Mohd. Ghazali bin Ismail
Singapore
“Sir, I think the number of graduates in Malay studies is already too great, and therefore it is considered not really relevant to our immediate requirements. Tuan Haji Mohd. Ariff(In Malay): Sir, can the Parliamentary Secretary inform this House what are the subjects that are considered relevant? 8.00 p.m.”
“With the exception of the Upper Serangoon Secondary Technical School where Science and Mathematics are taught in English as from January 1969, arising out of a policy decision, it is not made compulsory to teach Science and Mathematics in English to the Malay-medium students in all the other 11 secondary schools.”
“This is an international contest for educational programmes over Radio and Television organised by Nippon Hoso Kyokai. The winning entry, The power of words, was a poetry programme for secondary two pupils, and E.T.V. won another special prize the following year in the same contest.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, the overall picture of reactions to E.T.V. is compounded from the regular evaluation returns made each week by a statistical sample of schools. The programmes in general are accepted by teachers as providing a good deal of useful and positive criticism of individual progress.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I take note of the suggestion put forward by the Member for Punggol. It is true that our E.T.V. is making films for competition. I would like to inform the House that in 1967 our E.T.V. Service won a special prize organised by Nippon Hoso Kyokai.”
“Sir, no provision is made for the Science stream in pre-university Malay-medium classes because, firstly, in the early years of Malay secondary education, Malay-medium students normally offered General Science as a science subject.”
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Every one of 25 lines we hold for Mohd. Ghazali bin Ismail, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account.
“Sir, I think the number of graduates in Malay studies is already too great, and therefore it is considered not really relevant to our immediate requirements. Tuan Haji Mohd. Ariff(In Malay): Sir, can the Parliamentary Secretary inform this House what are the subjects that are considered relevant? 8.00 p.m.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, with regard to the matter of Harapan, raised by the Member for Kampong Kembangan, the Harapan is a publication of the Educational Publications Bureau, and not of the Ministry of Education. It is a magazine mainly on current affairs, and is intended for Malay secondary school students. The articles have to be submitted to the Ministry of Education for vetting to ensure that the contents are in every way suitable for publication. Of course, the editors of Harapan are officers in the Ministry. There is another point queried on the printing of Harapan. The contract for the printing was awarded to the lowest tender. In regard to his other question about granting study leave to teachers, the answer is yes, if the subjects of study are relevant to the teaching service. But each individual case has to be considered on its own merit, The Member also wanted to know the number of Malay students who are successful in their option for the technical stream, and the number allowed to take the technical subjects of their choice. I would like to inform the House that all technical students, irrespective of language media, are given the opportunity to indicate the preference for workshop subjects. While the preference is taken into account, the final selection of a student for the various workshop subjects depends on his aptitude and performance in the workshop subjects in Secondary I and II levels, and his performance in the relevant supporting subjects, for example, Mathematics and Science. Tuan Haji Mohd. Ariff(In Malay): Mr Speaker, Sir, there are teachers from the Malay stream who wish to further their studies by going to the university to take up Malay studies. Is this a relevant subject as mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary?”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, to ensure the smooth implementation of this scheme to use English as the medium of instruction for these two subjects in the Malay secondary schools, the Ministry of Education explained the following five points to the school principals: (1) that there is no element of compulsion; (2) that the scheme need not be implemented immediately if it is not feasible; (3) that if it is feasible, a feasibility study should nevertheless be carried out with a view to implementing it as early as possible; (4) that problems pertaining to equipment, staffing, students' ability, and the parents' reaction must be carefully looked into; and (5) that even if implementation is feasible, the scheme should be phased out gradually. HENDERSON CONSTITUENCY (Building of community centre) 6. Mr Ch'ng Jit Koon asked the Minister for Culture if there are any plans to build a community centre in the proposed Henderson Constituency. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Culture (Inche Sha'ari Bin Tadin) (for the Minister for Culture): Sir, the People's Association has included an item in its Five-Year Development Plan to provide for a community centre in the new constituency of Henderson. This is scheduled for 1973, to be built on a piece of land which the Housing and Development Board will be providing. CRECHE FACILITIES FOR KAMPONG TIONG BAHRU (Sufficiency of) 7. Mr Ch'ng Jit Koon asked the Minister for Social Affairs, in view of the fact that the majority of the residents in Kampong Tiong Bahru are in the lower income group and require the facilities of a creche, if he plans to resite the creche at Moh Guan Terrace in Kampong Tiong Bahru and expanding its services; or, alternatively, if he will consider building a creche in Kampong Tiong Bahru.”
