7
Pyramids of Power
In the interwar years, the binding sentiments of British Malaya were loyalty to the British Crown and trust in the permanence of an omnipresent Empire. Reminders of the imperial inheritance were visible in street names and public buildings: Georgetown, the urban heart of Penang Island, Victoria Dock, Victoria Theatre, King Edward Place, Empire Dock, Empire Hotel, Empress Place, and so on. ‘Singapore’, preened Roland Braddell in 1934, ‘seems so new, so very George the Fifth.’1 Patriotism was alive and well, a young journalist observed: ‘On Armistice Day, everybody wore a poppy. Even rickshaw coolies and road sweepers insisted on contributing their mite. Here was love and respect for a nation which hundreds of thousands of Asiatics had come to accept as their own.’2 And, after the Depression had weeded out dispensable individuals and sections of the manpower, ‘those who were left’, in the eyes of one colonial servant, ‘had very much “an Empire outlook” – “working for King and Country”. They never thought of themselves, certainly in the Civil Service, as doing anything but serving.’3 The same could be said of men in other fields. An English officer in the Federated Malay States Police, who was posted in the 1930s to the remote rural district of Jelebu, where he was the only European, accepted the need ‘to do the dangerous things’ on behalf of the British Raj.4 Guy Madoc’s father had risen high in the police force in South Africa: for some the call of Empire was a family vocation. As an ex-planter put it, on hearing that his sister had taken a teaching post near Simla, ‘Mother would be quite on her own with the whole of her family doing “outposts of Empire stuff”, two in India, one in Ceylon and one in Malaya.’ He mused after retirement, ‘It is funny how this sort of thing runs in families. My father’s family were the same and so were the Hendersons, as I found when I married Jessie, only with her it was both sides of the family … I wonder what these and families like them are doing now that the Empire has … dwindled.’5
England itself seemed so far away, until George V broke new ground by broadcasting Christmas messages to the Empire in the 1930s. Reminding his expatriate audience of the memories and traditions of the Mother Country, the King saw himself as the revered head of a great family, a role his successor George VI pledged to maintain, while fostering the ‘mutual trust and affection on which the relations between the Sovereign and the Peoples of the British Empire so happily rests’.6 Royal occasions were warmly celebrated. The Silver Jubilee in 1935 was marked by the usual balls and presentation of gifts, but also by the establishment of a National Park bearing the King’s name.
The following year saw a succession of dramatic imperial events: the death of George V, the accession and abdication of Edward VIII, and finally the accession of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. In Malaya, talk of the house of Windsor and the role of Mrs Simpson ebbed and flowed over pahits. Malayan-born Dulcie Gray believed firmly that ‘the King should put his country first’. But her mother, Mrs Savage-Bailey, an ardent royalist, claimed not to be surprised by his behaviour: when the Prince had stayed with them in Kuala Lumpur in 1922 she had found him a difficult guest, ‘out all hours with highly unsuitable girlfriends’.7 But opinion was divided, and after the Abdication a government officer – ‘a real old bachelor of about 45 years of sin! but a most likeable rogue’ – amused the European community of Segamat by regularly drinking after dinner ‘to the King over the Water’. No matter: royal occasions always gave the rubber planters of north Johore a good excuse for a jamboree. Guy Hutchinson recalled,
We were a bit ‘quick off the mark’ when Edward VIII came to the throne, but never mind, we got in our Official Party before the Abdication … There must have been about 40 people present, all the local Europeans that could be got together at the one time, but unfortunately a number of married couples were away on ‘local leave’. There was an Official Party for all the townsfolk going on on the padang, which we were to join – I think we had the Police Band in attendance and I know there was a large ‘Ronging [sic] Group’ … We all had cocktails in the lounge … We then went outside and had a cold supper at small tables set about the lawn … Jean [Mrs Bird, wife of the Assistant Adviser] and I then went down to the padang – I had never danced a Ronging – but to celebrate Edward VIII I most certainly did now. It was great fun.8
The coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 12 May – Empire Day – 1937 was the most memorable royal event of the decade. The presence in London of the rulers of Johore, Pahang, Trengganu and Negri Sembilan at the Crown’s invitation emphasized the importance of the Malay States to Britain, while in Malaya the British community celebrated with a full panoply of parades and parties, dancing, illuminations, fireworks, flags and flowers. Public holidays were taken seriously, with the King’s Birthday heading a long list of annual events. It was an occasion for town parades, when the civil authorities joined with the armed services in tropical dress uniforms and the public watched British and Indian troops in a military display on the padang. Only the participants – like Victor Purcell – knew of the behind-the-scenes pantomime of struggling into ‘the most absurd get-up imaginable’: tight black leather boots, a large helmet, a white tunic and trousers which ‘were so very, very tight that you simply could not sit down in them’, flanked by a sword ‘fit only for picking winkles out of their shells’.9
