Chapter 112 Reasonable and Sensible

The latter-day Kra Isthmus is located in a narrow section of Thailand within the provinces of Chumphon and Ranong. It is the narrowest point in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula and is only fifty kilometers wide. Connecting the Central and Southern Peninsula in the north and the Malay Peninsula in the south, the area belonging to Thailand is around seven point five thousand square kilometers.

The rest of the area is under the jurisdiction of the present British Burma, with an area of 30,000 square kilometers. The Isthmus of Krakatau is the intersection of Burmese and Thai territory.

What is known is that part of it is in the hands of British Burma and part of it is in the hands of Thailand, with a total area of around 100,000 square kilometers.

Together with the West Malaysian area, once incorporated into the British colony, the area is in excess of 230,000 square kilometers. West Malaysia was only a part of British Malaya, and East Malaysia still had more than two hundred thousand square kilometers of land. If a strong colonial government could be established in Malaya, it could solve the employment problem of a large proportion of British Indian civil servants.

Obviously Cabinet Secretary Edward Bridges, also thought of this point, for the independence of the British colonies his heart’s greatest concern is that, once British India is independent, then how to deal with the 100,000 civil servants serving British India.

The British mainland only two hundred and sixty thousand civil servants, in any case can not afford up to one hundred thousand people employed. And the authority of the Cabinet Secretaries, themselves, was in large part over the colonies.

There were only so many elected ministers, an extreme disparity compared with the size of the civil service, and in the colonies this disparity was magnified to a greater extent than in the mainland.

“Alan, sit down and speak slowly.” Edward Bridges wore a gentle smile, letting Alan Wilson relax, “Personally speaking, I have never treated civil servants returning from the colonies equally, without the slightest prejudice. You can see that in Alexander, so let’s have a good talk, about our future.”

Edward Bridges bit the word us particularly hard, referring of course to the entire British Civil Service as a group, “In fact what is most lacking amongst the Civil Service community is people who will defend our interests, it is very rare for someone of your age to be able to think of that, and I can see that you are very much enamored of that part of British Malaya.”

“Sir Edward, I do this without any selfishness, all for the sake of the civilization and order of the British Empire.” Alan Wilson corrected his attitude, “We are unable to give up all of our colonies, once we return to the British Isles, with Britain’s own resources and population, we will always be in the shadows of the United States and the Soviet Union, and once that becomes the norm, even our original colonies will look down on us, and the consequences of that will be extremely serious.”

“Does Malaya have an advantage over the other colonies?” Edward Bridges was not moved by the words, but rather thought about whether British Malaya deserved to be tilted by resources, “British India is the richest colony, yet we have to consider withdrawing.”

“The biggest advantage of British Malaya, and the biggest difference with British India, is that the ratio of Chinese and Malay populations is close to half and half, in British India even if we support Jinnah, the pacifist population is only a small fraction of the Hindu population, and it still doesn’t act as a holdout. But in British Malaya it’s a totally different story!”

Alan Wilson knows that the starting point for a better future is today, pressed the excitement in his heart to analyze specifically, “two population sizes are not comparable to the community, in the middle of a colony, we save a lot of cost from the hold. The colonial government does not consider the control at all, we are the judge. Whoever we say is justified is justified!”

Alan Wilson was eloquent and profoundly determined that this was an advantage to the British colonial government. Whereas in other colonies the British Empire had to go to the trouble of stirring up communal conflict, there was absolutely no need for this in British Malaya, where conflict was a natural occurrence.

In the eyes of the natives of Malaya, the British Empire was of course the unquestioned colonizer, but the Chinese were likewise invaders on another level, with a country of their own, but reliant on the South Seas.

The most critical thing is that now the Netherlands is ready to kill back to the Dutch East India, in a sense Britain is able to lend a hand on this, Britain and the Netherlands can completely cooperate again in this part of the South Seas.

And location-wise British Malaya was also very important, not far from the two most populous places in the world. It is also most suitable as a base from the considerations of the unknowable comeback that is now in the minds of Britain’s liberal imperialists.

The benefits don’t stop there either, British Malaya isn’t far from Australia, and Australia’s fall to the US would be given more consideration once one of Britain’s colonies was in focus.

For the British colonies, Britain’s cultural influence is far superior to that of the United States, but soft power doesn’t work as well as hard power, and the British army might be able to get some help from Australia if it has a presence in Southeast Asia, and Australia won’t fall to the United States entirely.

“Building British Malaya requires huge manpower, your idea is good. Do you allocate manpower?” Edward Bridges was a bit of a dilemma, British India British Empire had been building for more than a hundred years, and now that the European battlefield had just ended, Britain needed to rebuild domestically, and it was not far to make Malaya prosperous first?

“Field Marshal Montgomery, has already reorganized all the German soldiers to maintain order in the British-occupied areas.” Alan Wilson gave his reply, “The Japanese military operations in the South Seas have focused on punishing the Chinese in order to bring in the local ethnic groups. If we hand over the surrendered Japanese troops to the Chinese, we can save a great deal of administrative costs.”

“You’re telling the truth?” Edward Bridges’ eyes lit up and he smoothly said, “With the extent of the Japanese army’s destruction of the Southern Ocean, it shouldn’t be excessive for us to temporarily detain Japanese soldiers to build up the local area.”

“Very much not excessive, Sir Edward.” Alan Wilson lowered his head helpfully.

“It is also for the sake of justice to come.” Edward Bridges nodded to himself, “Very sensible.”

“Very sensible!” Alan Wilson switched on the repeater mode to express his determination to stand in the same trench as the Cabinet Secretary.

“As for letting the Chinese guard the Japanese soldiers, it’s all because of their similar appearance, which may reduce conflicts.” Edward Bridges straightened his back, “Chinese are always a bit gentler than Malays.”

“I really didn’t expect Sir Edward to have such a study of Asian customs.” Alan Wilson exclaimed in admiration, patting himself on the back as a senior student of the Oriental College, even though he himself had not yet officially graduated.

“Then you will send a telegram to Barron in my name.” Edward Bridges gave Allen Wilson a look of I’m looking at you with an I’m looking at you kind of look and said, “I’m going to bring out an economic revitalization plan for the Prime Minister, as well as talk about when, and with the European countries that have a common stance, to find an opportunity to talk about it.”