Kampong, fire, nation: Towards a social history of postwar Singapore

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 613-643

  Seng, Loh Kah ^a  

^a Institute of Southeast Asia Studies   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; POST-WAR; REGIONAL POLITICS; SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT; SOCIAL HISTORY; STATE ROLE;

SINGAPORE [SOUTHEAST ASIA];

OROXYLUM INDICUM;

EID: 76749160945     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463409990099     Document Type: Article

References (201)

1. nd edn (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1989);
2. A history of Singapore, ed. Ernest Chew and Edwin Lee (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991);
3. John Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success (Singapore: Times Book International, 1984);
4. Albert Lau, A moment of anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the politics of disengagement (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998);
5. a recent example of this narrative is Edwin Lee, Singapore: The unexpected nation (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008).
6. Cheah Boon Kheng, The masked comrades: A study of the Communist United Front in Malaya, 1945-48 (Singapore: Times Books International, 1979);
7. Yeo Kim Wah, Political development in Singapore, 1945-55 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973);
8. Yeo, 'Student politics in University of Malaya, 1949-51', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies [hereafter JSEAS], 23, 2 (1992): 346-80;
9. and Yeo, 'Joining the Communist underground: The conversion of English-educated radicals to communism in Singapore, June 1948-January 1951', Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 67, 1 (1994): 29-59.
10. Refer to T.N. Harper, 'Lim Chin Siong and the "Singapore Story"', in Comet in our sky: Lim Chin Siong in history, ed. Tan Jing Quee and Jomo K.S. (Kuala Lumpur: INSAN, 2001), pp. 1-56;
11. and C.J.W.-L. Wee, 'The vanquished: Lim Chin Siong and a progressivist national narrative', in Lee's lieutenants: Singapore's old guard, ed. Lam Peng Er and Kelvin Y.L. Tan (St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1999), pp. 169-90.
12. Liew Kai Khiun, 'The anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers: Jamit Singh in the Singapore Story (1954-63)', JSEAS, 35, 3 (2004): 460.
13. Huang Jianli, 'Positioning the student political activism of Singapore: Articulation, contestation and omission', Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7, 3 (2006): 403-30;
14. and 'The young pathfinders: Portrayal of student political activism', in Paths not taken: Political pluralism in postwar Singapore, ed. Carl Trocki and Michael Barr (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008), pp. 188-205.
15. Loh Kah Seng and Michael Fernandez, 'The left-wing trade unions in Singapore, 1945-1970', in ed. Trocki and Barr, Paths not taken, pp. 206-27.
16. C.C. Chin, 'The United Front strategy of the Malayan Communist Party in Singapore, 1950s-1960s', in ed. Trocki and Barr, Paths not taken, pp. 58-77.
17. The perspective is also supported by the recollections of Chin Peng, the Secretary-General of the Malayan Communist Party. Refer to Chin Peng, My side of history (Singapore: Media Masters, 2003);
18. and Dialogues with Chin Peng: New light on the Malayan Communist Party, ed. C.C. Chin and Karl Hack (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004).
19. Trocki and Barr, Paths not taken.
20. Refer to Greg Poulgrain, The genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, 1945-1965 (Townsville, Queensland: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1997);
21. Simon J. Ball, 'Selkirk in Singapore', Twentieth Century British History, 10, 2 (1999): 162-91;
22. and Matthew Jones, 'Creating Malaysia: Singapore's security, the Borneo territories, and the contours of British policy, 1961-1963', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28, 2 (2000): 85-109.
23. Tan Tai Yong, Creating 'Greater Malaysia': Decolonisation and the politics of merger (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008).
24. Joey Long, 'Mixed up in power politics and the Cold War: The Americans, the ICFTU and Singapore's labour movement (1955-1960)', JSEAS, 40, 2 (2009): 323-51.
25. Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied, Colonialism, violence and Muslims in Southeast Asia: The Maria Hertogh controversy and its aftermath (London: Routledge, 2009).
