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The Organization of the British Military

Administration in Malaya, 1946–48

Martin Rudner

Journal of Southeast Asian History / Volume 9 / Issue 01 / March 1968, pp 95 - 106

DOI: 10.1017/S021778110000363X, Published online: 24 August 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/

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Martin Rudner (1968). The Organization of the British Military Administration in
Malaya, 1946–48. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 9, pp 95-106 doi:10.1017/
S021778110000363X

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 THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BRITISH MILITARY
ADMINISTRATION IN MALAYA, 1946-48
MARTIN RUDNER

The British Military Administration in Malaya: A Political Analysis

On 15 August 1945 a British Military Administration (BMA) was
established by Proclamation in Malaya, newly-liberated from war-
time Japanese occupation. In its post-operational phase this BMA
comprised the effective government, of Malaya and Singapore pend-
ing restoration of civilian regime. From today's perspective this
military interregnum demarcated an historic break from Malaya's
passive colonial past, as the critical 1945-46 period constituted a
political watershed for the movement towards Malayan independ-
ence. It is not our purpose here to survey BMA policy and politics,
for these have been well documented elsewhere, but rather to study
functionally the governmental structures of Malaya's post-war British
Military Administration.
(a) Establishment; of the BMA: Planning for post-war Malaya was
undertaken in London during the time when the territory was
occupied by the Japanese. This wartime trauma provided the
Colonial Office with an opportunity to reconsider Malaya's consti-
tutional position in the light of anticipated requisites for socio-
economic rehabilitation, British strategy in the Pacific area, as well
as expected Malayan progression towards self-government within the
Commonwealth in the post-bellum era. Although initial govern-
ment of liberated British territories was to fall under military admi-
nistration, according to War Cabinet policy, Malaya's geographic
remoteness from the sphere of immediate military operations in
summer 1942 meant less-than-urgent priority for its post-war plan-
ning at the War Office. In February 1943, however, the Colonial
Office took the initiative and inaugurated talks with the War Office
concerning re-occupation of Malaya, which led to the creation of a
joint, informal Colonial Office-War Office Malayan Planning Com-
mittee. This in turn inspired the creation of a Malayan Planning
Unit in July 1944, controlled and financed by the War Office but
operating in close collaboration with the Colonial Office.
While preparations for the immediate re-establishment of British
a'uthority in liberated Malaya was a War Office responsibility this
was to take place in context with Colonial Office designs for Malaya's

95
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

postwar political reconstruction. Indeed personnel for the large-

scale planning envisaged by the Planning were drawn from both
ministeries as well as from British industry operating in Malaya;
Major-General H. R. Hone, the Chief Planner and Chief .vil
Affairs Officer-designate was himself a Colonial Service officer xted
from military administration duties in the Near East. By end
of May 1944 the War Cabinet had approved the Secretary State's
proposals for unifying the pre-war Federated and Unfederat Malay
states and Straits Settlements into a new consolidated colon al entity,
the Malayan Union, and a separate but related colony of bingapore,
and communicated this decision to the Malayan Planners. The
Key Plan, completed in March 1945 expressed the Planning Unit's
approach to military administration in terms of these proposed con-
stitutional changes towards centralization, but organized operationally
under a military chain of command. In territorial organization this
Plan envisaged creation of two distinct Divisions, one each for the
Malayan peninsula and Singapore, with certain specified "Pan-
Malayan" functions being vested in a central authority, and thus
anticipated the constitutional design of the successor state, the
Malayan Union. Planning for post-liberation Malaya hence be-
came from the first a combined War Office, Colonial Office venture,
the former being primarily concerned with military pacification, the
latter interested in ultimate political schema.

