A noisy combination of Communist fronts,
from the powerful Students Union down to the Musical Brass Gong
Society, has turned Singapore's first 18 months of self-government into
a symphony of discords. Through their fronts the illegal Communists
have been able to foment riots, call hundreds of strikes, and
strongarm those who actively oppose them. Last week, however, just
when it seemed that the Communists were on the point of achieving
overwhelming ascendancy, a series of surprise moves by a mild little
man threw the Red brass into confusion and made the gong beat falter.Nursing Friends. The man was Lim Yew Hock, for four months Singapore's
Chief Minister. The problem he decided to crack had come to a head
under his predecessor. Although the Communists made no secret of the
fact that they were out to discredit democratic government among the
British colony's 900,000 Chinese , the reaction
of Singapore's first elected political leader, Chief Minister David
Marshall, was to say that the young crypto-Communists were “sick” and
needed “nursing.” No Communist himself, but an inexperienced
politician, spaniel-eyed Lawyer Marshall had his own plan for “nursing”
his Communist-dominated electorate: to demand that the British turn
over full control of Singapore's security and defense agencies. Last
June after the British politely but adamantly refused to do this—at
least until the island had achieved stable democratic
government—mercurial David Marshall resigned in a pet, went off to
improve his mind by travel . When Labor
Minister Lim Yew Hock, member of the leftist Labor Front, took over the
chief ministership, Singaporeans thought they heard the death knell of
democracy.Mild-mannered Lim, a trade-union expert who has studied in both the U.S.
and Britain, discomfited his colleagues by letting himself be
photographed in the Chief Minister's office wielding a broom and
dustpan. He put his security officers in a near panic by wandering
around Singapore's tenderloin and dining on 16 bowls of noodles while
he listened to the plaints of the poor. Lim is a third-generation
Malayan-born Chinese, and thus akin to Singapore's Chinese majorities,
and his easy way with workers helped him learn their views as well as
their woes. While Lim slowly soaked up talk, the Communists intensified
their organizational work. Then Singapore's Quiet Man cracked down.Deporting the Enemy. In a series of crisp executive orders, Lim banned a
group of crypto-Communist front organizations and had his security police round up seven of the
colony's top China-born Communists for deportation to Red China. When
the Communists called on 5,000 students to make a mass protest, Lim
banned the Students Union, forbade the formation of another. Next day
the Communists ordered a strike of factory and shopworkers which would
paralyze all major industries, but when the strike came, it amounted
only to a token lunchtime walkout.By week's end Lim Yew Hock's ad hoc procedure had stunned the Communists
into sullen if temporary silence. For the first time since achieving
self-government, Singapore saw at least the possibility that a sweeter
melody may yet be written.
