territory can be as prosperous as the others.
Remembering that under the leadership of the present Prime Minister of Malaya the existing territories have been well federated and that he has been able to make the various races have an understanding of one another, an understanding such as I have rarely found elsewhere. I would point out that we are now going to have another 19 races brought into the Federation. As I said at the beginning, a Johore Malay is very proud of being a Johore Malay. Although these 940 people will all become Malaysians and will, I am sure, be proud of doing so, they are also proud of their own race and characteristics, and I hope that they will be allowed to carry on their own tradition.
I notice that for 10 years after Malaysia Day and thereafter until the State regulations otherwise provide, the English language is to be "an official language", and may be used in the Legislative Assembly for all official purposes of State, and so on. In Singapore there are four official languages. I should like to know whether when it states that the English language shall be "an official language" it is included in the others and whether the people will still be able to speak their own tongue if they wish to, through interpretation, as in Singapore, and in what languages the reports of Parliament and the newspapers will be written in the future. It is very important that people should have full democratic opportunities of understanding what is going on, and it is very difficult if one has to read and speak in a foreign language.
I was very glad to hear that my right hon. Friend has stated that any change in the law made in the Federal Parliament will have to go back to the local territories for confirmation; in other words, that no law can be imposed on a territory against its will. That is extremely important.
There is also the difficult problem of expatriates. I noticed that the Cobbold Committee said in paragraph 231: "We would like to make some observations regarding the position of the present expatriate officials, including technical and professional officers in these territories after Malaysia. We have noted the high regard in which these officers are held and the unanimous expression of views that they should be encouraged to stay until they can be replaced by the local people." The Committee goes on: "We are aware of the dangers that the administrative machinery and the various plans for development would suffer very considerably with the immediate departure of any substantial number of these officers." The Committee also states that it sees no objection to recruiting from overseas.
I would lay specially emphasis on the point that we should try to encourage as many as possible of the expatriate officers to stay. I do not want to be in any way rude or discourteous to Malaya, but I feel that if we have too many civil servants, as I think has happened in Brunei, coming from Malaya and taking over the jobs, it will be a great pity. I hope that the objective and aim of Malaya will be to train the local people, and meanwhile to encourage those who are in the jobs to stay as long as possible and train the local people to take over. There will, no doubt, be some exchange of officers, but I think that Malaya would be open to some criticism and that there might be some fear if too many of the very excellent civil servants from Malaya were sent to the territories, for it might be felt that they would stop the progress of the people within the territories. If expatriates are employed, the local people will know that they will be there, normally, for a short time and will see that there is some future for themselves. I hope that this point will be looked into.
I should like to know when North Borneo is officially going to become Sabah. The Bill says "North Borneo" and "on the formation of the Federation of Malaysia". Does it mean that when we have passed the Bill today, as from today North Borneo will adopt some other name?
One cannot pay tribute to all the people who have taken part in the various discussions and have done very active work in creating the very happy situation that we have at the present time, but I should like to mention one or two persons from both North Borneo and Sarawak. I would mention Mr. Donald Stephens and Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun and Mr. Khoo Siak Chien. What a good future there was for their country in Malaysia. It is not always easy to