The Malayan Planning Unit was also involved with preparing the
provision of relief supplies to Malaya's civil population during and
after the operational period. An expert working party under the
chairmanship of Sir Hubert Young completed its estimates of civi-
lian consumption needs under conditions of expected near-destitu-
tion. At this stage, however, the military sought to fulfill but its
minimal "disease and unrest" standards of obligation to the civil
populace, but the Colonial Office view prevailed that this was an
insufficient discharge of H.M. Government's responsibility towards
peoples under its protection. In May 1944 the War Office accord-
ingly laid upon the Chief Civil Affairs Office (CCAO)-designate a
responsibility for Malaya's rehabilitation above that level prescribed
by purely military standards. To discharge this added responsibility
the CCAO was to be permitted to communicate directly with the
Colonial Office on matters of rehabilitation, providing this was done
through normal military channels. Whereas the BMA was to serve
first the operational needs of South East Asia Command, both its
administration and outlook were geared to the political programmes
of the Colonial Office.
The British Military Administration in Malaya was thus more
than just a military instrument for territorial pacification in the

96
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

conduct of war, but was also an agent of Colonial Office policy-

makers for the waging of post-war politics. In the event, the rela-
tively pacific re-occupation of Malaya following Japan's sudden
surrender in August 1945 minimized the purely military aspects of
the Administration while political factors were quickly telescoped
to the forefront. The BMA followed immediately upon the Japa-
nese surrender and tested to the creation of the Malayan Union and
Colony of Singapore on 1 April 1946. As planned, the military
administration integrated the peninsula under a centralized authority
structurally separated from, though enjoined through certain func-
tions with, Singapore. Sir Harold Macmichael visited Malaya in
late 1945 and secured treaties with the nine Malay Sultans transfering
full jurisdiction over their states to the British Crown; a White Paper
was coincidentally issued in London declaring Britain's intention
to constitute a Malayan Union as a strongly centralized colonial poli-
tical system. Although the story of the s'.ill-born Malayan Union
is beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to note that the BMA
effectively served to ease the transition from pre-war decentraliza-
tion and wartime chaos to post-war Malayan integration.
(b) BMA Legislation Structures: The BMA was essentially a mili-
tary organization, as its name implies, even though it was committed
to certain political and constitutional objectives defined by White-
hall. As a military command BMA authority emanated from above,
from the War Office to the Supreme Allied Commander, South East
Asia, who bore inclusive jurisdiction over this theatre of operations,
and from him to the Genera! Officer Commanding Military Forces,
Malaya. According to Proclamation establishing in BMA, "full
judicial, legislative executive, and administrative powers and respon-
sibilities" over Malaya were assumed by the Supreme Allied Com-
mander, Admiral Louis Mountbatten and were delegated to his Front
Commander.1
In the post-operational stage, commencing 1 October, "full autho-
rity, power and jurisdiction to conduct . . . the military administra-
tion of the civil population of Malaya" was assigned by warrant to
the CCAO Major-General Hone, with reserved powers being retained
by the Front Commander under the Supreme Allied Commander.2
On the basis of military command structure, however, the CCAO
was to serve as the chief staff officer responsible for advising on civil
affairs matters to the Front Commander. At the same time, the
CCAO was to delegate "sufficiently authority" to his Deputy Chief
Civil Affairs Officers (DCCAO), one each for the Malayan and
Singapore politico-administrative Divisions, "but subject, always to
1. Proclamation No. 1, BMA Gazette, Vol. 1, No. 1.
2. Proclamation No. 15, BMA Gazette, Vol. 1, No. 1.