26. G.M. Trevelyan, English social history: A survey of six centuries, Chaucer to Queen Victoria (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1946), p. vii.
27. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II (New York: Harper and Row, 1966).
28. Refer to E.P. Thompson, The making of the English working class (London: Gollancz, 1963);
29. th centuries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963);
30. George Rude, The crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979);
31. John M. Merriman, The margins of city life: Explorations on the French urban frontier, 1815-1851 (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991);
32. Arlette Farge, Fragile lives: Violence, power and solidarity in eighteenth-century Paris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993);
33. Natalie Zemon Davis, The return of Martin Guerre (London: Harvard University Press, 2001).
34. Refer to James Francis Warren, Rickshaw coolie: A people's history of Singapore, 1880-1940 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003)
35. and Ah Ku and Karayuki-san: Prostitution in Singapore, 1870-1940 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003);
36. Katherine Yeo Lian Bee, 'Hawkers and the state in colonial Singapore: Mid-nineteenth century to 1939' (M.A. Thesis, Department of History, Monash University, 1989);
37. Paul H. Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya: A social and economic history (London: C. Hurst, 1998);
38. nd edn (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003);
39. and Loh Kah Seng, 'Beyond rubber prices: Negotiating the Great Depression in Singapore', South East Asia Research, 14, 1 (2006).
40. Stephen Dobbs, The Singapore River: A social history 1819-2002 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003).
41. B.W. Hodder, 'Racial groupings in Singapore', Malayan Journal of Tropical Geography, 1 (1953): 31, 33.
42. SIT 808/50, Paper titled 'Resettlement', by Commissioner of Lands and Acting Secretary for Social Welfare, 16 July 1952. The paper cites the case of a private developer seeking to redevelop its lands in Kampong Chantek, where almost all the Malays offered resettlement at an alternative site accepted it while almost all the Chinese dwellers rejected it for cash compensation.
43. Warren, Rickshaw coolie and Ah Ku and Karayuki-san.
44. Yeoh, Contesting space in colonial Singapore, p. 9.
45. Mary Douglas, Purity and danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo (London: Routledge Classics, 2002), p. 150.
46. James C. Scott, Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 4.
47. Refer to Iain Buchanan, Singapore in Southeast Asia: An economic and political appraisal (London: Bell, 1972);
48. Robert E. Gamer, The politics of urban development in Singapore (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972);
49. M. Castells, L. Goh and R.Y-W. Kwok, The Shek Kip Mei syndrome: Economic development and public housing in Hong Kong and Singapore (London: Pion, 1990);
50. Christopher Tremewan, The political economy of social control in Singapore (New York: St. Martin's Press; Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994);
51. and Chua Beng Huat, Political legitimacy and housing: Stakeholding in Singapore (New York: Routledge, 1997).
52. See also, Gregory K. Clancey, 'Towards a spatial history of emergency: Notes from Singapore', in Beyond description: Singapore space historicity, ed. R Bishop, J. Phillips and W.W. Yeo (London: Routledge, 2004).
53. Albert Lau, 'Nation-building and the Singapore Story: Some issues in the study of contemporary Singapore history', in Nation-building: Five Southeast Asian histories, ed. Wang Gungwu (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005), pp. 240-3.
54. National Archives of Singapore, Government Records Information Database, http://www.a2o.com. sg/a2o/public/grid/advancedSearchForm.jsp (last accessed on 15 Oct. 2008). I discussed the problems of access to the official archives in Loh Kah Seng, 'Presently seeking the Bukit Ho Swee fire', Tangent, 6, 2 (2007): 157-61.
55. Housing and Development Board [hereafter HDB], Annual report 1961, p. 4.
56. Colony of Singapore, Report of the Housing Committee (Singapore: Government Printing House, 1947), p. 6;
57. Colony of Singapore, Master plan: Report of survey (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1955), p. 26.
