Malayan Programme
The sense of confusion and exasperation which is apt to be produced by each new wave of terrorist action in Malaya must surely be dispelled by the statement which the Secretary of State for the Colonies made in Siqapore on Tuesday. The problem of restoring stability and order remains, but the successive steps which are necessary for its solution have now been set out with a clarity which should put an end to that confusion of counsel and purpose which has too often ruled in the past. The things which have been wrong with the administration of Malaya— things which it is completely within the power of the authorities to put right—have long been pretty widely known. They are the defects in the organisation and attitude of the police ; the limitations on the poWer of the High Commitsioner to co-ordinabe civil and military action ; the defects of a Citil -Service which has had to cope with a problem that civil measures -alone cannot solve ; and imperfections in the system of protection-lor ,the re- settlement areas. On all these Mr. Lyttelton promises action at once. Beyond these measures lie a series of problems which do not admit of a quick solution, but concerning which the Minister has laid down the main lines of policy. They are the planning of the new military campaign for the elimination of the terrorists, and the arrangements for making the fullest possible use of the Chinese in this task. It has been made clear that there will be no large military reinforcements, the task of the new Director of Operations, General Lockhart, being to over- haul the existing plans and secure the fullest co-operation of the people of Malaya. As to the Chinese, exhortation is to be supplemented with arms and organisation in a new Home Guard, in an attempt to make immediate use of this numerous and potentially decisive section of the people. In the long run any successes these new methods may achieve must be clinched by widespread education and the demonstration to the people of Malaya that they have more to gain, politically and economically, by the democratic partnership of all communities than by sub- mission to the Communists.