97
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

the provisions of any Proclamation, and of any written law, to the

orders and directions of the Chief Civil Affairs Officer and to the
requirements of any local Naval Military or Air Force Com-
mander. . . "; 3 DCCAO duties may hence be related more to rule-
making functions. Although the Supreme Allied Commander had
laid down that Advisory Committees composed of officers and non-
official representatives of local communities and interests should be
set up to assist with rule-making during the BMA period, this was
done in Singapore and at lower administrative rungs on the penin-
sula but not at the Malayan Division level. In organization of rule-
making authority, at least, the BMA in Malaya was emphatically
military.
BMA rule-making must be differentiated as between ad hoc legis-
lation to meet immediate situations and measures oriented towards
longer-run objectives. Decisions with respect to the former were
taken by an informal "cabinet" comprising the Supreme Allied
Commander, the Front Commander, the CCAO and DCCAO, and
other relevant civil affairs officers, with overiding authority resting
with Admiral Mountbatten. Such decision-making related mainly
to local disturbances and challenges to British military rule. Major
policy decisions with longer-term implications had, of course, been
taken in London by the Malayan Planning Unit.
The Planning Unit was composed of officials seconded by the
War Office and Colonial Office, whose respective concerns were terri-
torial pacification and civic rehabilitation, under the Chief Planner/
CCAO-designate. In addition two representatives from the London-
based Association of British Malaya, its President H. B. Egmont Hake
and Sir Arnold P. Robinson were admitted to participation in Plan-
ning Unit deliberations to put forth "the points of view" of rubber
estate and mercantile interests respectively. The Malayan Planning
Unit drafted the directives and proclamations necessary to establish,
and provide machinery for, the Military Administration.
At the same time the Colonial Office, in close consultation with
the Malayan Planning Unit, prepared a series of twenty long-term
policy directives for the Supreme Allied Commander to make South
East Asia Command aware of their ultimate objectives in Malaya.
The subject matter of these policy directives covered a broad spec-
trum of economic, political and social affairs and was designed to
serve as guidelines for BMA policy in these matters. Moreover, the
CCAO had been made directly responsible to the Colonial Office,
albeit through military command channels, on subjects involving
Malayan rehabilitation. While overall political jurisdiction rested

3. Ibid.

98
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

with the Supreme Allied Commander, as did ultimate military res-

ponsibility, it is therefore fair to conclude that within this framework
rule-making authority for longer-run Malayan policy under the BMA
had devolved upon Major-General Hone as Chief Planner and
CCAO, in collaboration with the Colonial Office.
Rule-making in the BMA involved two distinct legislative pro-
cesses, the selective administration of pre-war law and the creation
of new statutes to meet current needs of government. Express pro-
vision was made for the revival of all laws in force immediately prior
to the Japanese conquest, subject to any Proclamation and to mili-
tary exisgencies, and "Provided that such of the existing laws as the
Chief Civil Affairs Officer considers it practicable from time to time
to administer. . .will be administered."4 A very wide discretionary
power selectively to administer pre-evacuation law, implying veto
authority over rule-making, was thus conferred upon the CCAO.
Amendments to pre-war law and the creation of new law were
prerogatives of the Supreme Allied Commander, who had delegated
these powers to his Front Commander and the CCAO, conditional
upon his own reserve powers. Post-liberation legislation for Malaya
was enacted by BMA Proclamation and Orders, most of which were
issued under the signature of the DCCAO of the respective Divisions.
Any consideration of BMA rule-making must take account of the
personalities involved apart from the purely formal structure of
authority. Admiral Mountbatten, as Supreme Allied Commander,
generally refused to assert military authority over established
Malayan political custom or Colonial Office policy directive. The
CCAO, for his part, enjoyed wider rule-making powers than was
warranted by rank and structure alone. Major-General Hone
possessed both military and Colonial Service experience and had 'the
confidence of both the War Office and Colonial Office. Furthermore
the fact that he had served as Chief Planner endowed him with con-
siderable expertise on Malayan affairs, a scarce commodity when most
(British) Malayan Civil Servants were languishing under Japanese
internment. His personal ties with the two Ministeries concerned
and his involvement with high-level planning for the BMA period
conferred upon the CCAO a measure of authority begot of official
trust and experience. Major-General Hone was thus closely asso-
ciated with policy formulation for BMA Malaya even though the
structural locus of rule-making lay outside and above the Civil
Affairs Service.
(c) BMA Administrative Structures: In the post-operation stage
4. F. S. V. Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East, London:
HMSO 1956, p. 319; see also Charles Gamba's The Origins of Trade
Unionism in Malaya, Eastern Universities Press, Singapore 1962, p. 20.

