GENERAL TEMPLER
SIR,--Having returned recently from a short but exhaustive tour of Malaya, 1 hope 1 may add a few comments on the Templer-Purcell controversy.
Mr. Carnell, in your issue of March 5, quotes Sir Cheng-lock Tan in support of Dr. Purcell's criticisms. Since the latter is official Adviser to the Malayan Chinese Association, of which the former is the distinguished President, this similarity of views is not surprising.
But what is surprising is to find Dr. Purcell returning, in your issue of February 26, to his extraordinary charge that General Templer displayed anti-Chinese bias by commending Jungle Green, a book which gives a most vivid and accurate description of the British soldier's life in the jungle war. More of us in Britain need to understand the hardships of that war, and 1 should have thought that General Templer was doing no more than his duty in commending it, even though the soldier in it is sometimes guilty of a rude remark about the Chinese. Dr. Purcell omits the all-important fact that over 90 per cent. of the terrorists in the jungle are Chinese, not Malays. And what British, or any other, soldier has always refrained from uncompli- mentary adjectives about his enemies '1
Dr. Purcell gives an entertaining account of his (presumably confidential) interview with General Templer, echoes of which still rumble in the mountains round Kuala Lumpur. Since my own talks with the High Commissioner were also in confidence, I cannot go beyond saying that I heard from him no expression that could possibly be termed anti-Chinese, unless you can so interpret the regret he has often expressed in public that more Chinese have not yet taken advantage of the new possibilities of entering the civil service, en- listing in the Federation Regiment, getting their names on the electoral registers, and in other ways asserting their rights as Malayans.
VERNON BARTLETT
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