58. HB 477/53, Report titled 'Considerations in respect of low-cost housing and unauthorised housing', 7 Jan. 1959.
59. SIT 70/41, Report of the Weisburg Building Policy Committee, 1938.
60. W.L. Blythe, Historical sketch of Chinese labour in Malaya (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1953), pp. 29-30.
61. Kanzai-Ka Kanri Kakari 75/2602, Report from 1 Aug. 2602 to 31 Mar. 2603. The year 2602 under the Japanese imperial calendar is equivalent to the year 1942.
62. Colony of Singapore, 'Report of the population study group', Master plan: Reports of study groups and working parties (Singapore: Government Printing Press, 1955), pp. 27-9.
63. Saw Swee Hock, The population of Singapore (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999), p. 50.
64. 'Report of the population study group', pp. 22-31;
65. Colony of Singapore, 'Population', Annual report 1955, p. 19.
66. S.C. Chua, Report on the census of population 1957 (Singapore: Government Printer, 1964), pp. 50-1.
67. Report of the housing committee, p. 5.
68. Author's interview with Chua Tua Tee, 13 July 2007.
69. Singapore Improvement Trust [hereafter SIT], Annual report 1953, p. 53-5.
70. Leo van Grunsven, Patterns of housing and intra-urban migration of low-income groups in Singapore, with particular reference to urban kampong dwellers: Part 2 A case study of Kampong Potong Pasir (Utrecht: Geografisch Instituut, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, 1983), p. 95.
71. SIT 70/41, Report of the Weisburg Building Policy Committee, 1938.
72. Singapore Legislative Assembly Debates [hereafter SLAD], 18 Dec. 1958, pp. 1556-62.
73. Colony of Singapore, Report of the housing committee, p. 2.
74. SIT, Annual report 1957, p. 29.
75. Goh Keng Swee, Urban incomes and housing: A report on the social survey of Singapore, 1953-54 (Singapore: Department of Social Welfare, 1956), pp. 14-15, 66;
76. and Leo van Grunsven, Patterns of housing and intra-urban migration of low-income groups in Singapore, with particular reference to urban kam-pong dwellers: Part 1 background and general analysis (Utrecht: Geografisch Instituut, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, 1983), p. 60.
77. Author's interview with Tan Tiam Ho, 12 Mar. 2007.
78. Author's interview with Wong Pok Hee, 19 Apr. 2007.
79. Author's interview with Tan Ah Kok, 22 Mar. 2007.
80. Colony of Singapore, Report of the land clearance and resettlement working party (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1956), p. 5.
81. Colony of Singapore, Master plan: Report of survey, p. 21;
82. G.J. Brocklehurst, Report to the Government of Singapore on social security measures (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1957), p. 47.
83. SIT, The work of the Singapore Improvement Trust 1927-1947, p. 17.
84. SIT 1218/53, Paper on housing surveys for United Nations Organisation by J.M. Fraser, 1953.
85. Yeoh, Contesting space in colonial Singapore.
86. A4231/1949/Singapore, Despatch from Australian Commissioner for Malaya to Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 16 Mar. 1949.
87. Author's interview with Tan Tiam Ho, 12 Mar. 2007.
88. SIT 70/1/53, Memo titled, 'Resettlement areas for attap dwellers' by Commissioner of Lands, 1 Oct. 1952.
89. SIT 430/54, Schedule of unauthorised occupation at Kampong Henderson noted on inspection by the deputy lands manager, 19 June 1956; SIT 140/54, Memo from senior lands inspector, SIT, to estates officer, SIT, 1 June 1955; and HB 125/54/47, Memo from lands manager, HDB, to assistant secretary, HDB, 25 Feb. 1960.
90. James C. Scott, Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
91. See also, Yeoh, Contesting space in colonial Singapore, p. 9.
92. HB 659/53, Report on the demolition of three timber and attap houses on Singapore Improvement Trust Land at Lorong 27, Geylang, on 17 July 1953 by Acting Lands Manager, 22 July 1953.