99
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

of Malaya's liberation the conduct of civil affairs became the prime

preoccupation of the BMA. Note, however, that the re-introduction
of government service was to follow the centralized administrative
framework envisaged for the Malayan Union. Initial BMA civil
affairs responsibilities related to military government, finance, sup-
plies, public works, labour, police and medical services, although
these were progressively expanded so that no less than thirty-six
departments had been restored by the time of handover to the civi-
lian regime.
As with rule-making, BMA administrative authority flowed up-
wards through the Front Commander to the Supreme Allied Com-
mander, and from thence to the War Office, with ultimate authority
for rehabilitation being vested in the Colonial Office. Within the
civil affairs organization of the BMA general responsibility for direct-
ing and co-ordinating departmental activities in Malayan and
Singapore Divisions re.sted with the CCAO.
The CCAO was the actual administrator of certain specified
departments in addition to being administrative overlord for BMA
activities. While the Divisions were generally administered sepa-
rately, designated "Pan-Malayan" functions were placed under the
immediate centralized charge of the CCAO. These included sup-
plies, rationing and food control, trade and industry, labour, print-
ing and publicity, and postal services, which embraced significant
sectors of Malayan post-war economy and hence vested a large mea-
sure of direct administrative control over economic affairs in Major-
General Hone.
The CCAO's headquarters was organized into three wings, com-
prising functionally-differentiated bureaux to advise on Malayan
civil affairs. One of these was the central Secretariat under the
CCAO's three principal staff officers: the DCCAO for Divisional
"military government", the Chief Legal Officer and the Controller
of Finance and Accounts (CFA). A second headquarters wing con-
sisted of inspection and advisory officers responsible for technical
matters. The third wing, the security staff, was under the dual
control of the CCAO and Director of Military Intelligence, and was
charged with collection of political and economic intelligence. This
headquarters organization ensured that information, expertise, and
financial control were at the ready disposal of the CCAO in formu-
lating policy and administering Malayan civil affairs.
It should be noted here that while the CFA was under CCAO com-
mand and was responsible to him for finance, he was at the same
time responsible to, and had direct access to, the Accounting Officer
at the War Office. Within the BMA the CFA performed those func-

100
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

tions of the pre-war Financial Secretaries, Director-General of Posts

and Telegraphs, and of the Board of Malayan Currency Commis-
sioners, as well as economic advisor to the CCAO (until February
1946 when a permanent economic advisor was assigned to Malaya).
Financial accountability was thus divorced from the administration
of economic affairs in the BMA: this dualism in CFA responsibilities
between the War Office for finance and the CCAO (and ultimately,
Colonial Office) for economic affairs imposed a structural gap be-
tween interests in finance and interests in rehabilitation. In effect
one unit was responsible for promoting reconstruction and another
for paying for it. Although the War Office was liberal in its rehabi-
litation planning, the War Office operated on a strict "disease and
unrest" financial standard for territories under its control.
Each OCCAO received delegated authority from the CCAO to
manage the civil administration of the respective Divisions. On the
Mainland the DCCAO Secretariat was composed of a Deputy CFA
responsible to the CFA for revenue collection, an Advisor on Chinese
Affairs, a legal Officer, and a Personnel Section. A separate Police
Headquarters was also established. Administrative departments for
agriculture, forestry, public health, road transport, education, lands,
mines and surveys, custodian of property, and technical services were
reintroduced progressively as trained personnel became available.
Divisional administrative authority even over economic subjects
within its jurisdiction, such as agriculture, road transport, forestry,
etc., was, however, effectively subordinated to the overriding admi-
nistrative powers of the centre. The CCAO's direct control over
supplies, food and rationing, trade and commerce, and labour made
him effective manager of BMA economic affairs.
The Malayan Mainland Division was further subdivided into nine
regions corresponding roughly to the nine Malay states, of pre-war
Malaya. These regions, under a Senior Civil Affairs Officer, were in
turn divided into administrative Districts. As in the typical British
colonial administration, the District constituted the anchor-point for
the BMA bureaucratic machine, combining grass-roots revenue col-
lection with executive, judicial, and even legislative powers. Given
the military command structure of the BMA, however, it is more
likely that lower administrative ranks directed their energies mainly
at rule-application functions.
The structure of BMA governance was complicated by the post-
war practice in Whitehall of integrating certain functions of local
government with those of the region as a whole. Thus while cen-
tral executive authority in the BMA was vested in the CCAO the
vital task of co-ordinating rice supplies to a starved Malaya was dele-

