Towards Malayan Independence
' The new Independence for Malaya Party of Dato Onn Bin Ja'afar has had almost too auspicious a start. Its energetic founder can count on the support of distinguished men in almost -every section of Malayan life—Chinese and Indians as well as Malays (business men and politicians), trade unionists and Europeans (though some of the Europeans are still unfortunately lover-sceptical). The Government looks on the conception of the :new party with favour, but there is no suggestion outside the ranks of the Communists that it in any way owes its existence tr) the British. There is accordingly far more justification than Is usual in these circumstances for the slogan which Dato Onn has adopted : " Unity, freedom, justice and equality for all." ;The dangers which Dato Onn will eventually have to face are those which confront every attempt to build a modern political party in a colonial territory. Independence is liable to become an object which is pursued to the exclusion of all others • it is used as the cloak to conceal differences of opinion within the party itself, and when independence is eventually won the vacuum that results is filled with nothing but recriminations and intrigues. Dato Onn should therefore concentrate on two :immediate tasks. The first_of these is the building up of an pfficient party machine throughout the country, not so much to act as a vote-catching organisation, when the day of elections :comes, but to give the future electorate the rudiments of a political education. The other task is to hammer out a detailed programme. In the course of doing this he may lose a good :inany of his present supporters ; but it is better to lose them pow than to keep them artificially -within the fold by avoiding raising awkWord issues. The history of Congress in India, which in some ways serves Dato Onn as a model, shows that clearly enough. But he has made a better start than anyone concerned with the future of Malaya could reasonably have dared to hope.
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