93. SIT, Annual report 1958, p. 35.
94. HB 364/58, Memo from Lands Inspector to Acting Lands Officer, 28 May 1958.
95. Author's interview with Chan Chiaw Thor, 23 Sept. 2006.
96. Author's interview with Poh Soon Seng, 19 Sept. 2006.
97. FO 1091/46, Report titled 'Internal security appreciation - Singapore and the Federation of Malaya' by Chief of Staff, Malaya Command, 17 Apr. 1956.
98. RG 59, 746F.00/9-1561, Despatch from US Consul General to Department of State titled, 'Left-wingers in rural areas desert the PAP', 15 Sept. 1961.
99. Author's interview with Chio Cheng Thun, 7 Mar. 2007. Chio, born 1940, was a student activist at Chung Cheng Middle School. He joined the Singapore Rural Residents' Association upon graduation and was a leading organiser in Paya Lebar. Chio won the Choa Chu Kang seat in the 1963 elections as a Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) candidate. In 1965, he resigned from Parliament.
100. HB 477/53, Report titled 'Housing' by the Planning Coordination Committee, undated, c. 1959.
101. Ranajit Guha, 'The prose of counter-insurgency', in Culture /power/history: A reader in contemporary social theory, ed. Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley and Sherry B. Ortner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 346;
102. Loh Kah Seng, 'Black areas: The urban kampongs and power relations in postwar Singapore historiography', Sojourn, 22, 1 (2007): 7.
103. Clancey, 'Towards a spatial history of emergency', p. 53.
104. Singapore, Report of the Housing Committee, p. 11.
105. SIT 475/47, Notes for discussion on housing by Commissioner of Lands, 13 June 1947. 'C3' was a rating in the British classification of medical fitness for military service during World War I and referred to someone unfit for combat duty. The term was subsequently extended to populations and nations. The wooden houses were customarily called 'attap huts' because many of them had thatched roofs.
106. Colony of Singapore, Report of the Housing Committee, p. 11.
107. See also, SIT 475/47, Notes for discussion on housing by Commissioner of Lands, 13 June 1947.
108. SIT, Annual report 1954, p. 14.
109. Colony of Singapore, Report of the Land Clearance and Resettlement Working Party, pp. 2, 3.
110. HB 722/55, Notes of seventh meeting, 11 Nov. 1955. See also, HB 722/55, Notes of first meeting, 15 Sept. 1955.
111. SIT, Annual report 1956, pp. 16, 19. See also, HB 477/53, Supplementary report to report titled 'Housing' by the Planning Coordination Committee, undated, c. 1959. Emergency public housing was built below municipal by-law standards and differed from permanent housing in lacking a reinforced concrete frame. This housing could last only 40-50 years compared to 60-100 years for permanent housing and 20-25 years for wooden housing. HB 188/59, Report for the information of the Commission of Inquiry into the Building Industry by Chief Architect, HDB, 30 Mar. 1960.
112. Mark Pelling, The vulnerability of cities: Natural disasters and social resilience (London: Earthscan Publications, 2003), pp. 16, 19.
113. Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, Ian Davis and Ben Wisner, At risk: Natural hazards, people's vulnerability, and disasters (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 22-66.
114. Clancey, 'Towards a spatial history of emergency', p. 45.
115. SIT 808/50, Memo from Superintendent, SFB, to Manager, SIT, 27 Oct. 1954.
116. Straits Times [hereafter ST], 17 July 1953.
117. ST, 1 Oct. 1955.
118. Fire Department [hereafter FD], Annual report 1953, p. 1.
119. FD, Annual report 1955, p. 1.
120. FD, Annual report 1951, p. 1.
121. The main exception is 'electrical short circuits', since few kampong dwellers had access to electricity.
122. The Mooncake Festival was named as such for the mooncakes customarily eaten on the occasion. For more information on the Qing Ming Festival, see ST, 7 Apr. 1958. Also known as All Souls Day, the Qing Ming is an occasion for the Chinese to remember and honour one's ancestors.
