RETURN TO MALAYA
By THE REV. A. J. BENNITT
11HERE has probably never in any colony been quite such j. enthusiasm for the British as there was in Malaya in the early days of September, when three and a half years of Japanese rule came to an end. I came out of the internment camp in Singapore on September 6th, before the internees had been given general permission to leave the camp, and before the British troops had occupied much more than the area round the docks. Somewhat oddly the reason for my trip was to take a funeral, and after the ceremony we drove on into the town. All along the road a crowd ten deep on each side lined the street, yelling and cheering them- selves hoarse at seeing us free again at last. Every house had flags flying from its windows, hidden carefully away during the Japanese time, and the whole city was in a tumult of excitement. At last the time of oppression and misery was over, everyone was free to say and think and do what he liked, prosperity was coming back as it never had before, and everything would be glorious and grand. 11HERE has probably never in any colony been quite such j. enthusiasm for the British as there was in Malaya in the early days of September, when three and a half years of Japanese rule came to an end. I came out of the internment camp in Singapore on September 6th, before the internees had been given general permission to leave the camp, and before the British troops had occupied much more than the area round the docks. Somewhat oddly the reason for my trip was to take a funeral, and after the ceremony we drove on into the town. All along the road a crowd ten deep on each side lined the street, yelling and cheering them- selves hoarse at seeing us free again at last. Every house had flags flying from its windows, hidden carefully away during the Japanese time, and the whole city was in a tumult of excitement. At last the time of oppression and misery was over, everyone was free to say and think and do what he liked, prosperity was coming back as it never had before, and everything would be glorious and grand.
It was still the same a fortnight later, when after waiting five days to join a convoy that was going up country, I gave up waiting and set out for Kuala Lumpur with a friend who was going as far as Malacca, the first civilians to take a car through, unescorted, the whole 25o miles. This may sound rather alarming, but actually it was not, except that the car was not at all reliable. During the following two months I covered about 3,000 miles, going as far north as Alor Star. I usually drove alone ; I carried no arms, and the chief danger was three-tonners with Indian drivers.
In every village on that first journey we met with the same welcome as in Singapore. Arches had been erected over the road with slogans " Welcome to the- Allied Forces, Victors over Japan," and so on, always in Chinese, sometimes in English, occasionally, in Tamil and Malay. The villagers, especially the children, lined the roads and cheered, and all our soldiers had the same welcome every- where. It was inevitable that there should be some reaction from this mood. In the first place the enthusiasm was partly negative, an Immense relief that the Japanese had gone, and the loathing and contempt for themselves which they had engendered was almost universal. In the second place it was a holiday mood, and in a country left in the condition in which the Japanese left Malaya there was little time for holidays.
It was extremely interesting to mark the changes since I had last done this journey four years _before. The roads, considering they had been neglected all the time, were surprisingly good, though one was liable to come suddenly on a very bumpy stretch, and at nrery bridge there was a diversion to cross the wooden structure erected by the Japanese to replace the bridges destroyed by our troops in their retreat down the peninsula.
This neglect is typical of Malaya as the Japs left it. It is true that by cutting down imports to the minimum they have increased the total food-production of the country, but not to anything like the extent one might have expected. Their policy of confiscating curplus stocks discouraged farmers from growing more than they needed for themselves. The increase is due to many more people growing their own food to save themselves from staniation. The area under tapioca must have gone up many times. On the other ',land, I saw paddy fields near Malacca which had been allowed to go completely to waste. Secondary jungle has been allowed to grow up between the trees on most of the rubber estates. Open-cast tin mines are full of water which will take months to pump out, even when pumps become available. Anti-malarial work has not been done, and malaria is again common. I visited a tea estate in the Cameron Highlands, and all the tea-bushes had been allowed to grow into trees ten to fifteen feet high. By the sides of the road and in the open spaces in the towns were derelict cars, usually stripped of everything that could be of any use. Some of them had had their engines removed by the Japanese to be put into motor- boats.