101
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

gated to a "Special Commissioner" for South East Asia, Lord

Killearn. Under this arrangement Malaya, under both BMA and
Malayan Union, consistently failed to receive adequate food supplies.
It is a curious aspect of the BMA that whereas the Civil Affairs
service concerned itself with administering law and order, revenue
collecting and rebuilding public works, extra-governmental agencies
were established for the actual execution of economic rehabilitation
policies. The administration of important economic sectors was
thus placed outside the immediate charge of the BMA. Rubber and
other exports from Malaya, as well as the distribution of essential
supplies to Malayan rubber smallholders, were undertaken by a
Rubber and Produce Buying Unit of the UK Ministry of Supply. It
was this Buying Unit that fixed the post-war price of Malayan rubber
at 10 d. per pound ex estate. Industrial supplies for rubber estates
were to be administered by a Malayan Rubber Estate Owner Com-
pany established under the joint auspices of the (British) Rubber
Growers Association and Colonial Office. Even relief supplies
imported by the BMA were handled ex-docks by an officially-
sponsored Supplies Distributing Unit, a consortium of private
traders, members of the British Association of Straits Merchants.
Selected firms were likewise licenced for domestic trading in scarce
staple commodities, such as rice, as well as road transport. Although
supposedly regulated by the Administration these extra-governmental
agencies operated more-or-less astonomously as private concerns,
their roles as executors of public policy notwithstanding.
It was this delegating of rule-application to extra-governmental
agencies that was in large part responsible for bringing upon the
BMA the historical stigma of "Black Market Administration". At
times of acute shortage bureaucratic controls over rationing and
allocation are always hard pressed; hence putting these controls into
the hands of those entrepreneurs engaged in trade was virtually
inviting black-marketing. To make matters worse, the fact that
these agencies were British, e.g. British Association of Straits
Merchants and the Rubber Growers Association's Malayan Rubber
Estate Owners Company, in effect meant discrimination against
Malayan entrepreneurs, mainly Chinese, in the lucrative postwar
trade in imported goods and supplies. The loose Administration con-
trols over execution of allocation policy, resulting from the delega-
tion of this function to private agencies accounted for the dismal
performance of the BMA in these matters.
(d) Recruitment into the BMA: Recruitment into the BMA may
be differentiated according to structural and functional tiers within
its organization. Most senior Civil Affairs service personnel were
recruited from outside Malaya. Within the British-element in the