123. Author's interview with Lim Yock Eng, 21 Feb. 2006. Lim was born in 1943 and grew up in a shop-house. She frequently visited her friends living in wooden houses in the vicinity of Kampong Bukit Ho Swee.
124. Author's interview with Wang Ah Tee, 22 Jan. 2007. Wang was born in 1943 to a family of 11 at 37 Beo Lane in Kampong Bukit Ho Swee.
125. Singapore Standard [hereafter SS], 14 Feb. 1959.
126. Author's interview with Joyce Horsley, 3 Nov. 2007.
127. Author's interview with Joyce Soh, 5 Apr. 2007. Soh, born in 1947, grew up in a large extended family of twakow-builders in Covent Garden, a kampong just north of Bukit Ho Swee. Twakow were small boats used by the Chinese to transport goods along the Singapore River.
128. Author's interview with Chua Beng Huat, 9 Oct. 2006. Chua was born in 1946 in Bukit Ho Swee. His family had lived in the kampong before the 1934 fire. His mother ran a large provisions shop at 60 Bukit Ho Swee, while his extended relatives lived nearby. On 8 August 1934, a massive fire destroyed Bukit Ho Swee, rendering nearly 2,000 people homeless. The fire victims subsequently returned to the site and rebuilt the kampong. See Nanyang Siang Pau, 11 Aug. 1934.
129. Author's interview with Yap Kuai Yong, 16 June 2007.
130. Author's interview with Tay Bok Chiu, 24 Jan. 2007. The family of Tay, born in 1944, owned a small provisions shop in a two-storey zinc-roofed building in Kampong Tiong Bahru, south of Bukit Ho Swee.
131. Author's interview with Lily Wee, 3 June 2007.
132. FD, Annual report 1954, pp. 1-2.
133. FD, Annual report 1956, p. 1.
134. SS, 18 July 1953.
135. FD, Annual report 1957, p. 2.
136. Oral History Centre [hereafter OHC], interview with Arthur Lim Beng Lock, 7 Jan. 1994.
137. Ibid.
138. FD, Annual report 1961, p. 6.
139. FD, Annual report 1950, p. 15.
140. ST, 2 Aug. 1951.
141. SS, 2 Aug. 1951.
142. SS, 1 Oct. 1955.
143. ST, 25 Feb. 1959.
144. ST, 14 Feb. 1959.
145. ST, 27 Oct. 1953.
146. ST, 29 Oct. 1953.
147. City Council [hereafter CC], Minutes of Meetings 1953, 28 Oct. 1953, p. 11.
148. See, for instance, the Aik Hoe Rubber Factory fire of July 1950, FD, Annual report 1961, pp. 4-8;
149. Joan Hon, 100 Years of the Singapore Fire Service (Singapore: Published for Singapore Fire Service by Times Books International, 1988), pp. 64-5, 67.
150. Author's interview with Maggie Chong (pseudonym), 13 Feb. 2007. In this section, I have used pseudonyms where appropriate to protect my informants' confidentiality.
151. Author's interview with Goh Ah Mong (pseudonym), 24 May 2007.
152. Author's interview with Johnny Ang (pseudonym), 30 June 2007.
153. Author's interview with Lim Yew Kuan, 21 Nov. 2006. Lim, born 1929, is an artist and a founder-member of the Equator Art Society. He made a woodcut depicting a kampong fire in the mid-1960s.
154. Author's interview with C.C. Chin, 21 Nov. 2006. Chin was born in 1940 in Singapore and was a member of the Singapore Rural Residents' Association and Singapore Country People's Association. He was, by his own admission, a Malayan Communist Party cadre and presently researches the history of the party.
155. Luise White, Speaking with vampires: Rumour and history in colonial Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 5.
156. Author's interviews with C.C. Chin, 24 Nov. 2006; and with Poh Soon Seng, 19 Sept. 2006. Poh, born 1934, was a leading organiser in the Singapore Farmers' Association and later the General-Secretary of the Singapore Country People's Association.
