may be gauged from his comment that the book "could not have been more timely, for it contains an immense amount of material which will be useful to the increasing number of people interested in. South-East Asia," but he again joined issue with the author on certain points. He suggested that "such bitter personal attacks on General Templer" might cause the ordinary reader to reject other opinions. Mr. Bartlett quoted this sentence from the book: "As a first step towards uniting Malaya, General Templer had riven it into nine splinter nationalities, surrounded each by a fence of legal barbed wire." Dr. Purcell, commented Mr. Bartlett, was fully aware that the decision to split Malaya into a number of small Federal States was reached nearly four years before the General became High Commissioner. Dr. Purcell was "deeply and _ passionately anxious that the British should get out of Malaya while the going is good. But that, in the opinion of many Malayan experts, is exactly what the British are doing.’ Mr. Bartlett cited an extension of political power to local peoples decided on within the previous few weeks. presumably shortly after Dr. Purcell had written his criticism of the existing system. Also, I have read that Dr, Purcell’s book, Malaya: Communist or Free? is openly on sale in Malaya.

LIBERAL

Wellington