“With the exception of the Upper Serangoon Secondary Technical School where Science and Mathematics are taught in English as from January 1969, arising out of a policy decision, it is not made compulsory to teach Science and Mathematics in English to the Malay-medium students in all the other 11 secondary schools. However, as early as in 1970, the principals of these schools have been encouraged to use English as the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics, as far as possible. Tuan Haji Mohd. Ariff(In Malay): Sir, what steps have been taken by the Ministry of Education to ensure the smooth implementation of this scheme?”
“Can the transitory pleasures of the pipe, the irrationalism of hippie behaviour and psychedelic music replace the more lasting satisfaction of having honestly done a day's work? Only a sick society can permit itself to be permissive in matters that mean the difference between life and death. Only a sick nation can be indifferent to the destructive forces that are in its midst. And only a nation that has ceased to struggle can tolerate a philosophy that extols the qualities of negativism. We live in a state of constant change, of tension, of an incessant urgency to improvise and innovate. Surely the more reasonable approach, and perhaps the only logical approach to our problems, is the cultivation of the virtues of leading a more Spartan life. The vital question is to know our priorities. Here we cannot be in two frames of mind. We know in which direction we are heading, and this awareness should determine the pace and the trends of our developmental patterns. Our priorities will dictate our policies and they will, taking precedence over all others, determine the shape of our society. 3.15 p.m.”
“This does not necessarily follow if we understand that in being disciplined, one proceeds in a manner socially acceptable in going about one's business, and that none of one's actions are outside the framework of the norm. The question of permissiveness does not arise here, as what one is doing is within the accepted framework of social conventions. For instance, all legitimate intellectual endeavours must not only be sanctioned but encouraged and nurtured as furthering our own cause. In matters of cultural pursuits, any that does not conduce to the furtherance of our culture should he frowned upon. A body of ideas, be they philosophical, religious, political and economic, which do not run counter to the general welfare of the masses, that is, they are not inimical to the state, ought to be supported. That is my opinion. In the final analysis, a pragmatic approach to the complex mechanics of survival should be the criterion with which we judge our actions. Our youths should be critically discriminating in their choice of Western ways. The perennial questions to ask are: Are these useful to us? Do they conduce to the overall development of our state? Do they lift us to a higher stage of life? If the answers are in the negative, we should instantly reject such ways and be emphatic in our denunciation of them. Any protagonist for the adoption of such ideas must be out of his mind and he must quickly be put right before the youths of our state are corrupted. After all, certain aspects of our life have a more permanent value: respect for our elders, personal honesty and integrity are universal qualities. On the other hand, such qualities can be mocked at and be looked upon as quaint survival of a past age, but what substitutes can we have for them?”
“In this way, we can not only ensure the continued survival of our cultures, but also their strength, so that they become the source of our own power, the fountain of our creative energies and the guarantor of our civilization. Our youths must be made aware of this, as such an awareness is the catalyst to pride and joy in being nurtured to full manhood, through an appreciation of the achievements of our forefathers, of the tribulations they underwent, and of their triumphs in the face of great adversities. I think Asia today is poised for great changes. We are part of these changes and we are in them. If the sixties have given us much, we can expect more from the seventies but we need to develop a maturity of understanding so that, in anticipation of these great changes, we are not looking at things through the perspective of a stagnant, backward and un-progressive society. The dynamics of survival in a turbulent corner of the world should serve as a spur to us to accelerate performance in all the fields of human endeavour so that, in a world torn by strife and dissension, we can serve as a beacon, as a light for others to emulate and to follow. Our youths must know this, and they must realise that the imperatives of survival are paramount and must take precedence over all else. The alternative to this awareness, I think, is stagnancy and death. I think I have already spoken at some length on the inherent dangers that permissive attitudes have or dangers that can result from being permissive. I have now to go a little further into the matter. By being non-permissive, it must not be construed that I am advocating that our society should be a closed one. There is always the fear that if one is not permissive, then one is logically authoritarian.”
