It took time and patience to knit the skein of British colonial expansion into a tight empire, but the weaving of an empire was nothing compared to the job of unraveling it. Whenever the Labor Government tried to straighten the threads, its fingers caught in the old, hard knots. Last week autocratic sultans and old-line Tories alike were denouncing the British Government for high-handed imperialism in Malaya. British efforts to increase Malayan self-government had resulted in a terrible tangle.
The plan to unify Britain's nine Malay States and the Straits Settlements (excluding...