As he watched the parade in Malacca a young British resident had ‘the feeling that we were all representatives of a ruling race backed by the power and prestige of the British Empire’.10 Occasional visits by royalty, such as that of the Duke of Gloucester in April 1929, and calls by ships of the Royal Navy, reinforced colonial pride, enhancing it with a theatrical aura. From the terrace of the Singapore Club, with its superb view of the harbour, Bruce Lockhart felt a stirring of pride as ‘closing in the whole scene, a line of British cruisers and destroyers, headed by H.M.S. Kent, stood out like black swans in the fading sunlight’.11 On his trip to Kuala Lumpur in 1922 the Prince of Wales was given a ‘Fairyland Welcome’, with ‘Enchanting Eastern Scenes’. In addition to a reception of former service men and women at Government House, he received ‘a wonderful reception from the Chinese and Malays who thronged the streets during every hour of the day and night’ in the hope of catching a glimpse of him, The Times reported. As he drove to the European Club, the Prince ‘witnessed a Chinese torchlight procession a mile and a half long … Gigantic fishes, fowls, tigers, lions, ships and castles brilliantly lighted with myriads of tiny lights … in bewildering array.’ The story was similar in Singapore and Penang. ‘All the communities vied with each other in lavish decorative displays’ in streets lined with thousands of children ‘cheering and singing “God Bless the Prince of Wales”’.12 An old sea dog, watching the Prince’s arrival in the harbour at Penang, reflected (with some prescience in view of things to come) that ‘It was far above being an empty, flag-waving holiday, a mere Royal occasion; in it lay a deeper significance of the term British Empire, than the actual centre of that Empire has ever felt.’13
If ceremonial was a traditional way of fostering faith in Crown and Empire, from the end of the nineteenth century education became its most potent accessory, providing a core ideology of patriotic imperialism in school textbooks, classroom aids and teachers’ manuals. The daughter of a colonial officer living in Province Wellesley during the 1930s was a typical child of Empire, imbibing her heritage through geography and history lessons learned at her mother’s knee.
I would gaze at the globe – it had come in the mail to our colonial outpost on its shining metal stand – and wonder at all the blobs of pink, all originating from the tiny dot of England. That’s how I began to grasp my inheritance. The globe had so much pink on it. We could leave ‘home’ and find similar patterns of life and values in quite contrary places. I felt paternal toward our subjects – it wasn’t a feeling of superiority, it was just that we were innocently and benevolently in charge. It gave me a feeling of really belonging to the world, to the veil of pinkness spread across it.
Instead of having a bus pass I had a world pass – a right of passage because I was British.14
These lessons in imperialism were reinforced by the initial month-long sea voyage out East. British passengers and freight were carried 8,000 miles via the historic naval bases of Gibraltar and Malta; then from Port Said through the Suez Canal – thanks to Disraeli, 44 per cent of the Canal shares had been owned by the British government since 1875 – and on through the Red and Arabian Seas to the ports of the Raj, Bombay and Colombo; and so to the Malaysian archipelago. Despite intensifying competition in the interwar years from other national lines such as the Danish-owned East Asiatic boats, British ships still took between 85 and 95 per cent of UK trade to and from Singapore and China in 1937, and the Far Eastern routes continued to be dominated by P. & O., the Ben and Glen Lines and Alfred Halt’s Blue Funnel Line, which prided themselves on their seamanship and reliability. Art ‘eager, enthusiastic, expectant passenger’, sailing out for the first time in 1934, felt proud that ‘we found the Union Jack flying at every port of call except Marseilles’;15 and a year later a mature traveller passing through Port Said was struck by ‘the universal prevalence of the English language in a town which was once predominantly French’.16 Captain Steele of the P. & O. fleet was more effusive: ‘we linked up the British Empire, which it seems must grow greater … All was sunshine, strength and confidence … Only those who lived in those days can realize what the British Empire meant to us – the master race.’17
The outward voyage prepared the newcomer for the hierarchical nuances of colonial life. Social status dictated that senior officials of the Malayan Civil Service, senior managers and company directors travelled in the greatest comfort. So Nona Baker, sailing to join her brother, the General Manager of Sungei Lembing tin mine (‘an important person in Malaya’), was ‘treated royally enough, being put at the captain’s table’.18 First class signified wealth or status, and according to a maritime legend the adjective ‘posh’ originated from an acronym for the demands of these cosseted passengers to have cabins on the cool side of the ship: in other words, port side on the outward run, starboard on the homeward. Cadet administrators were treated better than planters and other assistants, but less generously than their superiors. In the words of a police officer, ‘Government servants in those days [1930–1] were compelled to travel out to the East and back by P. & O. in some style, First Class. Admittedly we young men were sent out in one of the oldest, smallest and worst ships of the P. & O. fleet. And we were jammed three in a cabin designed for two, but nevertheless all very interesting, exciting and new to us.’19 However, on his maiden trip in 1927 as a rubber assistant, Guy Hutchinson travelled down-market in the old P. & O. steamer Malwa, ‘on which I had a 2nd class passage [but] the firm had done the dirt on my brother [also a planter’s assistant] and sent him out 2nd class on a Japanese boat, just to save a few quid’.20 With a solid reputation and a single-class fare which fell from £88 in 1929 to £74 in 1938, Blue Funnel Line offered an attractive alternative to planters’ and business families aboard its new passenger steamships Sarpedon and Patroclus. But inequality sometimes rankled.