“We must ask ourselves how the poor can be uplifted from their poverty, and how everyone of us here can be secure in our society. We must ask ourselves how we can ensure that the racial sensitivities of our people are not hurt, and how we can inculcate in our youths a feeling of loyalty to this country. These are imperative questions and our answers to them pave the way either to progress and prosperity, or to chaos and destruction. An awareness of all these in our youths may conceivably lead to a shedding of the fetishes they have so uncritically taken from the more irrational aspects of Western culture. In my opinion, in the interest of our survival, governed as we are by the imperatives of the moment, we have to set up the machinery to re-educate our youths in the ways that point to our survival as an entity. Such practices as the sporting of long hair, the smoking of ganja, the taking of drugs, the wearing of outlandish sartorial fashions and the like are alien to our way of life and cannot fill the cultural and spiritual vacuum that we are supposed to experience today. In other words, we must have our priorities right, and to do so we must develop in ourselves a capacity to understand the day-to-day implications of the significance of events that move around us, around our nation, around our people and around our region. We must be proud of our own respective cultures, only drawing upon other sources that enrich and strengthen them. We must discard anything that tends to enervate and encourage the growth of others that give new impetus to the development of our own.”
“These youths, I feel, are alienated from society due to a lack of understanding of their roles. This lack of understanding of their roles, in my opinion, is attributed in a large measure to some deficiencies in our society. The people that count-parents and teachers, community leaders and certain public figures in industry and commerce-have failed to imbue in our youths the feeling that living in a developing society such as ours would need them to sacrifice their pleasures and devote much of their time and energy towards more constructive efforts rather than the mere pursuit of mundane pleasures. Mr C. V. Devan Nair, the N.T.U.C. Secretary-General, had occasion last year to mention the danger of becoming complacent about the economic and social success of Singapore. He mentioned the increasing proneness to insular smugness, self-satisfaction and self-centredness which was completely unjustified because Singaporeans live in one of the hottest trouble spots of the world. As a remedial measure to ensure that such complacency is shattered, he suggested that "large therapeutic doses of geopolitical realism was the only way the distorted and self-satisfied insular perspectives could be corrected. Only then can we, as a people, get our priorities right." I cannot but agree with what has been said by Mr Nair. It would seem to me that only the most concentrated efforts on our part are necessary to instil in our youths the need for an understanding of the realities of our situation. We must, if it is necessary, jolt our people into a serious and thoughtful mood. We must ask ourselves if we can survive as a nation without the ingredients of national survival, national unity and national progress.”
“It must be pointed out that such evaluation of conduct has validity only in the context of where it occurs, how it occurs, what personalities are involved and under what social circumstances such conduct is displayed. In an oriental society we would say that a departure from the accepted norms of sexual practices is contrary to our customs and would consequently produce harmful effects on us, and, therefore, we would insist on conformity in such matters as I have mentioned above. Our island state, strategically placed as it is at the cross-roads of the East and West, has become almost a melting pot for various races to mix and rub shoulders. We now enjoy a mild economic boom, but apparently the Republic's economic success has gone to the heads of a considerable segment of our more affluent youths. Unfortunately, these are the youths who set the trends and the pace which are too willingly imitated by our less affluent youths, with disastrous consequences. I say so because the more affluent youths of our society are, on the whole, better educated and consequently are in a better position to apprise their actions than the less affluent youths. The former are in a better position to recover from their misdeeds and more quickly than could the latter. That is my assessment. I must say that there are more less fortunately placed youths than the rich ones, and whatever these youths do might have more far-reaching repercussions upon our society. They might not be trend-setters or pace-setters, but the fact that they uncritically ape and imitate the ways of the less inhibited affluent youths is an indication of the trends towards a society the principal characteristic of which is permissiveness.”
“An understanding of their needs would be necessary but, at the same time, a clearer realisation of the goals they have for their children would, in no small measure, help them to show the correct path for them. Sir, when I was in London last year, a British newspaper published a picture taken at Hyde Park showing a girl stripping off her clothes until she was completely naked. I did make a press cutting of the picture so that I can produce it here or anywhere as an illustration, but unfortunately, my travelling colleague, the Member for Mountbatten, to whom I had given the picture, told me he had lost it somewhere. It was reported that the girl strolled through the park, unashamed and apparently oblivious of the crowd around her. Strange to say, the crowd in the park on that summer day did not pay much attention to the naked girl. I was, to say the least, rather abashed at this display of defiance of the established etiquette of social conduct, and it was a surprise to me that such a thing should have been allowed at all. I fail to understand the social clime that could sanction such indecencies as this. I visited various other places in England and Scotland, and it would seem to me that many of the things that the English and Scottish youths did in public could not be condoned here, but it is possible that as a result of the permissive attitudes of the English and Scottish parents such things as those I have mentioned were everyday occurrences, and were accepted as such by them. Our oriental heritage would frown upon an excessive display of affection in public because we believe that the display of such affections can be made at more appropriate places. We see here, therefore, the existence of differing standards of measuring and evaluating conduct.”
