TRIBUTE ABDUL - Perdana Library

With the Tunku in London
(Frank Sullivan)
Mr. President, Fellow-guests and members of Rotary :-
I do not intend to go into details about the Conference of
Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London, because all of you
are familiar with the sequence of events. I propose rather to throw
some light on aspects of the Conference with which you are not
familiar but which are known to me in the course of my duty as a
member of the mission (as a most privileged observer you may say)
and in doing so to give a personal assessment of the achievements
of our Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra.
First, I would like to set the scene, to picture the background of
this historic Conference. The first thing to note is that no Conference
of Commonwealth Prime Ministers had taken place in London for
nearly three years. In fact, the previous one happened only three
months before the Federation of Malaya became independent. Our
Prime Minister, therefore, was representing his country for the first
time.
The second point is that the Prime Ministers' Conference,
like the Commonwealth itself, has no written rules or Constitution.
There is, however, a general understanding that members do not
interfere in the domestic policies of other members. This is not
Text of speech entitled "With the Tunku in London" given by the
Press Secretary, Prime Minister's Department, Mr. Frank Sullivan, at the
luncheon meeting of the Kuala Lumpur Rotary Club at 1.30 p.m. on
Wednesday, July 6, I960:
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