Talking of the relative treatment of European employees by government and private firms, ‘I remember Mummy saying bitterly how “Colonial Service looked after their people,”’ wrote one former Malayan – implying that commercial companies, being profit-driven, were less concerned for the welfare of their employees.21
Although Malaya was generally acknowledged to be a friendly country, social gaffes were still frowned on and correct behaviour was a factor in promotion. During the outward voyage Guy Hutchinson had received an interesting tip from his fellow passengers, who were mature Public Works engineers and Malayan Railway officials: ‘all advised me to become a Mason. “You can’t get on in the East unless you’re a mason” was their dictum.’22 Whether he took the advice is unclear, but when he moved south to Johore, on his second contract, Freemasonry was well established there. In 1940 a new hall was opened by the Masons in Segamat and ‘members come for 50 to 100 miles to attend’.23 Young police officers in the early 1930s were expected to follow certain routines:
Whilst we were training at the Police Depot we were housed in the Police Mess and we were advised to buy motor cycles … but after about a year most Police graduated to extremely second hand and unreliable cars. The Head of the Mess was of course a Senior Officer and about the first thing he did was he said that you must pay official calls on the senior dignitaries of Kuala Lumpur … So we went round. Of course we signed the book at King’s House which was where the High Commissioner lived … We signed the book of the Chief Secretary to the Government. As far as I remember, below those two ranks, the Chief Justice didn’t have a visiting book, he just had cards. And then there were various other people, about ten altogether who called, and every time you were transferred of course you had to go round and drop your visiting cards in the little boxes of the senior people in your Station.24
As bachelor officers, they were expected to be gregarious and to join the Selangor Club.
We were all required to play rugby football and indeed there was an annual match of the Federation leagues versus the Straits Settlements leagues … There was also on the Sunday evenings a paper chase and we had only been in Kuala Lumpur I think for three days when the Commandant of the Police Depot announced on Saturday, ‘Sunday evenings you young officers will all tum out for the paper chase’, and so we did, of course.25
As a rubber assistant, Hutchinson was also a member of ‘the Spotted Dog’, but did not qualify for membership of the prestigious Lake Club in Kuala Lumpur, to which his manager, ‘Herbert’, belonged.
Mrs H. was a great bridge player, hadn’t a great deal of time for junior assistants, and so wouldn’t bother us much. They were members – as were most senior managers – of the Lake Club – the senior Government Officials’ Club, and only used the ‘Dog’ for watching State Rugger matches, playing bridge (for Mrs. H.) and snooker for H., both in the early evenings. Our paths at the Club would seldom meet, which was a good thing.26
To join the Tuan Besars of the Lake Club required status, money and careful attention to etiquette, beginning with the customary dropping of cards into boxes. ‘Woe betide any candidate … if he failed to “call” on the wife of any Committee member’, for it was the women who vetted the candidates, according to one newcomer who mastered the system. But charm and breeding also carried weight, and ‘many young men, particularly if they were good dancers, found themselves joining parties without going through the procedure, and … say after watching a game of tennis, you could join a table of wives and husbands on whom you had not called and be welcome’.27 Rising stars of the Civil Service were readily admitted to the European elite.
Lifestyles and friendships were governed by occupation and a man’s position in the hierarchy. Fresh from England, Nona Baker was quick to notice that ‘A man’s position was of immense importance in a rigidly graded society.’28 Isabella Bird had found that the unchanging stuff of gossip in Singapore included
speculations as to when or whether Mr — will get promotion, when Mr — will go home, or how much he has saved out of his salary; what influence has procured the appointment of Mr — to Selangor or Perak, instead of Mr —, whose qualifications are higher; whether Mr —’s acting appointment will be confirmed; whether Mr — will get leave; whether some vacant appointment is to be filled up or abolished, and so ad infinitum.29
These preoccupations were intensified in the 1930s by economic ups and downs and the tendency to promote middle ranks on the basis of ‘Buggins’s turn’. Wherever the British gathered, conversation was punctuated by references to the company or departmental pecking order. ‘My father was a Chartered Accountant and was Number Two for a group of rubber estates,’ wrote a former Malayan about a small community where the General Manager, factory engineer and planters all lived near each other on Gula Kalumpong estate, fifty miles south of Penang.30 In most European comm
unities it was natural to discuss the authority and deficiencies of the ‘Number One’, the prospects of his deputy, the ‘Number Two’, and the assistants, who were only ‘Number Three’ or ‘Number Four’ (the latter often being the newest recruit from England). Rank brought personal prestige – all-important to a group of people who were hyperconscious of being colonial rulers.
Out in the Midday Sun Page 17