“They feel alienated from society, whether authoritarian or otherwise, and this feeling of alienation has led them to adopt the more nihilistic principles of life. The destruction of the old order - economic, political, cultural and religious - became paramount, no matter what the succeeding situation might prove to be. We in Singapore have not escaped from the outbreak of such irrational rashes as those which are plaguing Europe and America today. We do not differ in kind but in degree only. We see such aberrations as the adoption of the hippie way of life among certain sections of our youths. We are now hearing of drug-taking by our boys and girls. We see other manifestation of this nihilistic philosophy in our midst today. The propensity to indulge in the pleasures of the senses for the sake of enjoying such pleasures, the ceaseless search for material comforts at the expense of the less tangible modes of life, the quest for quaint methods of escaping from the grim realities of life are all too real, and, given a measure of permissiveness, one never knows how far these trends might develop for the worse. I would attribute the collapse of many of our traditional beliefs and practices to the indulgence of parents towards their offspring's. When a certain firmness is necessary, such a quality, when it is most needed, is found grossly wanting. One thing leading to another, it is such want of firmness that tends to lead our children to become undisciplined and disrespectful to us. I do not advocate a return to the days when the cane was the principal instrument for the enforcement of discipline at home. But I do wish that parents would exercise a greater firmness in deciding what is essentially good for their children.”
“The hopes of people for peace and security were rudely shattered. The revival of power politics, the fear of the spread of nuclear war, and the use of bacteriological means of destruction, the outbreak of conflicts in South-east Asia, the Middle East and South America, all these had their deleterious effect in moulding the thoughts of our thinking youths. The old order is simply not strong enough to ensure peace and understanding among nations. The great religions of the world have been found wanting, and, as established institutions, they had apparently served their purposes. Some idealism was still left behind. The spectacular advances in science, the achievement of independence by various countries which were former colonies of the imperialist powers, the emergence of newly-independent nations in Africa, the United Nations Organisation lent a ray of hope to a sick world, but apparently these did not contribute enough to sustain the idea that peace and plenty was at hand. Reactions of the most extreme kind began to make themselves apparent all over the world. The spread of education through the mass media merely accelerated the development of these deleterious trends and not even the authoritative pronouncements of church and of Government could put a stop to them. Overnight, certain countries that professed democracy chucked it overboard and imposed upon their peoples the most authoritarian of regimes. The world saw the rise of societies that insisted upon rigid conformity to the officially-preached code of conduct and of others that permitted and allowed the growth of irrationalism in their midst. In these fluctuations, the youths of the world have been the main casualties.”
“We have nothing to be ashamed of, and yet today we see, among our youths, almost a total disregard for the values which we have accepted without question. We see before us the collapse of traditional values. Non-conformity, anti-collectivism, anti-establishment and divergent thinking - whatever that may mean -would seem to be the order of the day. We see manifestations of these in the outlandish dress of some of our youths, the taking of drugs, the reading of pornographic literature. Existential philosophy from Soren Kierkegaard to Jacques Maritain has been perverted to mean the denial of God and the ridiculing of all existing cultures and the mocking of social values dear to the older generation. Art for the sake of art has been venerated at the expense of the social ends that art is supposed to sub serve. Traditional faith and values no longer serve for some of our youths as the guide-lines of their life and pointers to their conduct. It would be pertinent, at this juncture, to examine the root causes of this apparent weakening of our moral fibre and to think of ways and means of overcoming it by providing our youths with the appropriate alternative moral and ethical values, lest we plunge our society into chaos. We must at all costs, prevent the degeneration of our society into one that is effete and is immersed in the pursuit of material and sensual pleasures. We must think of alternatives to a society that thinks of humility, a society that thinks of pity for the weak and incompetent as vices. The world that emerged from the Second World War had very little resemblance to the dreams of idealists before the outbreak of the conflict. There was hunger, fear, hopelessness, misery and unprecedented violence.