One thing which surprised me on that first journey was the number of Chinese guerillas—the Three Stars as they call them- elves. Arms, ammunition, supplies and uniforms had been dropped
to them in the jungle, and they were to have played an impo:tant part in the second Malayan campaign. Now they were occupying the villages all the way up the Peninsular, the British occupying little outside the big towns, though the Three Stars often had British liaison officers with them. They were smart and efficient, and appeared to have plentiful supplies of everything. They had made good use of the gap between the Japanese surrender and the arrival of the British to collect large stores, especially of rice and petrol, and to help themselves to Japanese arms and ammunition. They were the only force capable of keeping order during that period ; but they were either not able or not anxious to prevent looting, which went on with the greatest freedom. Most of the private houses in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh, though structurally intact, are devoid of furniture beyond what the members of the messes in them have been able to scrounge or obtain through the Custodian of Enemy Property. In Penang, where the British came in almost as soon as the Japs surrendered, and in Singapore the situation is a good deal better.
On the way up to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore we stopped in the village of Yong Peng, in central Johore, where I had heard there had recently been trouble. As I drove I saw all the shops and houses which had bordered the left of the road had gone. A meeting was in progress at the other end of the village, and I found two British officers, who had come to assure the villagers they would soon be receiving rice supplies from Singapore, and a number of soldiers of the Three Stars. We have a church there—it was in good order and services were held in it regularly • throughout the Jap time—and I was at once recognised and taken into a coffee-house to be told all about everything. It appeared that early in August the Japs had armed the local Malays, and incited them to attack the Chinese village, which was a centre of the Three Stars. A large part of it had been burned down and about 2,000 people in the area killed. Some Chinese had been shot up not far away only the day before. The fate of Yong Peng is typical of many Chinese villages all over Malaya, which the Japanese have destroyed or caused to be destroyed as reprisals. They seem to have preferred to incite Malays to do it rather than do it themselves. Sometimes they used the Sikh police or members of the I.N.A. (Indian National Army). It is only fair to say there were also Malay contingents among the guerillas.
We had often wondered why we were kept interned on Singapore island, where we were difficult to feed and a constant nuisance to the Japs, because we were always making contact with the local people. As soon as I went up country I saw why we had not been moved—the Japs never had control of Malaya outside the big towns. Chinese guerillas descended on people 'living even on the outskirts of the town and demanded food and money. If they refused to give, the guerillas beat them up ; if they gave, they were in danger from the Japs. Unfortunately, the Three Stars were continuing to levy forced contributions, ostensibly for relief but actually for party funds, long after the arrival of the British. Their leaders were extremely clamorous, demanding higher wage rates for coolies—quite impossibly high under present circumstances—and that the British should imple- ment the terms of San Francisco, though exactly what they had in mind was not very clear. Since I left we have begun on the obviously tricky task of disarming them.
The general neglect of the country extends most tragically to the people themselves. Very large numbers of Chinese, mostly young men, were slaughtered indiscriminately by the Japs soon after they took over. Tens of thousands of coolies were taken up to Siam to work on railway construction, leaving their families behind, and the majority will never return. At the same time, thousands of Javanese were brought into Malaya. Most of them were landed at Singapore, given a dollar each, and people were forbidden to feed them. They just died on the streets. Others got up country, and they have now been put into camps to await repatriation. Camps have been organised in all the large cities to accommodate the thousands of destitute people and give them food, clothing and medical treatment. In Kuala Lumpur Government supplies about ici,000 people a day with free meals. This is not only relief work, for the whole wealth of Malaya depends in the last resort on her coolies.
I worked myself for three weeks in Kuala Lumpur and three weeks in Ipoh organising relief under the British Military Administration, and it was heartbreaking work, with totally inade- quate supplies. Prices are soaring, and it is impossible to control them. The transport situation is extremely difficult. Everyone expected so much when the British returned, and it is not easy to persuade them that their hardships are a direct result of the state the world is in after the war and that we cannot do more than we are doing. We have made some mistakes, inevitably, especially as the great majority of the officers of the Administration are new to the country. Some of these mistakes have been the cause of a good deal of bewilderment and disappointment. If we can prove to them that what we are doing is really aimed at the good of the people, we can be -certain of their co-operation. But we must recognise it is going to be on terms of partnership and friendship, not on any assumption of superiority on the part of the white races. Under Japanese rule the people of Malaya have had to do many jobs which previously only white men have been supposed to be able to do, and they have found they can do them. Their friendship is assured to us if we offer them ours, but not if we are set on re- instating ourselves as their lords and masters, heaven-born beings from another sphere.
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