157. FD, Annual report 1958, p. 1.
158. CC, Minutes of Proceedings 1958, 19-20 May 1958, pp. 420-2.
159. Speech by Ong Eng Guan, 30 June 1958, in CC, Minutes of Proceedings 1958.
160. FD, Annual report 1960, p. 10.
161. FD, Annual report 1959, p. 4;
162. CC, Minutes of Proceedings 1959, 3 Mar. 1959, pp. 10-1.
163. Author's interview with Tay Ah Chuan, 21 Feb. 2006. Tay was born in 1939 to a family in Bukit Ho Swee. His parents and four or five families of close relatives were long-time residents in the kampong.
164. Author's interview with Chio Cheng Thun, 7 Mar. 2007.
165. Author's interview with Loh Tian Ho, 13 Jan. 2006. Loh was born in 1936 and grew up in Pasir Panjang before moving to a number of wooden houses in and in the vicinity of Bukit Ho Swee. He is the author's father.
166. Author's interview with Tay Yan Woon, 28 Sept. 2006.
167. Nanyang Siang Pau [hereafter NYSP], 26 May 1961.
168. FD, Annual report 1958, p. 10.
169. Pelling, The vulnerability of cities, pp. 52-65.
170. Chua Beng Huat, 'The business of living in Singapore', in Management of success: The moulding of modern Singapore, ed. Kernial S. Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1989), p. 1008; author's interview with Chua Beng Huat, 26 Oct. 2006.
171. Sin Chew Jit Poh, 14 Feb. 1959.
172. NYSP, 15 June 1961.
173. ST, 8 Apr. 1958.
174. CC, Minutes of Proceedings 1959, 3 Mar. 1959, p. 18.
175. SS, 14 Feb. 1959.
176. Speech by Tang Peng Yeu, 30 Apr. 1959, in CC, Minutes of Proceedings 1959. The Singapore People's Alliance was newly formed out of the Labour Front.
177. SLAD, 3 Mar. 1959, pp. 2056-7.
178. ST, 14 Feb. 1959.
179. SLAD, 3 Mar. 1959, p. 2059.
180. Ibid., 4 Mar. 1959, pp. 2139-41.
181. Ibid., p. 2145.
182. Ibid., p. 2146.
183. Ibid., 12 Apr. 1961, pp. 1282-3.
184. HB 871/57, Memo from Chief Executive Officer, HDB, to Members of the Board, 10 Oct. 1960.
185. ST, 30 May 1961.
186. SLAD, 31 May 1961, pp. 1565-6.
187. HB 147/51 Vol. V, Statement of Rehousing Scheme by Estates Department, Dec. 1963.
188. HB 178/59 Vol. II, Minutes of Allocations Committee Meeting on 27 Sept. 1962.
189. See also, HB 178/59 Vol. II, Minutes of Allocations Committee Meeting on 2 July 1963.
190. HB 178/59 Vol. III, Minutes of Allocations Committee Meeting on 7 Oct. 1964.
191. HDB Annual report 1967, p. 51.
192. HB 1013/50 Vol. I, Memo from Chief Architect, HDB, to Chief Executive Officer, HDB, 4 Dec. 1963.
193. RG 59, 746F.00/9-1561, Despatch from US Consul General to Department of State titled 'Left-wingers in rural areas desert the PAP', 15 Sept. 1961.
194. Ibid.; HB 1166/57, Memo from Resettlement Officer, HDB, to Chief Executive Officer, HDB, 16 Aug. 1963.
195. HB 722/3/55, Minutes of Board Meeting, 12 Apr. 1962.
196. Ball, 'Selkirk in Singapore'; and Jones, 'Creating Malaysia'.
197. ST, 3 Feb. 1963.
198. Ibid., 4 Oct. 1963.
199. CO 1030/1597, Memo titled, 'Public housing in Singapore' by the UK Commission, 16 Apr. 1963.
200. HDB, 50,000 up: Homes for the people (Singapore: Housing and Development Board, 1966), p. 1.
201. Scott, Seeing like a state, p. 88.