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to join my colleagues in thanking the President for his speech at the opening of the Second Session of the Second Parliament on the 21st of last month. Sir, I would like to examine with you the internal situation we are in today. I am not so much concerned with the political and economic aspects, important as they are, as with the composition of our society. We are multi in almost everything. We have a diffusion of cultures, a diffusion of languages, a diffusion of religions and so on, and the very heterogeneous nature of our society, open as it is to the influence of Western ideas, makes it imperative for all of us to understand fully the implications of an uncritical adoption of certain aspects of Western culture. I am not saying that some of these aspects of Western culture are decadent, but I must say that some of them do not conduce to our efforts to consolidate our people into a viable and rugged nation. The Chinese, the Indians and the Malays, each has a distinct form of culture in which, in its various ways, is prescribed a code of ethical behaviour that has more or less withstood the test of time. Each has a built-in system of dynamic growth, and throughout the centuries, the cumulative effects of succeeding changes have made our respective cultures the floating-buoys to which we have clung, and from which we have derived our basic strength. Our religions preach the brotherhood of man, extol the qualities of the human mind, make the achievement of peace the supreme pursuit of life, and frown upon irrationalism in all its manifestations. In truth we have, each one of us here, a clearly-defined rule of conduct, adherence to which can ensure our survival as a united and strong people.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, construction work on the Regional English Language Centre is, in fact, in progress. As at the end of last month work on the building has reached the 13th floor. This means that 52 per cent of the project has been completed. In February this year, a total of $410,000 was paid out from the sum provided for the project. May I also answer the other questions raised by the Member for Punggol? The capital cost of the Regional English Language Centre has been estimated at $6.6 million. It is being financed jointly by the United States Government and the Singapore Government, with Singapore contributing $600,000. In addition, Singapore is responsible for land acquisition, amounting to $200,000. May I also inform the House that the building consists of 16 storeys, and currently under consideration is a proposal to add two more storeys to the building to make it altogether 18 storeys. The additional cost to be borne by Singapore is expected to be $275,000, subject to Development Planning Committee sanction. Finally, may I also inform the House that the date of completion of the building is expected to be December 1971.”
“This is an international contest for educational programmes over Radio and Television organised by Nippon Hoso Kyokai. The winning entry, The power of words, was a poetry programme for secondary two pupils, and E.T.V. won another special prize the following year in the same contest. The winning entry was an adaptation of the novel The Good Earth. It was part of the series The world of books for Secondary Two pupils. As to the dissatisfaction of the Member for Punggol with the percentage of primary schools and secondary schools making full use of E.T.V., I would like to inform him that our Ministry is doing its very best to make full use of the T.V. medium as an effective means of achieving professional objectives in the field of education in Singapore.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I take note of the suggestion put forward by the Member for Punggol. It is true that our E.T.V. is making films for competition. I would like to inform the House that in 1967 our E.T.V. Service won a special prize organised by Nippon Hoso Kyokai.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, the overall picture of reactions to E.T.V. is compounded from the regular evaluation returns made each week by a statistical sample of schools. The programmes in general are accepted by teachers as providing a good deal of useful and positive criticism of individual progress. For instance, the series on Science and English Language are particularly well received, taking note of the criticisms received. The latest returns show that 96.5 per cent of our secondary schools and 75.8 per cent of our primary schools are making full use of our E.T.V. programmes. Of course, programming for primary schools, as we know, is a pilot project initiated from January 1971.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, to have more than one centre would mean the redeployment of staff resources concentrated at the Sang Nila Utama Secondary School to the second centre. It is considered that this would not be advisable if a high standard of performance of the pre-university students is to be achieved. Furthermore, I think to date the need to open another pre-university centre for Malay-medium students does not arise. NATIONAL LIBRARY (Complete air-conditioning) 8. Mr P. Govindaswamy asked the Minister for Culture when the National Library will be entirely air-conditioned.”
“Sir, no provision is made for the Science stream in pre-university Malay-medium classes because, firstly, in the early years of Malay secondary education, Malay-medium students normally offered General Science as a science subject. It was, therefore, felt that the provision of a Science stream could be considered only when the Malay stream students were able to do pure sciences up to Secondary 4 level. Secondly, at present the students in Secondary 3 and Secondary 4 at the Sekolah Menengah Tun Seri Lanang study their pure science subjects in English. These students can therefore be eventually channelled to the English-medium pre-university classes.”