102
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

pre-war Malayan Civil Service then largely under Japanese intern-

ment the Malayan Planners had to look mainly to volunteers from
the Army, to men without administrative experience or direct know-
ledge about Malaya, to staff the superior ranks of the BMA. About
a quarter of the Civil Affairs senior staff actually did have experience
in Malaya, as civil servants who escaped internment or who had been
brought back from early retirement, as well as businessmen, planters,
lawyers, bankers, and others who were well-acquainted with Malaya
though not with public administration. This combination of pre-
war civil servants with businessmen into a BMA bureaucracy moved
the official historian of the period to remark: "Men who came back
to (Malaya) as soldiers were the same as those who had gone out as
civilian."5 Accordingly to principle laid down by the War Office
all senior Civil Affairs personnel were given appropriate military
commissions and were hence subject to normal army discipline.
Army volunteers to the BMA were provided training in administra-
tion and Malayan affairs at a specially-devised course at the Civil
Affairs Training School at Wimbledon, England, with later training
given at the Civil Affairs base depot at Pallavaram, India.
Subordinate administrative staff to perform clerical and super-
visory duties were recruited mainly from among the pre-war Malay
Administrative Service and Settlement bureaucracies. Many of the
Malay administrators had served the Japanese during the war, and
as a result the issue of collaboration gave rise to serious moral and
morale problems within the BMA. At any rate, government and
municipal employees were at once integrated into the BMA (with
civilian status) unless charged with specific acts of treason or sedition.
BMA recruitment patterns go a long way to explain its adminis-
trative inadequacies in the post-liberation period. For one thing,
that almost three-quarters of its senior staff had no experience in
government was enough to hamper administrative effectiveness.
Employment of British traders, planters, etc. in key administrative
positions enabled many of them to confuse public service with pri-
vate advantage. Moreover, in conditions of communal tensions of
the period Malay bureaucrats would have been hard pressed to deal
equitably with Malaya's Chinese populace, and especially its labour
and entrepreneurial groups. Moreover the billeting of thousands of
British and Indian troops under the Front Commander in Malaya
lent the BMA an air of occupier rather than liberator in the eyes of
many Malayans, and was not calculated to stimulate allegiance to
the Administration.

5. Cf. The Colonial Empire 1939-1947 (Cmd. 7167), London: HMSO 1947,
Para. 308.

103
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

To the extent that the policies laid down by the BMA went beyond
the confines of strict military requirements they were thus political.
In concluding this analysis of the BMA it is therefore useful to con-
sider briefly its structural-function relationship with the populace
of Malaya and Singapore. Admiral Mountbatten was himself a man
of fundamental libertarian convictions and sought to integrate local
societal interests into Military Administrations under his jurisdic-
tions. This was easier willed than done, however, for the political
strucure of the BMA was such that authoritative rule-making capa-
cities were located in the highest rungs of the Military Administra-
tion, in the Malayan Planning Unit which set out of the course of
post-liberation policy. This structural pattern allowed participation
in policy-formulation by the Colonial Office, War Office, Ministry of
Supply, and even from British Malayan functional interests with
access to Whitehall, viz. the Rubber Growers Association, British
Association of Straits Merchants, FMS Chamber of Mines, etc. No
provision was made, however, for the direct aggregation of local
societal interests in post-war policy-making.
In Singapore an Advisory Committee representing a broad spec-
trum of community interests was set up at the divisional level and
did submit demands for the DCCAO's consideraion. The Com-
mittee's role was clearly consultative, as an articulator of raw societal
interests, and served mainly to ventilate local grievances. It cer-
tainly had no legislative function. In the Malayan mainland no such
advisory institution was established at the Division level. Efforts by
the Communist-led wartime guerrilla movement to gain entry into
the post-war political system were strongly rebuffed by the BMA.6
The actual policies pursued by and under the BMA had a substan-
tial impact upon the authoritative allocation of values in Malayan
society. Demonetization of the Japanese 'banana currency' imme-
diately on liberation inflicted much dislocation and caused a heavy
transfer of real resources to the BMA as it introduced the new British
money.7 Rubber was acquired exclusively by the Rubber Buying
6. Cf. Gamba, The Origins of Trade Unionism in Malaya, p. 32, footnote 67,
and G.Z. Hanrahan, The Communist Struggle in Malaya, New York:
Institute for Pacific Relations 1954, pp. 54-55.
7. On demonetization of Japanese scrip and its socio-economic effects see
Donnison, British Military Administration in the Far East, p. 223; Hanrahan,
The Communist Struggle in Malaya, p. 55; and Gamba, The Origins of
Trade Unionism in Malaya, p. 49. Hanrahan and Gamba argue that a major
factor inducing the British to demonetize the Japanese scrip was that the
Malayan Communist Party, inter alia had accumulated considerable quantities
of "banana currency" in order to finance their post-war political programme.
Little has indeed been written on Japanese wartime currency; for a contem-
porary commentary see Chin Kee Onn, Malaya Upside Down, Singapore 1946,
pp. 212-213 and also F. H. H. King, Money in British East Asia, Ixmdon:
HMSO 1957, p. 23. On the monetary problems of liberation in Europe and
North Africa see F.M. Tamagna, "The Fixing of Foreign Exchange Rates"
in The Journal of Political Economy Llll, No. 1 esp. pp. 62-66.

