The United States of Malaysia

IN JANUARY OF THIS YEAR, the Prime Minister of Malaya, Tengku Abdur Rahman, came to Singapore on one of his frequent'visits, ostensibly to play golf but in reality for diplomatic consultations. He took the occasion to make several friendly comments about the city, but no one was quite prepared for the suggestion that he made on May 27, at a meeting of foreign correspondents in Singapore, to the effect that Malaya, Singapore, and the British territories of North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak should come together in a single Mighty Malaysia. The idea was not a new one, having been put forward before by a former British Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia, Sir Malcolm MacDonald. What surprised even the most astute political observers was that the proposal should have come from the Tengku, who has been identified with Malay opposition to any such scheme. In the chain reaction that followed, the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, announced that Independence through merger is now clearly before us and will be achieved sooner than anyone imagined two years He might just as well have said: sooner than anyone imagined a month ago

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