“He even pronounced it as "cumable suicide" instead of "culpable homicide", and this happened to many others who served as jurors because of lack of education or lack of English. This is the very system that Mr David Marshall fought so hard to prevent its abolition. He tried to tell the people that men of the "cumable suicide" type could offer better justice than the Judges themselves. Of course, we know why he prefers the jury to stay. After all, under that very system, he has got acquittals in many murder trials to his credit. He was also so angry with the Bill that he not only attacked the Government at his luncheon speech on Wednesday last, but also in the same rally he attacked the press for not publishing his previous criticisms on the Bill, He alleged that the press did this out of fear of the Government. If the press did not really give ample publicity to his grumbling about the issue, it was probably because they knew that his grumbling was more of a political nature motivated by self-interest than professional. Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, my profession is journalism and, like many other journalists, we feel hurt when someone who is a non-journalist like Mr Marshall tells us what to do in respect of assessing news value. I would ask that the journalists be left alone. They know how to go about their work. Similarly, no journalist will tell Mr Marshall how he should conduct his client's defence to win his case in court. Quite a number of journalists, including many who have been court reporters for years, have told me that they are in favour of abolishing the jury system. Therefore, for Mr Marshall to say that there are only one or two men in Singapore who really want to abolish the jury system is not correct. 5.33 p.m.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, having been on the Select Committee on the Bill and having had the privilege of listening to all the evidence given by interested parties, I was amazed at the defects in the administration of justice should the existing jury system be retained in Singapore. So many factors arise from the nature and set-up of our society, partly because of the educational and intelligence aspects, and partly because of the multi-racial content of our community where each member of a particular community carries along his superstitious and traditional beliefs into his practical life, that the jury system seems to be inadequate in ensuring that justice is done in trials of capital offences in Singapore. A pregnant juror, for instance, may not vote for a verdict of guilty if she knows that that will send the accused to the gallows for fear that something would happen to her unborn child. However, the fact that almost everyone in Singapore, except those with special professional and political interests who think in terms of either commercial or political interests instead of the interest of justice, has not voiced any objection to the abolition of this un-Asian system, I presume, means that the people are all behind the Government to see that this system is scrapped once and for all, Many lawyers agree that the standard of our jurors has gone down because many jurors do not have a sufficient standard of education to enable them to possess enough intelligence to mete out justice adequately. Quite a number of them are not so conversant with the use of the English language. As has already been mentioned by the Member for Telok Blangah just now, one juror, for instance, who appeared before the Select Committee could not understand what "culpable homicide" means.”
“Let us say to history, "We will decide on your destiny and not vice versa." Any nation that allows history to determine its destiny will become bankrupt and decadent. Let us determine the course of history. Let us influence history. We should not allow history to influence our destiny. If we can move ahead of history we will forever be safe. We will forever prosper and forge ahead. If we do not wish history to decide on our destiny, we must have a disciplined society, a society with collective leadership such as we have today. We need to have a society which can be likened to an army. If we succeed, it will be a victory for all the people of Singapore. If we fail, it will be a defeat for them. Mr Speaker. Sir, events have shown that we are well on the road to success. I believe that the three objectives enunciated by the President in his speech will be brought to fruition. The next five years shall witness the establishment of a disciplined and rugged society, but efforts must also be made to ensure the creation of a productive society. I would like to propose that we must now start to consider the possibility of having as our future slogan the establishment of a productive society. We must be productive in economy and productive in politics. We must also be socially and mentally productive. But for God's sake, let us be less productive in human procreation. 5.16 p.m.”
“Mr Speaker, I beg to support the Prime Minister's motion of thanks to the President for his speech at the opening session of Parliament on Monday last. The President in his speech has outlined three important objectives which the Government will strive to achieve over the next five years. The three objectives constitute fundamental issues which must be achieved by the people of Singapore if we truly want to see Singapore succeed and the country capable of standing on her own feet and capable of defending her independence and sovereignty until the end of time. What we have to do now is to utilise every second available to us to strengthen our country's defences. At the moment, we have already a strong army. We need also a powerful navy and air force. Together with Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Britain, we hope our country will have an effective defence capability which can not only ensure the security of our nation but also be able to contribute to the security of this part of the world. In fact, Singapore's security cannot be divorced from the security of the whole of Southeast Asia. The Second World War has proved that when Singapore capitulated to the enemy, the whole of Southeast Asia fell to the enemy. With modern equipment now available, we can easily imagine that if Singapore falls into enemy hands, not only will Southeast Asia fall but the entire region of Australasia will face the same catastrophe. This demonstrates the importance of our having defence co-operation with all Commonwealth countries in this part of the world. We must have an adequate defence capability to ensure political stability in this region. In the next five years, we will be confronted with a multitude of problems which will affect our lives. For us every problem has its solution.”