104
 T H E BMA IN MALAYA

Unit at its own relatively low fixed price of 10 d./lb., pressing real
income deflation on Malayan producers. Inefficient handling of
essential producers' supplies on the part of the Rubber Buying Unit
seriously reduced the competitive position of smallholders.8 Imports
channelled through the agency of the Supplies Distributing Unit
flooded through to the black market in large quantities, official con-
trols notwithstanding, and resulted in a considerable redistribution
of incomes towards merchants generally, and towards the British
merchant houses in particular. Failure to ensure an adequate
importation of rice, Malaya's staple foodstuff, brought in its wake a
soaring cost of living to around ten times pre-war levels by November
1945. Shortages of supplies, profiteering, and the heavy outflow
of purchasing power by the Military Administration and Armed
Services reinforced the post-liberation inflationary spiral, with its
redistribution effects on real incomes.
BMA labour policy had to deal at once with military and rehabili-
tation needs, inflationary conditions, and the political challenge of
a nascent militant labour movement. One of the main roles assigned
to the Military Administration was the mobilization of local labour
for military and rehabilitation purposes. Wages were set at pre-war
levels, despite prevailing inflation, in order to fix the rates desired
ultimately to achieve and to minimize the cost of the BMA to the
British Treasury.9 Labour was thus expected to absorb the income
effects of British post-war economic policy for Malaya. Resultant
labour unrest impelled the BMA to work hard to counter militancy
on the part of the Communist-inspired General Labour Union. As
Labour unrest continued and indeed worsened with deteriorating
real wages the BMA decided that it would be imperative for it
effectively to crush the Communist labour movement while encour-
aging development of a more tractable, "responsible", trade
unionism.10
Whatever the original intent of the Malayan Planners the BMA
was ill-prepared structurally to meet the needs of a trying period.
Its recruitment pattern for personnel and the traditions of colonial
8. For a critique of the Rubber Buying Unit's distribution of supplies to small-
holders see P.T. Bauer, Report on a Visit to the Rubber Growing Small-
holdings of Malaya, London: HMSO 1948 (Colonial Research Paper No. 1),
pp. 52-56.
9. On the factors influencing BMA wages policy see Donnison, British Military
Administration in the Far East, pp. 312-313, 328 and the (McFadzean)
Report of Prices and Wages, British Military Administration, 30 November
1945.
10. As the largest single employer in Malaya and Singapore the BMA had a
common interest with employers in keeping wages low and labour weak and
disunited. On the development of post-liberation trade union policy see
Gamba, The Origins of Trade Unionism in Malaya, pp. 7-20; Hanrahan,
The Communist Struggle in Malaya, pp. 54-55; and Alex Josey, Trade Union-
ism in Malaya, Donald Moore, Singapore 1954.

105
 T H E RMA IN MALAYA

service hardly lent themselves to the task confronting the Military

Administration. Former Malayan Civil Servants, the key elements
in the BMA tended to look back to halcyon pre-war years and refused
to contemplate the serious undercurrents in Malaya's political system
except as "temporary manifestations of evil and sedition".11 Such
an attitude was not to be conducive to the proper administration of
peoples scarred by war and conquest, oppressed by shortages and
hunger, and restless for social and political change. In the event,
like the Japanese 'banana dollars' before them, the British 'banana
colonels' proved to be worth less in practice.

11. Vide. Victor Purcell, Malaya: Communist of Free?, Victor Gollancz, London
1954, p. 42.

106