TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

J. S. H. CUNYNGHAM-BROWN
caused it to undergo a mutation, endowing it with law and order,
education, good health and an admirable administration, whose
practical approach and engineering skills have interlaced its face with
roads and railways and whose commerciaJ interests have caused vast
areas to be cleared and planted and cities, towns and docks to sprout
like mushrooms throughout the land; all these, contributing their
energy, their philosophy, their practical knowledge and their sense of
humour, have been the welcome guests of among the most
courteous, forbearing and good-natured hosts the world has ever
known - the Malays.
The Malay contribution to the Malayan people and temperament,
(a point which should never be overlooked,) is one therefore
which in the end proves more essential than all the others' put
together.
"Of Courtesy, it is much less than courage of heart of holiness,
but in my walks it seems to me that the Grace of God is in Courtesy"
said Chesterton; and that Malay attribute of courteous hospitality, of
uncomplaining acceptance of a host of new strangers in their midst,
has been (though often unconsciously accepted and unnoticed) as
vital to the creation of the present Malayan nation as the air around
us or as is water to a swimming fish.
Though this has frequently been said before it may not
perhaps be out of place to restate such sentiments here, in a
book of birthday tributes to a Malay Prime Minister who, beyond
all others, expresses in himself the suave good manners of the finest
of his race. And it is well this country has such a man at its head,
for, under pressure of post-war trials and ambitions, these noble
attributes - the Malay's great gifts to the conjoint Malayan population
- were in danger of being lost; and would probably have indeed
been lost had it not been, in these years, for a statesman of the
Tunku's patience, restraint, wisdom and moderation in affairs both
domestic and foreign.
In matters of Malaya's internal policy the Tunku has grasped
how vital it still is that the Malays should be given no cause to abandon
their honoured position as kindly hosts to a past influx of other
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