Counter-Offensive in Malaya
Internal security measures in Malaya are now on the scale of a minor military campaign, with the under-manned police forces closely integrated with British and Gurkha troops, lately reinforced by a battalion from Hongkong. The task of the authorities is thankless and difficult. Similar problems, both in Malaya and in other parts of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," were solved by the Japanese by a resort to indiscriminate ruthlessness ; wholesale massacres and the burning of villages deterred the civil population from giving the guerrillas the administrative support
without which they could not operate. For us a policy of reprisals is utterly unthinkable, and we are committed in Malaya, as we have so often been committed in other parts of the world, to the slow, exacting task of combating terrorism by fair and legal means. Delay in appreciating the potential gravity of the situation and in introducing emergency legislation to cope with it undoubtedly lost us ground initially ; but now the forces of law and order seem to be within sight of wresting the initiative from the Communist- inspired bands of Chinese whose difficulties, especially—and this is important—of intercommunication, are bound to increase even though no decisive action can be fought against them. Meanwhile, while armoured cars nose their way up estate roads between the endless grey ranks of rubber trees and beleaguered police posts return the fire of their assailants, an admirable plan for a Malay University has been approved by the authorities in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and foundation date has been fixed for October 1. It is not too much to hope that by then conditions in the Peninsula will be getting back towards normal.
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